T he legend was still alive but he was a tired man at sixty. He had done things in his lifetime which even a most extraordinary human being would take several lifetimes to achieve. He remembered the epochal Kot Massacre of 1846 A.D. and reminisced how his brothers had come to his rescue. Now three of his younger brothers had left for the abode of the Gods before Jung: Bam Bahadur, Badri Narsingh and Krishna Bahadur! He had restored his third brother Badri Narsingh to filial love and affection but not to the roll call of the hereditary prime ministership. He could never do that after Badri mounted a failed coup attempt against Jung in 1851 A.D.; for the trust betrayed. Jung still felt bitter after all these years. After Jung Bahadur now Ranoddip, his fifth brother, would take the prime ministership and Jung could not help but shudder at a nasty premonition of dire consequence to his family this might h...

"In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity", Sir Winston Churchill. T he burden of defeat carried many of the mutinous Indian leaders and their near and dear ones all the way to the Nepal Terai. They came in desperation: caravans of the weary and hungry, wounded and dying. Most had left all their possessions behind in the hurry to escape the justice of the victors. They sought refuge from destiny.  Many came in hope, some of the leaders with trepidation: would their former enemy Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana hand them over to the British? They knew what that would mean. The fall of Delhi had led to the slaying of the children of the Last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zaffar and the old man's banishment to Burma. The once mighty Mughal dynasty of Babur, Akbar and Shah Jehan had met an ignominious end. What would happen to the ruling dynasties of the Maratha warriors and the Kingdom of Avadh? Jung Bahadur had returned to Kathma...

G overnor General Lord Canning's request to Jung Bahadur to assist the British militarily in Avadh sent a maelstrom through the court of Nepal. Prime Minister Bhimsen Thapa's war was still fresh in peoples' mind and the wound of Sugauly had not yet healed. The pacifists wanted to stay neutral saying it was not our fight. The powerful conservative faction still smarting from the earlier defeat wanted to fight the British instead by reinforcing Begum Hazrat Mahal. Maharajah Jung Bahadur was a brave-heart but he had first-hand witnessed the might of Britain; he knew that it was not the time to fight them. Too, he disliked the duplicity of the Indian rajas and the decadence of the Avadhi court where, until recently, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was ruling the roost. He had also heard of savage killing of British civilians, women and children too, anathema to the chivalrous Jung. But decision to go to war is always a soul-searching affair. Jung held counsel with h...

W hen the Kingdom of Avadh (or Oudh to the British) was annexed into British India in 1856 A.D., its capital Lucknow was the most opulent city in India. As Mughal India faded into the twilight of history lesser Mughal outposts had started to outshine its imperial capital at Delhi. Hyderabad and Lahore were both renowned Mughal cities. The jewel in the crown however was Lucknow boasting broad avenues and landscaped gardens, palaces with untold riches jostling for pride of place in its heart, the lilting melody of  ghazal love ballads and qawwali sufi devotional songs permeating the fragrant night air and skilled tawaif courtesans performing  mujra dance for the pleasure of aristocrats and rich merchants bedecked in fine jewellery. Wajid Ali Shah Until 1856 Avadh was ruled by Wajid Ali Shah the 10th and last Nawab of his dynasty. A decade of his rule had seen a revival of the performing arts. He was a great dancer, poet, playwright and ...

T he grainy black and white film runs incessantly like a recurring nightmare: there are half-starving Varsovians fighting with all means at their disposal, children running the gauntlet to supply the soldiers, women frenetically tending to the wounded and the dying. The faces look gaunt yet determined, hunger has not quelled the human spirit's thirst for freedom; fathers fight for their sons, mothers for their daughters. They know that their own life has come to naught, trampled under the jackboots of Nazi Germany, ripped asunder by fire bombs raining down from the skies; their homes and neighbourhoods are a heap of ruins. But they need to fight one last time before they die, before the Red Army parked across the Vistula River to the east cross over to liberate them from the Nazis only to tie them up in the bondage of Soviet Communism. The Museum dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising is a poignant reminder of human cruelty; the various -is...