The Kanyakubja Chronicles - II

For an extended period of time in the mythological period, especially during the time span between the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the story of Kanyakubja is quite blurred and there seems to be no significant mention of it, until the period of the Mahabharata.

The Mahabharata times (3rd Century BC, during the Dwapar Yuga) –

In ancient India, from the 6^th to 4^th century BC, there existed sixteen Mahajanapadas, kingdoms or oligarchic republics, ranging from Kamboja (modern day Kabul) and Gandhara (modern day Qandahar) in the North-west to Anga (modern day Bengal) in the eastern part. Two of them were ‘ganas’ or republics while the others were ruled over by monarchs. Of these, Panchal Pradesh was a notable one, which also carries historic importance for us.

Spread across the Gangetic basin, Panchal Pradesh was criss-crossed by five rivers, viz., Ganga, Yamuna, Kosi, Kali and Chambal. The kingdom was divided by the Ganga into two parts: North Panchal and South Panchal, with capitals at Ahichchhatra and Kampilya respectively. During the time of the Mahabharata, King Drupad was the monarch of Panchal and Kampilya was his capital. Among other smaller territories governed by sub-lords, Kanyakubja too was a part of South Panchal kingdom, the city being located a mere thirty miles away from the capital Kampilya.

As the Mahabharata legend goes, the guru of the Kauravas and Pandavas, Dronacharya, sent his pupil Arjun to avenge him and put Drupad in his rightful place. Arjun defeated Drupad, annexed his kingdom and brought him bound to Dronacharya. In the truce that followed, ending the bitter rivalry between the erstwhile closely bonded friends, Dronacharya took away the North Panchal part of Drupad’s kingdom and aligned the same to Hastinapur (capital of the Kuru kingdom) while giving back the South Panchal portion to Drupad to retain. Dronacharya then stayed in Ahichchhatra for some time before returning to Hastinapur and leaving his son Ashwathama as ruler of North Panchal, under subjugation of the Hastinapur kingdom.

It was also in Kampilya, the shining capital of South Panchal kingdom, that the famous swayamvara ceremony of Princess Draupadi (Panchali) was held where Arjun won the hand of the Princess of Panchal. During this period, the Pandavas are said to have extensively travelled through the South Panchal kingdom, staying in places like Kanyakubja, which is spoken of as a thriving city and a great seat of culture, education and Vedic religion, in the references found in the Mahabharata.

To put the geography in modern day perspective, Kampilya still remains as a small town called Kampil in Farukhabad in Uttar Pradesh. Out of the North Panchal area which was annexed to Hastinapur, the Kauravas gave away a part of Ahhichchatra to Guru Dronacharya and his family – which today can be identified as modern Haryana as Gurgaon or ‘Gurugram’, truly as the name suggests. Kanyakubja, as we already know, came to be the modern day Kannauj, eighty kilometres away from Kanpur city.

Ancient history of India – later Vedic era, Maurya and Gupta, periods (1200 BC – 550 AD)

If Panchal Pradesh as one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas had an important place in the mythological references, there was yet another Mahajanapada which proclaims to have changed the course of Indian history. It is the Magadha kingdom, the existence and references of which we find in Vedic texts and Epics, in time much earlier than 600 BC. According to the Brahmanda Purana references we come to know of Brihadratha who is said to be the first king of Magadha, in the post Vedic period.

Brihadratha’s dynasty was followed by a quick succession of dynasties between 600 and 322 BC. Magadha saw its first expansion under the Haryanka dynasty kings, notably Bimbisara and Ajatsatru, the latter being the contemporary of Lord Buddha. Ajatsatru had his capital at Girivraja, which he renamed to Rajagiri (modern-day Rajgir, in the state of Bihar). The Shishunaga dynasty overthrew the Haryankas in 413 BC and ruled for less than hundred years. They were overthrown by Mahapadma Nanda Ugrasena, who founded the Nanda dynasty in 345 BC. It was during the reign of the last Nanda king, Dhana Nanda, in 326 BC, that Alexander the Great invaded India. However, their armies did not meet for a battle, as Alexander’s armies were exhausted and had mutinied in the region of the Beas River in the northwest province forcing Alexander to turn back.

Chandragupta Maurya, who overthrew the Nanda dynasty, established the Maurya Empire in 321 BC. The capital of the Maurya Empire was Pataliputra (modern-day Patna). The Maurya Empire reached its zenith under his grandson Ashoka and extended from the eastern borders of Persia (modern-day Iran) till the southern borders of Burma. The Mauryan period professed Buddhism as the state religion and propagated it throughout the empire. The Mauryan Empire went into decline by 180 BC and was followed by few other local rulers who took control of Magadha and the capital Pataliputra.  

While much of the action was happening in the Indo-Gangetic plains with Magadha assuming all the importance and limelight, Panchal Pradesh in the post Vedic period was having a quiet run with its series of local rulers having consolidated the kingdom. With the decline of power and resultant threat from the Kuru kingdom (Mahajanapada) and its capital Indraprastha (modern-day Delhi – legacy left behind by the Pandavas), the Panchala Kings were able to regain back most of their original kingdom, including the northern important town of Ahichchhatra. Kanyakubja continued with its journey of Vedic learning through the breed of the Kanyakubja Brahmins, however, their agenda of propagating the Hindu scriptures had significantly diminished in the wake of the surge of Buddhism across the country at that period of time.

It was during the reign of the fiery Mahapadma Nanda of the Nanda dynasty that Panchal Pradesh along with many other Mahajanapadas was won over and annexed to the expanding Magadha kingdom. This was consolidated firmly during the Mauryan period as the entire country from the north-west to the south-east borders was won over by Chandragupta Maurya and his worthy descendants, and the concept of separate Mahajanapadas of the later Vedic times was dissolved to give way to a unified India and provincial heads or capitals therein. The resultant wide spread of Buddhism and the Pali language and their Prakrits used extensively during the Mauryan period, forced Hinduism to take a back seat and classical Sanskrit as the language of Vedic literature to be down forced. Thus centres of Hindu scriptural and Vedic learning, like Kanyakubja, Takshashila and Girivraja were affected by the upsurge of Buddhism and later Jainism.

Kanyakubja had a milder effect in the changed era, in comparison to the other two of its sibling cities Takshashila (modern Taxila – in North Pakistan) and Girivraja (modern Rajgir – in Bihar). This could be attributed to the fact that Kanyakubja was not as popular and had not been adequately patronised by its Panchala rulers as a seat of learning and could neither boast of accomplished faculty nor attract students from afar. The city, though lived up to its potential of Vedic and scriptural learning in Sanskrit and of being staunchly proud of its Brahminical Hindu roots and traditions, albeit in a very contained and captive manner. The Kanyakubja Brahmins continued to be the mainstay of the learning and tradition being upheld, but they remained quite focussed internally turning their faces away from the political, social and religious change that was sweeping across the country over these centuries.

Takshashila (Taxila), revered till date to have been one of the oldest universities of the world, became not only a provincial capital for the Maurya emperors, but also an important seat of the Mahayana Buddhist preaching and learning. Ashoka, the great propagator of Buddhism, was a patron of the Taxila centre and had erected a lot of Buddhist statues and icons in the city. However, even before the surge of Buddhism and during the initiation of the Maurya Empire, Taxila had been credited as being the abode of the famous Chanakya (Kautilya) who is said to have composed his treatise Arthshastra in Taxila. The city even finds reference in the Mahabharata in that the first recital of the Indian epic was done by sage Vaisampayan to King Janmejaya (of the Kuru royal lineage) at Taxila.

Girivraja (Rajgir) had the next famous seat of learning after Taxila during this period: the Nalanda University. Even though the Mauryas had their capital at Pataliputra, Nalanda was a very important location for them as a centre for preaching and teaching Buddhism. With Taxila and Nalanda, strategically placed in the north-west and eastern parts of the kingdom respectively, the Maurya period saw the significant rise of these centres of learning. Even though the earlier Vedic and Sanskrit literature was taught in both these places, the tide of time had turned the focus to be predominantly Buddhist literature and the medium to be the Pali and Prakrit language. In the whole scheme of things, Kanyakubja (for reasons mentioned earlier) fell into a shadow area and continued its low-profile existence.

India was again unified and saw resurgent glorious times under the Gupta Empire (240 AD to 550 AD) and the rise of Brahminical Hinduism was observed during this time. This period is also known as the age of Classical Sanskrit literature. As we have read from the accounts of the Chinese travellers, notably Fa Hien in the Mauryan period and Hiuen Tsang in the post-Gupta era, along with Taxila, Nalanda and Kanyakubja, other towns such as Mathura, Sarnath, Ujjain, Vidisha and Sravasti were developing as fantastic centres of learning and architecture.

As Taxila was for the Uttarapath (Noth-west frontier) and Nalanda for the Magadha region, Mathura and Kanyakubja were the key town for the Madhyadesh region. Under the Gupta kings, these cities rose to the pinnacle of glory as centres of administration, culture, diverse religions, architecture and celebration of the Classical Sanskrit knowledge. This golden age of the Classical Sanskrit renaissance produced famous litterateurs like Kalidasa, Bharavi, Sriharsha and Magha who wrote the five ‘Mahakavyas’. Scholars and writers like Banabhatta, Bhartrihari and Vatsyayana also composed their famous works Kadambari, the three Shatakas and the Kama Sutra respectively during this time. Further, the Hindu Puranas are stated to be composed and refined during this age.

However, in the post-Gupta era (570 AD – 650 AD, Mathura gave way to Kanyakubja, as the latter became important for political reasons and rose to become the capital of King Harsha’s undivided Indian empire.

The later Ancient history of India – Maukhari, and Vardhana periods (550 AD – 647 AD)

The Maukharis were the vassals of the Gupta kings and were governing the Madhyadesh region from Kanyakubja. King Isha Varman asserted his independence from the weakening Gupta Empire (which was already breaking up) in 550 AD and established Kanyakubja as the capital of Madhyadesha which he declared as a separate and independent kingdom. Over their little-above-fifty-years of rule, they rapidly consolidated their kingdom and developed Mathura as the second important city after the capital Kanyakubja. However, they were engaged in constant skirmishes with the Later Guptas of Magadha and other neighbouring kingdoms.

King Isha Varman was defeated by Kumaragupta of Magadha in 554 AD, but his son Sharva Varman soon defeated the Guptas and reclaimed his kingdom and capital of Kanyakubja. By the time of 605 AD, the power of the Later Gupta rulers had also diminished with many other kingdoms asserting their independence and establishing separate ruling dynasties. These kingdoms, viz., Madhyadesh ruled by the Maukhari Varmans, Magadha ruled by the Later Guptas, Malwa ruled by Devagupta, Gauda (Bengal) ruled by Shashanka, were always at war with each other in the attempt to expand their territories and loot wealth from the other kingdoms.

One such dynasty was the Pushyabhuti dynasty founded by Prabhakar Vardhana with their capital in Thaneswar (modern day Haryana). Prabhakar Vardhan left behind two sons Rajya Vardhan and Harsha Vardhan and a daughter Rajyasri. Rajya Vardhan ascended the throne and ruled from Thanesar while his younger brother Harshavardhan took up the charge of expanding the kingdom by conquering other territories. Their sister Rajyasri was married to Graha Varman, the Maukhari king of Kanyakubja.

A few years after the matrimonial alliance, Devagupta, the King of Malwa attacked Kanyakubja and defeated and killed Graha Varman, taking the city and his queen Rajyasri captive in her own palace. Rajya Vardhan, the king of Thanesar and Rajyasri’s elder brother immediately rushed to Kanyakubja in support of his sister. He succeeded in defeating and killing Devagupta in Kanyakubja and freed his sister Rajyasri from captivity. But at this point, King Shashanka, the ruler of Gauda (Bengal) and an ally of Devagupta of Malwa entered Kanyakubja to avenge the death of his friend.

Shashanka treacherously murdered Rajya Vardhan in Kanyakubja, and was planning to annex the kingdom when the news of Rajya Vardhan’s death reached his younger brother Harsha. Wasting no time and in furious anger, Harshavardhan marched on to Kanyakubja and defeated Shashanka and his Gauda army.

Harsha’s successful campaign in saving Kanyakubja also meant that the immediate threats to the kingdom had been quelled. The people of Kanyakubja praised Harsha and looked upon him as their saviour who had not only protected them but had also avenged the death of their earlier king Graha Varman. The council of priests, ministers and the representatives of the people at the Kanyakubja court requested Harsha to ascend the throne as their new King. Harshavardhan was therefore anointed as the new king of Madhyadesh at the palace in Kanyakubja in 606 AD. He was only sixteen years of age at that time.

In quick succession, he brought the other kingdoms around him to his subjugation and expanded his territories from the Northwest borders of India to Kamarupa (Assam) in the east and to the Narmada River in the south. King Harsha ruled for about forty years and it is said that not only under him was the last unified Hindu empire in the country, but also one of great glory and pomp, with Kanyakubja enjoying its most prominent time as its capital of King Harsha’s empire.

Coming Soon ….. Part 4

In the next article, we shall explore more on the glorious period of Kanyakubja under King Harsha, and then its history under the subsequent kings till the Muslim conquests and destruction of the city. The role of the Kanyakubja Brahmins also becomes more pronounced in this era as the age of the renaissance of classical Hinduism reaches its zenith.

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The Kanyakubja Chronicles I

For the starting point of my research of the history of our family lineage I decided to choose exactly that point of reference till which my grandfather had been able to trace the line into our previous generations, and that point of reference was where the first ever roots of the lineage hailed from: the ancient city of Kanyakubja!

Not that I was immediately successful in being able to trace a line of our forefathers in Kanyakubja, beyond the names already cited in my grandfather’s research, but what offered itself was a splendid tale of this ancient city, meandering leisurely in and out of history and mythology which was captivating enough that at some point the fine line separating the two seem to blur.

While I attempt in this section of my research article, to present the story of Kanyakubja, the revered city of my forefathers’, centuries ago, I do so with a caveat. My research in this area, for understandable reasons, have been totally bookish, the sources of which however remain well validated. I have gained most of the information from a few Sanskrit books (the Indian epic Ramayana, the Puranas and a few others) detailing the times and references to Kanyakubja in various eras and ruled by many kings, about whom we have read in both Indian mythology and history. These books, which I was very fortunate to stumble upon recently in the small library in our Calcutta home that my aunt Jharna had bequeathed to us, also had the Sanskrit paragraphs explained in Bengali alongside thus making it possible for me to understand from. For once while reading these books, as I became deeply engrossed in the mythological tale of Kanyakubja, I regretted not perhaps having taken up Sanskrit as my elective subject way back in college when I did have such an opportunity.

Coupled with my reading of the mythological references to Kanyakubja, I also found strong validated mentions and descriptions of the ancient city in some books on the ancient Indian history (periods from 180 BC through till 1019 AD). Thus, we now have the knowledge from where our family lineage was born and in what historical environs it developed over the centuries to come down to the time of 753 AD where it blends or joins with the specific line for our Gautama Baidik family as defined in my grandfather’s notes (refer my blog: The Search: Research Series Part 1).

We will take a detour here to speak about the history and mythological connections of Kanyakubja, as that has direct context and bearing to the mainstream line of the family we are out to investigate and establish.

The Ramayana times (10th Century BC, during the Treta Yuga) and before –

The coordinates of Kanyakubja as mentioned in many Indian mythological texts is briefly as follows:

Jamboodweep (Asia), Bharat Khand (India), Aryavarta desh (The land of the Aryans, mainly denoting the northern part of India), Vindhyachaley uttorey (to the north of the Vindhyachal mountains).

The Valmiki Ramayan, Bal-khand, Sargas 2 and 31 to 33, gives us a brief history of Kanyakubja and how the city came to get its name as such. When rishi Vishwamitra and Lord Ram reached the banks of the Son River near the ancient city of Girivraja, Lord Ram asked the rishi where they were, to which the great rishi told him about the location and history of the land:

One of Lord Brahma’s descendants was a King named Kusha, who had four sons by his wife Vaidarbhi, viz., Kushamba, Kushanabha, Asurtharaj and Vasu. King Kusha asked his sons, when they grew up, to rule like a true Kshatriya (warrior) ruler and for that they set up four cities in different parts of the kingdom. Kushamba’s city was named Kaushambi, Kushanabha built Mahodayapura, Asutharaj built the city Dharmaranya and Vasu called his city Girivraja. Amongst the lot, over course of time, only Kushanabha ruled according to the true Kshatriya practices and hence his city Mahodayapura flourished and soon many of his brothers’ cities also formed a part of his growing kingdom. The kingdom was mostly comprising of what we today can identify as the Indo-Gangetic plains.

Mahodayapura was the capital city of King Kushanabha and his glorious kingdom was called Madhyadesh (the central land). It was so named, chiefly because it occupied the central portion of the Aryavarta of the ancient times, with the Vindhyachal mountain range setting its barrier to the south, beyond which the Aryans had not ventured till that time.

King Kushanabha had a hundred daughters by his wife Ghritachi (also an apsara), and all of them were divinely beautiful. As they grew up to be exquisitely charming maidens, Vayu the wind god was infatuated by them but was rudely rejected by the maidens. In his anger and humiliation Vayu cursed the hundred daughters of King Kushanabha for their haughtiness, as a result of which the daughters developed hunches on their backs, thus deforming their once so praised physical beauty. Vayu told the King that the curse could only be lifted and the divine beauty of his daughters restored, if a Brahmin of upright character married them.

The news of the curse and the fate of the hundred princesses spread like wildfire in the city and across the kingdom. The city Mahodayapura soon became to be called “the city of the hunchback maidens” or ‘Kanyakubja’! (Kanya – daughter; kubja – hunchback). Thus was acquired the name which stayed on as long as the city stood in its glory across the centuries.

As the King went in frantic search of such a Brahmin, he heard of the sage Chooli who had set up his abode in the forests nearby and was meditating there. As the King approached the sage, he observed the sage’s son who was a young man and carried a certain halo about his persona. Upon meeting the sage, the King enquired if his son was married and when the sage replied in the negative, he promptly explained his predicament and proposed the marriage of his hundred daughters with the sage’s son Brahmadutt. Soon was the marriage was conducted and the moment Brahmadutt touched his hunch-backed wives, their hunches and deformity disappeared and their divine beauty was restored, thus ending the curse of Vayu. However, the name Kanyakubja stuck on and the city was thereafter always referred to by this name.

Rishi Vishwamitra though ended his story about the naming of Kanyakubja to Lord Ram, now surprised the exiled prince (Ram) by narrating his own connection and ancestry to the city of Kanyakubja.

King Kushanabha performed the ‘putrakamesti yajna’ in the hope of having a son who would be the future ruler, and was blessed with a son called Gadhi who, mythology states, was known to have qualities like Lord Indra, the King of Heaven and of the Gods. Some text versions in mythology also mention that Gadhi was an incarnation of Lord Indra himself who was mighty pleased with the devotion of King Kushanabha and was born to him as his son. Gadhi ruled the kingdom with great valour and pomp and had a daughter, Satyavati, and a son, Vishwarath. Vishwarath ruled in Kanyakubja after his father for some time as a powerful Kshatriya (warrior) king until he gave up his kingship and turned ascetic. Rishi Vishwamitra himself was none other than the erstwhile ruler of Kanyakubja, King Vishwarath, and the direct grandson of the mighty King Kushanabha.

On a related note, it is equally interesting to learn about the connection of Kanyakubja to another very famous mythological character of the same times, who traces his ancestry to the city and to the line of the Lunar Dynasty Kings. It is the story of the ancestry of Lord Parashurama, who is also believed to be the sixth incarnation of Lord Vishnu appearing in the Treta Yuga. King Gadhi’s daughter Satyavati was married to a Brahmin sage Richeek and their son was rishi Bhargava Jamadagni who, although a Brahmin sage by birth and vocation, had Kshatriya-like warrior qualities. Parashurama is the son of Bhargava Jamadagni and had inherited both the Brahmin-Kshatriya qualities from his father in abundance. Parashurama is famous as the slayer of the Kshatriyas and a master of the usage of the fearful Brahmastra (the most powerful and destructive weapon of Lord Brahma the creator, as described in Indian mythology).

After Vishwamitra abdicated the throne of Kanyakubja, Astaka another son of Gadhi became King of Madhyadesh and ruled over Kanyakubja. The last reference in the mythological texts about Kanyakubja is the mention of King Lauhi, Astaka’s son who rules after his father in King Kushanabha’s line. Kanyakubja re-emerges significantly on the scene, later in the times of the Indian epic Mahabharata (10^th Century BC). In later historical references we find Kanyakubja described as a mighty city during times of the Gupta Empire (240 AD). During King Harshavardhan’s time (606 – 647 AD) the city had its most glorious period, standing as the capital of Harsha’s empire of undivided India.

