Family Histories Protected by Panda

The Washington Post had an interesting article Monday about Ashish Sharma Pawan—a priest who keeps the records of some 2,500 Indian families stretching back 144 years.

The pages are filled with script in Arabic, Sanskrit used generations ago and dialects of Persian mixed with tribal languages. These days, Hindi is northern India's predominant language. The foreign letters in the book represent the past, says Pawan, 28. There are hundreds of priests, or pandas, like Pawan in this city, and each works for a set of families.

"It's so lovely that we still feel so emotionally connected to seeing the books," coos Parthi Krishnan, a hotel manager marveling at the record book's faded pages. There were remarks written by relatives through the years: "A good listener," one entry said. "Hard worker," another said.

"You see, a computer has no feeling," Pawan explained. "There is an intimacy in seeing the handwritten notes of a family." [Link]

Not a Matrilineal Custom, I Hope

Joynath Victor Denow, a steward for Indian Airlines, was told in 1998 to shave off his handlebar mustache. He refused, and began a decade-long court battle to save his whiskers and his job.

De filed a writ petition in Calcutta High Court, pleading that the moustache was part of family custom. He told the court that his ancestors had sported handlebar moustache as well. The court, however, set the emotional plea aside and asked De to comply with the manual rules. [Link]

Tomb Raiders Waiters

Some of the patrons at an Ahmedabad, India, restaurant are lousy tippers.

Serving Indian cuisine to over 300 customers daily, the "Lucky Hotel" in Ahmedabad has 22 tombs nestled between wooden tables and chairs.

Visitors eat sitting by an ancient Muslim burial place and waiters jump over the tombs to serve food.

"It is a bit eerie to sit beside a grave for a meal but I have got used to it," said 45-year-old Usman Vora, who has been visiting the restaurant since the age of ten. [Link]

The Oldest Person Ever?

Neatorama has an English translation of a YouTubed interview with Sarhat Rashidova—a woman who died in January at the reported age of 131 years.

The proof for this is her passport, which shows the date of birth of 1875. Locals found this fact out during a passport exchange [...], but they believed it only after their own investigation.

Update: Nope, this guy in India is the oldest person ever.

According to Habib Miyan's relatives, he was born on May 20, 1871, at Rajgarh in Alwar district of Rajasthan. But there is no official record to establish his age.

So Unbelievable It Must Be True

A new book identifies Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon of Bhopal, India, as the first in line to the throne of France.

A distant cousin of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, he is alleged to be not only related to the current Bourbon king of Spain and the Bourbon descendants still in France, but to have more claim than any of them to the French crown.

The author, Prince Michael of Greece, offers a very persuasive argument.

"If I am right - and I don't have absolute proof, but I completely believe in my theory - then Balthazar Bourbon would be the eldest in the line," he told the Guardian.

"This is the cherry on the cake. Mr Bourbon is head of a decent, dignified, middle-class Indian family. They look so Indian and yet bear this name. When you look at them, it seems incredible. The more unbelievable it is, the more I believe in it." [Link]

Fishing for Men

Steven Rigden spotted a peculiar "fishing fleet" while browsing the UK outbound passenger lists at ancestorsonboard.com.

Reading down the list of names, past Mrs Wright, Mrs Simpson, the infant and ayah (Indian nanny), you come to Miss Max, Miss Cowell, Miss Blyth, Miss Graham… a long sequence of unmarried women, down to Miss Sandys and Miss Good. This is the suspected “[fishing] fleet”: marriageable young women sailing out to India in search of eligible bachelors, preferably the so-called “heaven-born” serving in the Indian Civil Service or officers in the Army. The fleet sailed out from Britain in the autumn or early winter and spent the next few cooler Indian months socialising at the British clubs and angling for a groom.

Unsuccessful women - the “returned empties” - re-embarked for Britain in the spring. [Link]

By the way, passenger lists from 1890 through 1909 are now available.

This Gandhi Likes Meat

Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Mohandas, says it's sometimes a drag being known as the Mahatma's descendant.

"I have been termed Gandhi-in-Jeans by the press. I recall an incident when I was joint candidate of the Samajwadi Party and Congress from Mumbai north-west constituency in 1997. The campaign was held sometime during Ramzan. There were lavish spreads of non-vegetarian food. Photographers would click pictures of me eating non-vegetarian food all the time. I wish they could understand I am a descendant of the Mahatma, not Mahatma myself. If being Mahatma was hereditary, there would be 54 living Mahatmas today!" says Tushar, recounting another episode. [Link]

You Thought U.S. Tax Laws Were Complicated...

