Couplets of Raheem

Abdur Raheem Khankhana (1556-1627) the warrior, the poet and a courtisan in the royal family of Akbar and Jahangeer was a unique character of rare virtues and versatile personality. Son of Bairam Khan, the celebrated army general of emperor Humayun, Abdur Raheem had the distinction of adorning several military commands and collecting rare awards and honours for his imperial exploits. As a member of the Royal Court, he served his masters with devotion in the midst of conspiracies and controversies and paid a very heavy price for his loyalty to the imperial throne. His wife died at a very young age. One of his sons-in-law was brutally murdered. He was presented with the beheaded skulls of two of his sons as a gift of water melons from the angry emperor. The ecentric ways of emperor Jahangeer and his Begum Noor Jahan stripped him of his Jageers, titles and even jobs several times but the valiant Khankhana stood by the empire with unflinching dedication till he breathed his last in the year 1627 at the age of seventy two.

Born on June 24th, 1933 at Alwar (Raj.), Dr. P. D. Sharma has been Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of Rajasthan University, Jaipur. Dr. Sharma obtained his M.P.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA as fulbright scholar. He served as a visiting Professor of Non-Western Politics at Lenoir Rhyne, North Carolina. He was a member of Vice Presidential delegation to Guyana, Surinam and Latin American Countries. He represented India at the International Conference at Brussels. The American Universities invited him for a Series of lectures at Barkeley, Santa Barbara, Los Angles, Poctello (Idaho) and Minneapolis.

Prof. P. D. Sharma has published in learned journals of India, England, Canada and Philippines. National Prizes have been awarded to him. He was a member of the Police Study Team which assisted the National Police Commission. He has served as a core faculty at various Academies at Musorrie, Hyderabad and Lucknow. His creative writings include Anupriya, Mom ka Vishwas, Satehon ke Dharatal and Dho Dho karte Lapten. Triteeya Vishwa and Rajnitik Vichar aur Vichardharaye, a translation of Prof. Mulford Sibley's Classic are his lasting contributions. Prasad's epic Kamayani and selected poems of Kabeer have also been translated by him in English verse.

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