Jul

4

Two descendants from royal families, with two entirely different backgrounds, have reason to celebrate, as events within the past week have now changed their lives for better.

In Kolkata, Madhu, the great-great-granddaughter of India’s last emperor has a smile on her face, now that her family’s and wellwishers’ pleas for help have been answered. She is about to be handed a job by Coal India, whose chairman last week told the media that he considers the job offer to be a tribute to India’s last emperor. The job itself is a pretty low-paying job, and Madhu, illiterate that she is said to be, will probably just run errands for her employer.

Madhu’s great-great-grandpa was the commander-in-chief of the Indian mutiny of 1857, a uniting figurehead accepted by soldiers of every ethnicity and religion. He was captured and exiled to the then Burma, what is now Myanmar, which is where he eventually died in 1862. He had 22 sons and 32 daughters many of whom died during the mutiny, although 4 lines of succession survive to this day, including the Kolkara branch represented by Mirza Muhammad Bedar Bakht, Madhu’s father.

India’s last emperor was a poet at heart and penned these sad words during his exile -

I had requested for a long life a life of four days
Two passed by in pining, and two in waiting.
The days of life are over,
It’s evening of death,

Now I can sleep without any stress forever in my tomb
How unlucky is Zafar! For burial
Even two yards of land were not to be had,
in the land (of the) beloved…

Less than two yards of land is exactly the size of the land the emperor’s great-great-grand-daughter has been living in somewhere within Kolkata’s crowded slums. But that may soon change.

Far from Kolkata’s slums to the palaces of Rajpipla in the east, Manvendra Singh Gohil, prince and descendant of the royal family of Rajpipla, grew up in a much bigger and wealthier home than the unlucky princess Madhu. And unlike Madhu who served tea, in broken cups, to her customers; prince Manvendra used silver spoons to stir sugar cubes in tea brought to him in gold trays.

A few years ago, Rajpipla’s prince stirred up a storm bigger than his gold teacups could handle. He came out of the closet, letting his wife and his royal family know that he was gay. Since then, the prince has been an avid gay rights activist since his coming out, and has worked to create awareness about HIV and spreading the word on the issues faced by sexual minorities.

Back in the days of 1857 mutiny, Manvendra’s ancestor Verisalji II joined the mutiny, and enjoyed a few days of freedom from the Marathas as well as the British. A hundred and fifty years later, Rajpipla’s Prince is basking in the new freedom that has come after a different kind of mutiny. His dreams and wishes came true last week, when an Indian court chose declared homosexuality to be legal. “….It’s an incredibly emotional moment. We are now a truly a liberal democracy, a thinking nation….”, he said.


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5 Comments so far

  1. Vinoy on July 4, 2009 10:01 pm

    I am neither anyone’s eye’s splendour
    nor anyone’s heart’s comfort
    That which can’t be of any use to anybody
    I am like that lump of dust
    lamented the poor emperor.

    The judgement of the Delhi High Court has merely ruled that homosexuality is not a criminal offence vide article 377 of the constitution.Whether it will be legalised or not will depend upon the decisision of the parliament.

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