From The (Mumbai, India) Financial Express:

Get married to constitute HUF

HP RANINA
Posted online: Sunday, December 04, 2005 at 0259 hours IST

Under section 2(31) of the Income-Tax Act, a Hindu undivided family (HUF) is one of the assessable entities. A Hindu joint family consists of all persons lineally descended from a common ancestor, and includes their wives and unmarried daughters. A Hindu coparcenary is a much narrower body than a joint family. It includes only those persons who acquire by birth interest in the joint or coparcenary property, these being the sons, grandsons and great-grandsons of the holder of the joint property for the time being. Therefore, there may be a joint Hindu family consisting of a single male member and widows of deceased coparceners.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Trotsky Better Watch His Back

From newKerala.com (of India), posted Oct. 21, 2005:

Lenin, Stalin, Gorbachev to meet in Moscow here tomorrow

Thiruvananthapuram: A bus from here is all set to embark to Moscow with Stalin, Lenin, Gorbachev, Gagarin and Tereshkova among the passengers.

However, the reality is far simpler. It is not the Russian capital the bus leaves for but a small village at Kottayam near Changannasery, where it is not these Russian legends but their local namesakes, who will congregate to observe the 80th anniversary celebrations of the Russian Centre for Co-Operation with Foreign Countries (Razaruzhcentr).

[snip]

Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Keralities are partial to such names, [Ratheesh C.] Nair said, noting that the state possesses a large number of people having names of famous Soviet and Russian politicians and literary figures.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Keep Your Friends Close, and Your Mother Closer

From newKerala.com of Oct. 5, 2005:

Man kept mother's body for 20 years

HYDERABAD, India: It took his own death to separate the man from his dead mother whose body he had kept in his Hyderabad, India, home for 20 years.

Syed Abdul Gafoor, a professor of English literature, had the body of his mother embalmed upon her death in their home in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in 1985, the BBC reported.

[snip]

"In the large ancestral home, he lived in one room and the body was kept in another one. He had made it clear to us that the body should be buried only after his death," said a nephew of the professor. "He was so eccentric that he would not allow anybody to even look at the glass casket in which the body was kept."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Indian Pauper Inherits Taj Mahal

From The Times of India:

Mera Taj!
NONA WALIA

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2005 08:35:24 PM]

And you always thought the Taj Mahal was a national monument maintained by the ASI? Think again. Prince Yakub Habeebuddin Tucy says he is the last direct descendant of Bahadur Shah Zafar and, consequently, the rightful owner of the Taj. Delhi Times on monumental claims...

His story sounds as bi-zarre as Rani and Abhishek leasing out the Taj Mahal in Bunty Aur Babli. However, Prince Yakub Habeebuddin Tucy's story isn't a movie script.

Tucy claims he is the last of the living Moguls. His truth is simple: "Taj Mahal mera hai!" Why? "I'm the great-great grandson of the last Mogul ruler Bahadur Shah Zafar. I'm staking my claim to the ownership of the Taj. When I'm alive, why should anyone else be allowed to take care of my inheritance?"

Why didn't Tucy stake such a claim earlier? "The ASI takes care of the Taj and I was happy with that. But then, when a person called Irfan Bedar of Agra, who has nothing to do with my royal lineage, laid claim to the Taj, I felt annoyed. If ownership of the Taj has to be transferred to anyone, that person must be a direct descendant of Shah Jahan, the emperor who erected the monument."

For now, Tucy lives "in extreme poverty in Hyderabad" and introduces himself as "The second son Yaqub Arifuddin Tucy, who in turn is the son of Laila Ummani, "a great-granddaughter of Bahadur Shah Zafar, who had 49 sons and daughters. Thereby, I'm the great-great grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar."

Tucy has a genealogy chart to prove his claim. In the chart, there are pictures of Babar, Akbar... and Tucy himself, ‘the last living descendant of the Moguls'. "It's ironic that, today, I have to buy a ticket to see the Taj," says Tucy.

[Read the whole story]

And we all know a genealogy chart can't possibly be faked. . .

British Vital Records Outsourced

From the (Manchester, England) Guardian Unlimited:

Population database will move to India

Protests at offshore move for lists of births, marriages and deaths

David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Thursday June 23, 2005
The Guardian

A database containing details of every birth, marriage and death in England and Wales since 1837 - all 250m of them - is to be transferred to India in one of the biggest offshore contracting deals ever to be signed by the government.

The controversial deal - due to be signed in a fortnight - is going ahead despite criticism from MPs, peers and trade unions that to transfer the information could be illegal, could put people's personal data at risk and could lead to inaccuracies in historical registers.

[snip]

The MPs also questioned whether the move was lawful without a new act of parliament because the Births and Deaths Registration Act forbids the information leaving England and Wales. Evidence was also given to them suggesting that an Indian workforce may have difficulty spelling complex Welsh and English names.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

How hard could it be for them to spell English names? Could it be any harder than spelling Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam?