u/Cautious_Act_2549

Born in 1896 to an Australian Barrister, Molly Fink would grow up as a reckless and sometimes rebellious girl, ultimately leading to her expulsion from Lauriston Girls' School for 'misbehaviour'. She was described as "a golden-haired society beauty, with blue eyes, an 'oval, ivory-skinned face' and 'pouting pomegranate lips'".

Sometime before 1914, her father suddenly passed away, leading Molly along with her mother and sister to relocate to a rented apartment at Hotel Majestic Mansions, due to financial constraints. It is here that she would meet the Maharaja of Pudukkottai, a westernized prince named Marthanda Bhairava. The 40 year old Marthanda would immediately fall in love with the only 19 year old Fink. In August of 1915, the two were married in Australia, and by the end of the year they would be back in Pudukkottai.

While the reception of the general public to the newly wed couple was positive, this union irked the British Raj, which neither recognized Molly as the Rani of Pudukkottai nor as Marthanda's lawful wife.

This hostility towards Molly would culminate in an alleged poisoning attempt after the discovery of her pregnancy. Marthanda would promptly remove her from the palace establishment, which he had good reason to doubt. Pudukkottai was known as a princely state notorious for its powerful and power hungry royal women and men. According to one account, Marthanda's step grandmother had initiated a sacrifice of 100 cobras to repel an alleged poisoning attempt by a royal minister.

The British continued being uncooperative, refusing to allow proper accomodation to the couple in their new abode of Ooty. This resulted in Marthanda and Molly finally deciding to leave India forever, first moving to Australia and ultimately to France after relinquishing royal powers in 1921.

After Marthanda's death in 1928, her finances began to dwindle again. She rejected a marriage proposal by Aga Khan, one of Pakistan's founding fathers, and raised her son Marthanda Sydney Tondaiman. She drank heavily, and was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 1967, dying shortly afterwards.

The only son of the couple, Marthanda Sydney Tondaiman, had a failed marriage and a habit of kleptomania (an uncontrollable urge to steal). He lived for sometime as a U.S citizen, but his citizenship was revoked and he was arrested in New york due to his habit of stealing. He became a recluse and an alcoholic later in life, dying in 1984.

Sources: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fink-esme-mary-sorrett-molly-10182

https://manuspillai.com/2019/10/04/black-magic-and-a-bureaucrat-05-october-2019/

https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/people/martanda-bhairava-tondaiman-the-raja-who-gave-up-his-throne-for-the-woman-he-loved-article-113321051

Just three years before his execution by Aurangzeb, Mughal crown prince Dara Shikoh had a dream, the contents of which he felt important enough to write down.

He stated:

>one night [in a dream] I saw two persons: one elderly in appearance standing
on a higher plinth, and another standing slightly lower. I realized that the person
standing on the higher plinth was Basisht, and the other was Rām Chand. The differ-
ence in the appearance of these two respectable persons was that Basisht’s beard and
mustache had a few gray hairs, while the other had not even a single gray
hair. Since I had benefitted enormously from this wise book, I could not help but ap-
proach Basisht, and paid my respects. Basisht showed me extraordinary kindness; he
placed his hand on my back and said to Rāma, “O Rām Chand, he is the true extraordinary seeker. Embrace him.” Rām Chand embraced me with great love. Then Basisht gave Rām Chand a sweetmeat, and he offered it to me to eat with his own hands. I ate
that sweetmeat. After seeing this in actuality, the yearning to have a new trans-
lation grew

The prince, who had been an ardent promoter of Vedanta and Sufi mysticism, viewed this dream as a divine call for action. He soon commissioned a Persian translation of the Yoga Vasishta, an eminent Hindu philosophical text traditionally attributed to Sage Valmiki.

The translation, titled "Jug Basisht" was undertaken likely by a man named Habibullah, although this cannot be made certain. It was based on an already existing brief translation by Nizam-Al-Din Panipati, which Dara felt needed improvement. It is likely that several courtiers and scholars in Dara Shikoh's court may have been included in the undertaking.

The translation turned out to be the most definitive Persian rendition of the Yoga-Vasishta.

The prince's grandfather Jahangir as well as great-grandfather Akbar had also ordered translations of the Yoga Vasishta, highlighting the importance this specific text and its associated philosophy had in Mughal elite circles.

While we may never be truly able to confirm if Dara Shikoh really dreamt of Rama or Vasishta, we can make a hypothesis that this was part of a subtle campaign by the prince to position himself as a would be philospher emperor, in line with Akbar.

Dara Shikoh would ultimately be defeated and executed by his orthodox brother Aurangzeb in 1659, who despised the former for his liberal views.

Source: IN SEARCH OF A SACRED KING: DĀRĀ SHUKOH AND THE YOGAVĀSIṢṬHAS OF MUGHAL INDIA

Muzaffar Alam, History of Religions, Vol. 55, No. 4 (May 2016), pp. 429-459 (31 pages)

Noor Inayat Khan was the daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi preacher, professor and musician from Baroda, India. Inayat's maternal grandmother was Qasim Bibi, a daughter of Mysore's ruler Tipu Sultan.

Noor would be born in Russia as the eldest of Inayat's four children. Her mother was an American named Ameena Begum (Ora Ray Baker) who had converted to Islam.

Growing up in England and later in France, Noor was described by family members as quite, sensitive and dreamy. As a child she played several instruments including the Saraswati Veena (learning from her father) and spoke of seeing fairies. Her father was a follower of Gandhian philosophy and ingrained a sense of humanity and tolerance in Noor's mind. She established herself as a Children's author, likely inspired by her mother and by her own active imagination, writing a retelling of the Jataka Tales as well as her own stories.

