Thanksgiving Day in the United States this year falls on November 28. And while many of us around the world may not be aware of the story behind the Pilgrim Fathers and Squanto, we are all aware of the fact that Americans feast on this National Holiday. The highlight of every Thanksgiving meal is a turkey.
The Turkey is mostly alien to us peoples of the Old World, being as it is, a mostly North American species. However, interestingly, this bird was once drawn by the court painter of one of India’s most powerful monarchs.
Nur-ud-din Muhammad Salim, better known by his regnal name Jahangir, ruled over a huge empire founded by his great grandfather Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, lost and regained by his grandfather Nasr al-Din Humayun and solidified by his father, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar. It stretched from Kabul in the west to Bengal in the east and from Kashmir in the north to the Deccan in the south.
Jahangir’s reign began in 1605. Incidentally, two years later, English colonists would find the settlement of Jamestown in Virginia, the oldest permanent English settlement in the Americas. And in 1620, the Pilgrims, members of a Protestant sect, would sail in the Mayflower to find Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. Their survival in their harsh new surroundings would form the mythos for the Thanksgiving Holiday celebrated till today.
At around the same time, Englishmen and other Europeans were also flocking to South Asia. One of them was Thomas Roe, the ambassador of James I of England, the contemporary of Jahangir. The ports on the Indian subcontinent’s shoreline were thick with European ships.
Mansur draws the turkey
As prominent Mughal art historian Ebba Koch told Down To Earth (DTE) in an interview in 2016, not much is known about the personal details of Ustad Mansur.
“That is the problem we have with most Indian artists. We know very little about their lives and circumstances. We have occasional remarks in history books but we know very little about Abul Hasan and Ustad Mansur,” she had told DTE.
What is known though is Mansur was a specialist in nature studies, who gave wonderful bird studies. As per Koch, Mansur’s famous depiction of the dodo was the most accurate till date. “It seems to have been drawn from a living model,” she had said.
Mansur was helped by the fact that Jahangir himself was interested in flora and fauna. Indeed, Koch compares Jahangir to the Biblical Solomon via Francis Bacon’s writings—an ideal king who was a keen observer and investigator of nature.
“Jahangir was an amateur as he did not have training as a scientist. But other Mughal emperors were really talented personalities. So, in this way, he had a natural talent for these observations,” explained Koch.
But what about the turkey?
According to Koch, Jahangir had an agent sitting in Goa, named Muqarrab Khan. The Portuguese had already been ruling Goa for 95 years when Jahangir came to the throne in 1605.
Muqarrab Khan was tasked with sending exotic birds and animals to Agra, Jahangir’s capital. “He sent a North American turkey and monkey once and Ustad Mansur drew the turkey, the painting of which survives till today,” according to Koch.
Mansur’s drawing of the turkey is testament to the connections between human societies since the dawn of humanity and the itinerant nature of man, all of which laid the foundation of the globalised world we live in today.