How It All Goes Down
The Clarity of Twilight
- Our heroes all settle in a village just outside of Calcutta, by the sea.
- Nizam and Arjumand start repairing people's homes in trade for food and other goods, and Jahanara and Ladli mend fishing nets with the other wives.
- Arjumand falls in love with a fisherman, Ibrahim. Together they have two daughters (hey, we've met them: Gulbadan and Rurayya) and two sons. They lose one of the sons when he is just a baby.
- After about a decade, our heroes decide that their village needs a mosque and a temple—so they build them facing each other, sharing a courtyard. Dara would have loved that.
- They all grow old together very happily.
- Ladli dies one day while going for a swim.
- Arjumand and her family move to a fishing village near Agra.
- Then, one day, when our heroes are even older, Isa is felled by a stroke. He lingers long enough for Jahanara to say goodbye to her true love.
- Flash forward to the future again, where Jahanara is telling her story to her granddaughters.
- We finally tie up the Shivaji plotline: he died in a landslide shortly after Isa and Arjumand went free, so he never did get to assassinate Aurangzeb.
- Jahanara's granddaughters want to know why Jahanara doesn't confront her evil Emperor brother.
- Jahanara says it's because revenge is hollow; she won in the grander scheme of things.
- Jahanara bids farewell to her granddaughters and Nizam and walks to visit the Taj Mahal. She can still feel Isa in the Taj's stones.
- Aww.