We shall continue on the legends and history of Kanyakubja in the next article of our Research series as there is still much to know about this ancient city and its fate in the subsequent eras of history.

The Kanyakubja Brahmins –

The mythological texts and legends of the Vedic period say that the great Brahmin sage Brahmadutt continued to stay in Kanyakubja city and had many children by his hundred wives who were the daughters of King Kushanabha of Kanyakubja. Brahmadutt’s descendants were the original Kanyakubja Brahmins who started the lineage of resident Brahmins in Kanyakubja as over the years they stayed in the city glorifying it as an important seat of Vedic learning and preaching knowledge. These Brahmins and their next generations down the line we priests in the royal courts and temples and teachers of the Vedic texts in different educational institutions of the time. They were referred to as ‘Acharya’ and ‘Upadhyay’ as per the titles bestowed upon them by the Kings. The Kanyakubja Brahmins, as we shall see in our treatise on the later history of Kanyakubja, were the keepers of the Vedic knowledge and the mainstay in spreading Vedic education across the kingdom.

Therefore it would not be logically improper to assume that our forefathers came from this line of Kanyakubja Brahmins, though any chances of tracing a name beyond Jahnukar in the specific family lineage seem utterly impossible at this day.

The Brahmins developed the system of ‘Gotra’ meaning ‘lineage’ which is maintained patrilineal. Each gotra takes the name of a famous Rishi or sage from whom the lineage is said to have started in a patrilineal manner. Gotras are present for all people and not only for the Brahmins. However, in the earliest Vedic times, there were also instances of people attaching themselves to a particular Rishi or sage whose life and god-like qualities they had chosen to model themselves on. Thus a lineage (gotra) would have directly started from a Vedic rishi by ancestry or by adoption as in the case of a disciple adopting the name of his guru (the Vedic rishi) as his own ‘gotra’.

Whilst on one hand mythology states that the entire Kanyakubja Brahmin clan emanated from Brahmadutt on the paternal side and the hundred daughters of King Kushanabha of the Lunar Dynasty on the maternal side, there is no clear explanation of the allotment of the Gotras to the clan. However, we know that there are 26 Principal Gotras for the Kanyakubja Brahmins, which include direct and indirect lineages of the ‘Saptarshis’ (the seven sacred Rishis to whom the Vedas were first explained). These Saptarshi’s were:  Atri, Vasistha, Kashyap, Gautama, Bhrigu, Bharadwaja and Jamadagni. Later, Vishwamitra was added to the group when he was classified as ‘Brahmarshi’ (the superior-most attainment by a rishi in their levels of knowledge and penance) by Vasistha.  Therefore, based on the concept of Gotras and the fact that the Kanyakubja Brahmins were by generations the keepers of Vedic texts and learning, we can assume that they would have aligned their Gotras to their Vedic guru’s from whom the initial Vedic learning was derived. Thereafter the patrilineal concept of the ‘gotra’ would have followed in the respective families.

Why the question of Gotra becomes so important here and the quest for a logical answer to how the lineage derived the Gotra, is solely because our family lineage is classified as the ‘Gautama Baidik’ clan. This essentially means that our line owes its ‘gotra’ allegiance to Rishi Gautama, who was one of the Vedic Saptarshis. (Baidik being the localised version of Vedic). This explains the ‘Gautama gotra’ of the family which we still use today for all rituals and worship and that the lineage came from the Brahmins who studied and preached Vedic texts and knowledge in ancient Kanyakubja.

The tale and history of Kanyakubja intertwines multiple times with the lineage of our family forefathers and it was where their first abode was and it was from Kanyakubja that the family line historically originated.

Prequel (times from ages of mythological creation of India up to the 10th Century BC) –

The mythological references to King Kusa (father of King Kushanabha) states that he was the 10^th descendant generation of Pururavas, the first King of the ‘Somavansha’ or ‘Chandravansha’ - the Lunar Dynasty in the Aryavarta lineage. Pururavas was the son born to Ila, daughter of Vaivaswat Manu (son of Lord Brahma and the King of mankind) and the celestial god Budh (Mercury). Budh (Mercury) was the son of Soma (the Moon) as stated in mythology; therefore the Dynasty which Pururavas (grandson of Soma) started was the Lunar Dynasty. It was from the Manu that both Suryavansh (Solar Dynasty – through his son Ikshvaku) and Chandravansh (Lunar Dynasty – through his daughter Ila) emanated.

Pururavas and his wife Urvashi had 6 sons: Ayus, Dhiman, Amavasu, Viswavasu, Satayus and Srutayus. It is said that Pururavas ruled over the Prayag (modern day Allahabad) region. At his time, the kingdom was called ‘Pratisthana’. It was from Pururavas and his Lunar Dynasty lineage that the Kauravas and the Pandavas of the Indian epic Mahabharata descended. Pururavas’ Lunar Dynasty was prominently taken forward by two of his sons Ayus and Amavasu. Ayus continued to succeed his father and rule from Pratisthana while Amavasu moved away to settle in a new land closer to the northern belt of the Ganges.

It is Amavasu’s line that we will enumerate in our research, as the prime line of the Lunar Dynasty, and given below are the names of the Kings who succeeded their fathers in the Lunar Dynasty:

Amavasu > Bhima* > Kanchana > Suhotra > Jahnu** > Sumanta > Ajaka > Balakeshava > Kusa > Kushanabha*** > Gadhi > (Gadhi was succeeded by his son Viswarath or Vishwamitra briefly, and later by his other son Astaka, as we have seen in our earlier treatise)

[It was from King Kushanabha’s 100 daughters and fathered by the great brahmin Brahmadutt, that the Kanyakubja Brahmins had descended, to which line belonged our forefathers… Thus it can be said that our family line firmly belonged to the Somavanshi or Chandravanshi line - the Lunar Dynasty of Aryavarta, from the maternal side.]

It was from the time of King Kusa and later King Kushanabha that the concentration of the kingdom came by to Madhyadesh with Kanyakubja as its capital city.

Footnotes-

Bhima* - not to be confused with the Bhima of the Pandavas of Mahabharata. Probably the Pandava son was named after the former King Bhima of the Lunar Dynasty.

Jahnu** - There is a mythological legend about King Jahnu which goes as follows: King Jahnu was a benevolent king and very inclined to practising of knowledge and spirituality and spent much of his time in discussion with sages and taking part in holy ritualistic activities in their ashrams. It was during one such yajna (worshipping ritual) that King Jahnu was performing at a sage’s ashram when the River Ganges started flooding its banks and threatened to wash out the sage’s ashram. King Jahnu, enraged at the floods and the interruption to his yajna, is said to have drank up all the water of the Ganges and stopped the flood. However, upon frantic pleas from the Gods and other sages, he released the Ganges back from his body to flow into the river path. Coming from King Jahnu’s body, the River Ganges thus derived another name as ‘Jahnavi’.

