Begam Samru: Fading Portrait in a Gilded Frame

A fascinating re-creation of the life and times of the dazzling nautch girl who became the celebrated Begam Samru after her marriage to a foreign military adventurer, General Reinhardt. She shared his dangers and tortuous intrigues in the turbulent ‘time of troubles’ in the eighteenth century. When he died she took over his jagir, converted to Christianity and steered a perilous course with uncanny skill through the Moghul empire’s last days and the evergrowing power of the British. The life sto