Part 3, Narration Summary

Jaha's granddaughters ask her why she did not just let the serpent kill Aurangzeb. Even after so many years, Jahanara wonders that too, but knows that she could not have stood by and watched the cobra kill her brother. For all his faults and all the misery he caused, he was her brother and she was not a killer. When they ask her what made him the way he was she says, "Aurangzeb, who feared so many things, could only quiet his fear by giving it to others."

Part 3, Narration Analysis

The frame story of the grandmother telling the tale to her granddaughters provides needed explanation. The reader knows that Jahanara had the courage, perhaps, to kill her brother and save her family from suffering. In the narration, the grandmotherly figure of Jaha explains just why she could not do that...