It had been a common practice all over, to name new born children upon the illustrious people of the land or in the ancestry, and accordingly it would not be improper to assume that our forefather Jahnukar may have been named after the great King Jahnu of the Lunar Dynasty line.

Kushanabha*** - we have spoken in detail about King Kushanabha in our above treatise on the founding of the city of Kanyakubja. King Kushanabha is thus famous not only as the founder of the city but also as the grand sire of the maternal side of the line of the Kanyakubja Brahmins.

Coming Soon…. Research Series Part 3

In the next article of the Research Series, we trace the history of Kanyakubja during the times of the Mahabharata (3^rd Century BC) and then its later history from the Gupta Empire period (240 AD) till the Muslim conquest and destruction of the city in 1019 AD. We shall see how historical events had impacted the society in different eras and what finally happened to the Kanyakubja Brahmins and our family line amongst them.

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The Search [The Gautama Baidik Research Series Part 1]

It was a few years ago that we stumbled upon the document. An almost brittle, yellowish paper with the main text typed in using a typewriter and finally signed off at the end in style by the creator of the document. It emerged from a case full of papers, which had not been looked at for a few decades to say the least. However, the document was a startling revelation for it opened the doors to our past and aimed at connecting our family lineage to history and to times which we could only imagine of.

This case, belonged to my grandfather Satyen and he was the creator of the document. The yellow brittle pages held the trajectory of our lineage and the details of generations that had passed before us. We were surprised to see the amount of detail mentioned in the document titled ‘The Gautama Baidik clan’. Not only two or three generations before us, the document listed seventeen generations with the names of our forefathers! If that was not enough, there was even paragraphs with notes citing where the lineage came from in the years of old and how the same progressed over centuries to reach its present day form: both geographically and socially.

The document was signed by grandfather Satyen personally and dated in early 1975, within a few months of his return to England from his last trip to India. It was clear that during that trip, he must have spent good time in searching for these details and had the passion and wish to record the same in a single document pattern for the ease of knowledge and reference for the future generations of the family to come.

Once this document was discovered from his case in England, Atul Uncle (grandfather Satyen’s son and my uncle) and I started making enquiries and investigations into how grandfather had compiled such a precious data and how could the source be validated. While Atul Uncle investigated the enormous amount of information left behind by his father in his diaries, notes, letters and memos, in an attempt to gather more information towards this specific search, I commenced some enquiries locally in the family circles in Kolkata in the hope of gaining some clues into my grandfather’s research on the family lineage. We soon were able to deduce that during his last visit to the family home in Kolkata towards the end of 1974, he had collated all the information and had completed the missing links from his earlier bookish research.

My father provided the most important clue, in saying that on one occasion he had accompanied grandfather Satyen to a place called Harinavi, about 60 km south of Kolkata, and wherefrom the family hailed originally. (Well, so we had thought until we read grandfather Satyen’s research and learnt that Harinavi was not the original home of the family and that the lineage could be traced well beyond that, both in terms of time and location).

What we learnt was that grandfather had made enquiries and visited some people in Harinavi and taken lot of notes from books and records held with a family there. Apparently, there still exists a family-group amongst the Gautama Baidik clan in Harinavi, who maintain the records of the Gautama Baidik family tree and its branches. It however is the responsibility of each Gautama Baidik family to come back and update the main records with the details of the current generations in the family tree. This way, the entire book of records can be maintained and updated.

It was this family-group that grandfather Satyen met in Harinavi in 1974, and upon inspecting the book of the Gautama Baidik clan, was able to note and validate the details of our forefathers till seventeen generations before. Surprising as it was for us to imagine, someone like grandfather Satyen who had spent the major part of his life in faraway England, to have undertaken this research and assimilated the past threads and connections in one place for the entire family and to have recorded the lineage.

Alongside the names of our forefathers, the notes mentioned that the family had its original roots in the historic city of Kanyakubja in the region what was then called Aryavarta. The earliest available date mentioned was 753 AD, where the family lineage could be traced back to a Brahmin scholar named ‘Jahnukar’ who lived in Kanyakubja.

The other side notes state that in 1019 AD, around the time of Mahmud of Ghazni’s second attack on Kanyakubja, ransacking of the city along with destruction of the Hindu temples and institutions of learning, many Brahmin scholars fled the city carrying their books and scriptures, in an attempt to save them. Though grandfather’s research does not mention how many generations of the family lived in Kanyakubja before they fled from there along with the other Brahmin scholars of the time, we could make an assessment of that as the indicative time periods have been mentioned in the notes.

The family then escaped to the jungles of Orissa (then Kalinga) and set up temporary abode in ashramas (settlements) near the present-day Jajpur-Keonjhar area. They would have lived there for a few generations for sure (as indicated by the time period), and the temporary ashramas would have transformed into villages over time.

The next indication of flight is mentioned around 1570 – 1585 AD, when Mughal Emperor Akbar’s army invaded Orissa, after the conquest of Bihar and Bengal. The family, over this period of time relocated and took shelter in Jessore (in present-day Bangaldesh), where the Hindu King Pratapaditya was ruling at that time. The King magnanimously gave shelter and protection to all the Brahmin scholars who had traversed all the way from Orissa, Bihar and other parts of Bengal escaping the wrath of the Mughal army.

However, the stay of the family in Jessore was brief, as when King Pratapaditya was defeated and overthrown by the Mughal-Rajput general Raja Man Singh, during the reign of Emperor Jahangir, (time period : 1608-12 AD), they had to flee from the Mughal army once again as the Jessore fort lay conquered and ransacked. The family finally came to rest in a small village called Harinavi in south Bengal, the area being mostly shrouded by forests and being sparsely populated, was apparently a peaceful and unnoticed shelter.

From the history chronicles it is assumed that though entire Bengal at that time was under Mughal rule, smaller provinces within the region had been given as ‘jagirs’ to local Hindu Kings who ruled over the villages and smaller towns within the ‘jagirs’, paying tribute to the Mughal ‘subahdar’ (governor). The location of the Harinavi village suggests that it would have been a part of the ‘jagir’ given to Lakshmikanta Gangopadhyay, who was placed on the throne of Jessore by Raja Man Singh after Pratapaditya’s fall. Lakshmikanta was also accorded the titles of ‘Ray’ and ‘Choudhury’ in accordance as the de-facto administrator of the region, and his descendants later on assumed these titles as their family surname. This family is popularly known as the ‘Sabarna Roy Choudhury’ family and is closely linked to the founding history of Kolkata and the surrounding region.

It can well be assumed that under the benevolence of the local Hindu ‘jagirdars’, the Brahmin scholars could continue professing their knowledge and education in Sanskrit, and continue establishing and running schools (known as ‘tol’ in the-then colloquial Bengali) in the region. Our family forefathers also followed the same path and were in the forefront of running such ‘tol’s in Harinavi village.

This peaceful and settled life for the family in Harinavi village went on till about 1824, when one of our great-grandfathers, Hariprasad, was invited to become a teacher in the Government Sanskrit College being set up in the city of Calcutta. The tradition of teaching in the Sanskrit College continued for yet another generation, until Hariprasad’s grandson Heramba, himself a leading Sanskrit scholar of his times, decided to finally take up residence in Calcutta in 1888.

Heramba is 4 generations above me, and I can well recall the stories about these 4 generations in between, from my grandfather and grandmother in my childhood. The family has since stayed in Calcutta, though we have shifted residences a few times. Further in another logical development of the family branch, grandfather Satyen’s own family branch is now in England and very much like another arm of the family back in India.

While, the research done and recorded by my grandfather Satyen was certainly very revealing and went a long way in establishing the lineage and past of our family, it also intrigues us with questions which still remain unanswered.

To my mind, is there a further research we could do to throw light on the following areas: 

1. Where was Kanyakubja and how did the family begin in that ancient city? 
2. Is Jahnukar the first of our lineage, or can we still find his forefathers and trace our lineage further behind into history and the Vedic times? (After all, the clan is titled ‘Gautama Baidik’, which means it starts from Gautama rishi (sage) of the Vedic times!) 
3. Whilst we know the names of our forefathers onward from Jahnukar (753 AD) till present, is it possible to logically place them alongside the historical time-lines and events in Indian history?

That then would be my research, something that can further enrich the work done by grandfather Satyen in 1974-75, and provide a detailed historical chronicle of the family and our lineage.

Whilst I shall write more about my findings on the above questions in my next blog on this series, here’s a sneak-peek into the beginning:

Kanyakubja, from the ancient times, was a very prominent city in Northern India. Right through the ages of the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, and even in Indian mythology we find worthy mentions of this city as capital of kingdoms, and a great seat of scholarly learning. Even the advent of the Kanyakubja Brahmins is a fine tale if we are to believe the mythological stories. History places Kanyakubja as the last Hindu capital of unified India, under King Harshavardhan (606 – 647 AD). Kanyakubja is present-day ‘Kannauj’, a city in the state of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India on the western banks of the Ganges River.

Part 2 … coming soon!

Saheb Dadai - a short story

        Chapter 1

The rectangular drawer of the old wooden chest seemed to have got jammed in an awkward way and was refusing to slide in smoothly. The little boy who was pulling it with all his might wasn’t too pleased with this sudden interruption in his enthusiastic rummaging of his grandfather’s chest of drawers. He paused for a while from his struggle to straighten the drawer and crouched to peep inside. His eyes lit up as he peered closely into the dark cavern of the drawer and seemed to find what he was looking for. 

He stretched out his hand into the crevice trying to grasp the contents which lay hidden in the far corner of the drawer. His fingers brushed across a stack of papers of different feel. The little boy continued to run his fingers through the stack, but he could only make out that the papers were of different sizes and textures and some of them were tied up in bunches by cloth strings. So engrossed was he in his process of discovery, that he didn’t hear the faint sounds of footsteps that had come into the room by then.

“Andy! ….what are you doing there?” a voice sharply called out, startling him suddenly.

The little boy quickly glanced over his shoulders to find his mother standing a few steps behind him, inside the room. He quickly withdrew his hand from inside the drawer and looked sheepishly at his mother.

“Did I not tell you to go and take rest in your room? And instead of that, what are you doing here?” Andy’s mother said, looking at him, her voice somewhat firm.

 “And why are you rummaging through these old and dusty drawers again? Haven’t I told you not to play with these things… see, you have jammed the drawer now!”

Andy’s mother continued her scornfulness toward her son, as she bent down and with a thrust and jerk straightened the drawer and slammed it shut in the chest. Brushing the dust off her fingers, she caught hold of the boy’s arm marching off with him to the adjoining room for the routine afternoon siesta!

It was a summer afternoon and the house lay silent, with its occupants mostly asleep in their respective rooms. The occasional squeak of the ceiling fans could only be heard as they furiously spun, making the rooms cooler. Lying beside his mother and his eyes transfixed on the ceiling fan circling above, Andy lay wide awake! He was so close to his discovery today. His mind wandering over to his favourite web of thoughts…his Saheb-dadai!!

The more he thought about this man, the more intrigued he felt. By relation, his great uncle, but Andy felt directly connected to the man even though he had never seen him. But there was no dearth of stories about him in the family and Andy just loved to hear them over and over again! And his curiosity was readily satisfied on lazy afternoons and sleepy nights by his grandmother and grandfather and sometimes by his father too!

This less-seen but much spoken-of character in the family was called by more names than one! To Andy’s father and aunts he was their loving ‘Guli-kaka’ while an elder cousin sister of Andy had coined the name ‘Saheb-dadai’ for him, as he lived in far-off England which for the children was always the land of ‘Sahebs’! Guli-kaka carried a different aura about himself in this otherwise quiet and orthodox Bengali family and the way he was revered and spoken about, truly lent a dash of colour and enigma to his personality. And it was this aspect that had charmed the eight year old Andy. He longed to find out more about this man who had travelled the seas like Sinbad unleashing his flamboyant adventurous spirit!

 There was another reason why Andy felt specially attached to his ‘Saheb-dadai’ and that was his own name: Andy! It was certainly an uncommon one for a name in an orthodox Hindu family and sounded quite out-of-place at times. But he had learnt from his grandmother that it was Saheb-dadai who had christened him with this name and as per his wish the name stayed forever. The story of his birth had already become legendary in the family and Andy loved to hear it over and over again from his grandmother! The aura around the legend was not about him being born but that the occasion was the last time that the family saw Saheb-dadai amongst them! And something that everyone in the family spoke of was how Saheb-dadai had himself carried the newborn child from the nursing home in his arms to the family house, christened him with this very uncommon name and then returned to England soon after.

Lying on a mat, snuggled close to his grandmother, on many a moon-lit night, Andy would request her to recite this story once again. His grandmother, whom he and other children of the family fondly called ‘Mum-mum’, would then lovingly smile at him and start her recital of the tale probably for the umpteenth time! Often as she brought the tale to a close, she would let out a sigh and say:

“I wish he would come back once again to see you grow up! How much we all miss him… and I am sure he misses us too…” Her voice would trail off and taking a glance at the wrinkled face of his grandmother, Andy would probably see her eyes moistening.

“Tell me more about my grandfathers Mum-mum…” Tugging at her arm Andy would cut through her thoughts and say.

“Your grandfathers were three brothers you know…  Sailen, Jiten and Satyen!”  Mum-mum continued, looking up at the dark starry night sky as they lay on the mat on the terrace.

Andy knew about this fact already; his own grandfather was Jiten an accomplished professor of Sanskrit and author of many books. Andy loved listening to stories and doing all kinds of word activities with him sitting on his bed! Andy also knew that his grandfather’s elder brother Sailen had passed away just few months before he was born. Sailen was a doctor and a much revered man in the social circles within which the family mingled. He was Mum-mum’s husband and ever since his early childhood recollections, Andy had seen a large framed photograph of him seated on a chair, kept in the central square lobby of the house. And Satyen was the much loved ‘Guli-kaka’ of the family and his ‘Saheb-dadai’!

“No No… I know all that! Tell me from where you had left off the earlier day!” Andy hurriedly interrupted his grandmother.

Mum-mum smiled at him and looking at the night sky seemed to recollect the thread of the story. She had a fantastic skill of weaving tales out of the history of the family and its characters.

“You were saying about the many concerns that Saheb-dadai’s letters would not reach his brother from across the seas due to the World War that had disrupted life in many countries across the world” Andy impatiently said, trying to connect the lost threads of the story to his grandmother.

“Yes, that’s right..” Mum-mum continued in an enthusiastic voice.

 “What did they write in these letters, Mum-mum?” Andy asked innocently.

“Oh they used to write a lot of things. Saheb-dadai used to tell his brother where he was and the situations of the place, how he was managing his work, his stay and travels. And Jiten also used to write back keeping his younger brother informed about the family here and how much all of us missed him…”

“You must read some of those letters when you grow up. Your grandfather has kept most of them with him.” Mum-mum said.

In the next few hours, Andy listened intently to his grandmother’s story as the character of ‘Saheb-dadai’ gradually unfolded in his imagination till he was softly lulled to sleep!

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

‘It must be some of those letters only, that are stacked away inside the drawers’, Andy thought as he lay awake on his mother’s bed that summer afternoon.

 ‘Maybe I should ask Grandfather directly about the letters and he can read them to me’. Andy thought and mentally decided that he would do it once he got back from school the next day.

As he closed his eyes and snuggled closer to his mother, his mind wandered to imagine Saheb-dadai, sitting in an arm-chair in the drawing room of a quaint old house, down a tree-lined street, in a city called London, miles away! 

Andy tried hard to imagine…he had only heard the name ‘London’, that’s where his Saheb-dadai stayed, but young Andy knew nothing more about the place!

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Andy never quite got the opportunity in the following few days to get back to the search of his ‘Saheb-dadai’s’ letters. Something or the other kept coming by to stall his endeavour but that did not deter the young mind from pursuing his quest. He did ask his grandfather about it one evening, but his grandfather only smiled at him and ruffled his hair.

“You are too small now to understand all this”, his grandfather Jiten told him lovingly.

“But yes, when you grow up you must know about your Saheb-dadai, for he is indeed a man of great character and a truly inspirational personality”, Andy’s grandfather said softly, his eyes looking out of the window. “Wait, I will give you something!”

As Andy looked on inquisitively, his grandfather bent down and opened the same drawer which he was trying to open the other day! From inside, his grandfather took out a leather case and carefully opening it took out a small piece of paper, brown in colour.

After having put the case back in the drawer and having shut the same, he turned towards Andy and extending his hand held out the small brown paper to the young boy. Andy took a few steps ahead and took the paper from his grandfather. It was a folded piece of paper, brown in colour and looked quite old and almost brittle. As Andy slowly opened the single fold of the paper, he looked down and saw that it contained a small photograph. The picture was a black-and-white one, almost as small as a postage stamp and was pasted to the brown piece of paper. The young man whose photograph it was needed no introduction to Andy: he knew him very well already … his Saheb-dadai!

 “You know, I always used to keep this photograph of my brother Guli in my work-case. It has been there for many years, ever since he left home.” Jiten’s voice was almost a whisper and was audible only to himself and his dear grandson. As Andy listened intently, Jiten spoke along…

“Whenever I looked at his photograph, I felt that he was close to me. Our mother had passed away when we were very young, and Guli was only a boy then. He always used to be close with me and would ask me for everything. When he left, it was such a heart-burn for both of us, as we had never stayed without each other ever before that. But it was a big and bold decision that he took in his life…” Jiten’s voice trailed off as if he had got transported to those days of separation with his dear brother.

“When Guli left home there was utter chaos in our house and many people were saying a whole lot of things. But Guli came to me and said: ‘Dada, don’t worry, I will return in a few years. It is just that this assignment which I have earned is so important an opportunity for me that I don’t want to throw it away. And when I return, all the people will be happily surprised!’ Honestly, I did not doubt his words, but somewhere at the back of my mind I was apprehensive that he may not actually return too soon.”

“But I had felt very happy for my brother. He was an ambitious man with a lot of courage and someone who could almost write his own destiny by his own hands! And see, he has actually done that! Only that his parting words on that day did not come true for us. So many years went by but Guli never returned…”

Jiten paused for a while and took a deep breath. And then smiling at his grandson, who was looking up expectantly at his face, he continued.

“But I have no regrets, though I miss him very much even today. And such a man has never come by in our family. Even though he has been away for so many years, we have kept in close touch as far as possible through letters. Even Guli visited us few times; the last time being when you were born!” Jiten lightly placed his hand on his grandson’s head.

 “Now I have grown old and do not go out anymore, so this photograph lies locked in my work-case. So, you can keep it with you.” Jiten nodded to his grandson, who looked up wide-eyed. “As you grow up, this photograph will remind you about me and my brother Guli, one of the most courageous and inspirational members of our family! But you must keep it very safely and not lose it”. Jiten said to the young Andy who nodded his head as if to assure his grandfather.

“Dadai, can I ask you something?” Andy softly asked as he slid off his grandfather’s lap sensing that the Saheb-dadai story was over for the time being. Jiten smiled and looked at his grandson questioningly.

“I want to read the letters which Saheb-dadai wrote to you.” Andy put forth his request.

“But you are too young now and you may not understand everything. You can read them once you grow up a bit. And the letters are kept in my drawer only and will remain there.” Jiten smiled again and said, pointing to the dark brown chest of drawers that stood at the corner of room across the bed. Andy nodded his head and glanced at the picture of Saheb-dadai in his hand and smiled at his grandfather.

                                                                  Chapter 2

“Being the youngest of the children in a large family in those days also often meant that you grow up on the sidelines!” Mum-mum said, looking up at the starry night sky. As usual, she was there on the terrace with some others of the family, enjoying a post-dinner relaxation time lying on a mat, and needless to say little Andy had snuggled close to her with his request for stories. And like most of the times, Mum-mum had started to tell Andy the story about his Saheb-Dadai.

Looking at Andy’s face which sported a quizzical look, Mum-mum decided to clarify her statement.

“Guli was the youngest of the lot, but not necessarily the most pampered one! When I was married to his elder brother and came into the family, he was about fifteen years old and I have seen him since then. Even as a young lad, Guli was on his own and hardly depended on anyone else to take care of him. He was particularly fond of Jiten, his middle brother and the two shared a very special bond ever since. I can say, Guli grew up in the shadow of his brothers.

For a family that came with a lineage of teachers and professors of Sanskrit down the ages, Guli’s decision to study engineering was quite a surprise for all.

“But, no one in the family has ever been into engineering! Are you sure Guli….?” His father, a renowned professor of Sanskrit at the Government College, asked with concern for his youngest son.

“No problem father…” Guli’s elder brother Sailen spoke up even before Guli could open his mouth. “No one in the family had ever been a doctor either!” Sailen was a doctor by profession and well-established at that. Jiten of course had chosen to follow his father’s footsteps and was a professor of Sanskrit.”

Andy turned over on the mat and propped himself up on his elbows and added, “That was nice indeed. All the three brothers chose different careers, so we have a doctor, a professor and an engineer in the family!” Mum-mum laughed aloud at the little boy’s comment and nodded in the affirmative.

“So, very soon Guli got himself admitted into one of the reputed Engineering Colleges of the city.” Mum-mum continued. “And you must remember, those were the times when the British still ruled over India and their centre of control was our city Calcutta. So, in most of the colleges we had professors and teachers who were Englishmen and they followed the western methods of study and used all mechanics of the western world to teach their students. And our Guli also started to learn those mechanics gradually.”

Mum-mum smiled at her little grandson and said, “It just seems like the other day, even though it is now so many years and our Guli is away in some far away land…” Andy tugged at her arm once again, fearing that the flow of the family story might wander away.

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Andy did not hear the ring of the telephone in the first instance. Though he was fascinated by this unique instrument, black in colour, which stood all wired up, he would rush towards it whenever it let out its shrill ring, but he was never allowed by the elders to pick up its receiver or speak into it.

That day when the phone rang it was evening time and Andy was with his mother inside the room, trying to focus on practicing sums which were a part of his weekend homework. The phone rang incessantly as there was no one present in the hall where the instrument was placed. It was quite some time before Andy’s father came rushing out of his study and picked up the receiver minutes before the call could get disconnected.

By that time, some of the other family members had also rushed into the hall: Andy’s elder aunt who was busy in her room with her guitar musings, Andy’s mother who left her son with the sums and rushed to attend the telephone and Andy’s grandmother who was sitting at her evening religious rituals and recitations in the puja room. But what none of these people had noticed in their rush was that the telephone ring was significantly longer than usual, signalling that this was an International Trunk Call!

“Hello…hello..!” Andy’s father almost shouted into the mouth-piece of the instrument as he pressed the receiver hard against his ear. After a short while, it seemed that the line had stabilized and the communication was able to flow smoothly. Andy in the meantime had slowly got off his study table and proceeded towards the door of the room, observing the scene unfolding in the hall.

Peeping from behind the curtain and unobserved by others, the little boy noticed his father’s face change expressions every minute as the telephone conversation ensued. He saw his father speak animatedly with the caller on the other end trying to gather as much information as he could. Though from the unfolding of the scene Andy couldn’t really make out much then, he could sense that this was certainly an important call and an unusual one, for his father spoke all through the conversation in English, which he had hardly ever heard in the past in his house.

After a few minutes, the conversation ended and he saw his father put down the receiver back onto the telephone cradle and turn to face the others waiting expectantly. Andy was shocked to see his father’s face. It bore a deadly gloom and an expression of grief. He understood that something terrible had happened. Andy saw his father speak in a whisper to his aunt and mother and from the look of the expressions on their faces, his fears were confirmed.

Within minutes Andy saw his father and elder aunt also walk into the room and following them was his youngest aunt, whom he loved dearly. She bore a questioning look on her face, quite oblivious of the international trunk call that had landed on their telephone and the news that it had heralded. The conversation between the four adults continued for a while ignoring the presence of the little boy in the room who continued to look on intently. As they all turned to leave the room, Andy could not hold himself back any further.

“What has happened father?” He softly asked, still standing beside his study table, but his eyes glued to his father’s face all the while.

As the others left the room, Andy’s father stepped back hearing his son’s voice. He came close to Andy and picked him up in his arms. Andy looked closely into his father’s eyes and could sense a feeling of shock and grief in them. His father comfortingly put his hand on Andy’s head and caressed him softly. Then as if in a whisper he spoke.

“Andy… Remember your Saheb-dadai in England? We have just got the news that your Saheb-dadai has passed away today morning in London… His son had called to convey the news to us…”

Andy trembled within as his father’s words hit him and he tried to fathom the realization. He saw his father’s eyes grow watery and his face seemed in deep anguish, as his father put him down from his lap.

“We don’t know how we will break this news to your grandfather and others in the family…” Andy’s father spoke as if to himself, as he quietly ruffled his son’s hair and then gradually went out of the room.

Andy stepped back and quietly sat on his chair, his palms folded on his lap, his head bowed and his gaze fixed on his palms. This was his first interaction with any news of ‘death’ and he tried his best to realize the impact. 

Slowly he got up and opened the last drawer of his study table, the place where he usually kept all his personal stuff which his mother loved to call ‘junk’. His small diary which his father had given him was right there on the top amongst other things stuffed in the drawer. Andy took out the diary and closed the drawer. He flipped through the empty pages till he came to the middle of the book. 

There lay on the page a small brown piece of paper, almost gone brittle, but with a photograph pasted on it. It was the same item which he had received from his grandfather a few days back and had kept as one of his most precious possessions.

The picture of his Saheb-dadai looked up at him, as Andy opened the fold of the brown paper and held it in his palm. A handsome young man with a smiling face, his hair neatly combed and parted at the side, his Saheb-dadai shone bright and inspiring as he looked directly at Andy from the photograph.

“I will never get to meet you Saheb-dadai…never in my life!” the thought raced through Andy’s head as he looked on at the tiny photograph in his hand. 

This then was what ‘death’ meant…an infinite separation! 

Andy suddenly felt his heart burst inside his chest and his eyes well up. Warm tears slowly rolled down his cheeks, as beyond the door curtain he heard the voices of his parents, aunts and grandmother in commotion: His father had broken the terrible news to the family!

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World's Quirkiest Table manners - a sample!

It is said, travel and food often complement each other. No visit to a new country is complete till you have sampled the local cuisine and that too as the locals do!

So, what better than picking up some of the lesser known but peculiarly humorous Table Manners from around the world!

Here’s presenting a compilation of select ten of the world’s quirkiest Table Manners …

1. When stirring tea in England, make sure the spoon does not touch the sides of the cup!

2. Slurping noodles in Japan or making such loud noises show that you are enjoying your meal!

3. While eating pasta in Italy – and this extends only to pasta – you need not wait for the others to be served. You can dig in right away!

4. Known for their Port wine, the Portuguese consider bringing a bottle of wine for the hostess of a dinner party, an insult!

5. When you finish a meal at a restaurant in China, make sure you leave some food on your plate. This tells the host that he has given you enough to eat. Also, burping is considered a sign of appreciation of the food!

6. In the United States of America, do not rest your elbows on the table while eating – either keep them airborne or tucked into your sides!

7. The French consider it a sign of disrespect if your phone rings while you are having your meal. Keep your phone on silent while dining with them!

8. Salting your food is considered an insult in Egypt. It is thought that the cook intended for the food to taste that way!

9. In Korea, it is polite to pour drinks out for others!

10. In Germany, slicing potatoes with a knife is rude. Smash them with a fork instead!

So next time you find yourself dining around the world be sure to check your Table manners! May be pick up a few more quirky ones to add to your list…and do let me know!

                                                                    

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