Following the German invasion of France in 1940, Noor would take responsibility of her family and flee to England. She became a part of the French resistance against Nazi Germany.

In 1942, while serving in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Noor was shocked to learn of the cruelties that Jews faced in the Nazi regime. She soon applied to become a Special Operations Executive for the Allied powers.

Noor's instructors soon noticed that while she was hardworking, her gentle disposition made her a weak candidate for her task. She was described as Childlike, Clumsy and terrified of weapons. One mock interrogation left her so overwhelmed and scared that she nearly lost her voice, making her instructor sarcastically comment that she "was not overburdened with brains".

Despite the criticism, she became the first female wireless operator to be sent into Nazi occupied France in 1943. Within 10 days of her arrival in France, the Germans had infiltrated into the network she was part of, and captured several prominent operators. Hundreds of these agents were lost to the Nazis and Noor soon found herself as the only operator in Paris. Despite being told to return to safety in England by her superiors, she chose to remain in Paris and continue her work. She spent the next four months fully knowing that the Gestapo was getting closer to her day by day, while reporting information back to England.

When captured and brutally tortured by the Germans for 11 months continuously, she defied all expectations by not giving them a single piece of information. She lied at every chance she got at the face of extreme pain, even as the Nazis impersonated her using her notebook. When she was executed in September 13, 1944, her final words were "liberté".

Noor was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre avec étoile de vermeil.

She is thought to have said "I wish some Indians would win high military distinction in this war. If one or two could do something in the Allied service which was very brave and which everybody admired it would help to make a bridge between the English people and the Indians."

Sources:

Noor Inayat Khan, Britannica

BBC Entry

Source: National Museum of Asian Art.

The above painting is a later reproduction of the 17th century original by Hasan.

The autmaton also had within it the keyboard of an 18 note pipe organ.

While made to insult the British and project Tipu's power, it ironically ended up in the hands of the former as a war trophy during the siege of Seringapatam in 1799.

From then on it would be exhibited in various parts of London before finally settling in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection, where it remains today.

Source: https://smarthistory.org/tipus-tiger/

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O61949/tippoos-tiger-mechanical-organ-unknown/

In 1978, Indian Scientist Subhash Mukhopadhyay, from Bengal, created India's first IVF baby, Durga. This was just 70 days after the birth of the world's first IVF baby in London, England. Mukhopadhyay had dedicated a lifetime to the study of reproductive physiology, even postponing having a family with his wife in order to concentrate on his research.

However much to the shock of Mukhopadhyay, he would soon find himself cornered and harassed by the state's bureaucracy for presenting his accomplishment. The then state and central governments would restrict him from presenting his works at international conferences. More importantly, the state would subject the Physician to an "expert" committee, consisting of officials who had little to no authority in the field of reproductive physiology.

During his meetings with this panels, Mukhopadhyay would be mocked and his work labelled "an absolute bogus". An example of this is as follows:

>Committee – “Where did you keep these embryos?”

>Mukhopadhyay -“In sealed ampules.”

>Committee -“How did you seal an ampule?” (?!!)

>Mukhopadhyay -“pardon?”

>Committee – “Oh! Embryos do not die while sealing?

To add salt to the wound, he would be meted out a punishment transfer to the department of Ophthalmology, which effectively put an end to the growth of this career.

In the last 3 years of his life, he was increasingly cornered by jealous peers and an apathetic bureaucracy, resulting in the Physician taking his own life in 1981. His death note stated that he wished everyday for a heart attack to kill him.

Several years later, Scientist T.C Anand Kumar (who became credited for India's first official IVF baby) came across the personal notes and papers of Mukhopadhyay. He would work relentlessly to give proper credit and make public knowledge the life and work of Mukhopadhyay. In this, he would be aided by Durga herself, as she publicly acknowledged her creator on her 25th birthday, in a venue specifically to honour Mukhopadhyay.

Sources:

Honour fails to cheer doctor’s wife - Times of India, 2003.

Test tube triumph & tragedy - Nobel for UK scientist stirs memory of a Bengal doctor - The Telegraph

The Pioneer Of IVF In India Who Was Rewarded With Suicide: Subhash Mukhopadhyay- ED Times.

Source:

https://en.numista.com/467237

Sources: Wikimedia commons, CoinIndia: The Virtual Museum of Indian Coins.

James Skinner, more popularly known as Sikandar Sahib was born in 1778, to English officer Hercules Skinner and his Rajput wife from Bhojpur.

Skinner would later himself recount of his "poor mother", stating that she was the daughter of a Rajput Zamindar, who was captured by the Raja of Benaras. The Rajputni lady would then fall into the hands of Hercules Skinner, with whom she married and had several children, including James.

Young James's rather uneventful life would take a turn in 1790, when his mother commited suicide when James was merely twelve. According to his own account, his mother did this after two of her daughters were sent to school. She thought of this as a grave insult to her customs and heritage. Following her death, James's family would fall apart as his brother David left the household, and he was put in an orphanage by his father temporarily.

By age 16, James had been sent to work by his father as an apprentice for a printer in Calcutta. Here, James would spend three miserable days before running away to become a soldier, like he had always wanted. However, he would not be admitted into the East India Company's army, for he was of partly Indian blood.

James however, would not give up, as he joined the Maratha army of Gwalior state. He soon rose through the ranks there, participating in crucial operations that won the Marathas important forts as far as Hansi in Haryana. When the first Anglo-Maratha war broke out, James and all other soldiers of British heritage would be dismissed from the Maratha army.

The English would try multiple times to woo James to their side, recognizing his popularity among Indian soldiers, and his skill as a cavalryman. He would ward them off until his former master, the Raja of Gwalior had opted out of the war, after which he began actively fighting for the company. He would create the light cavalry regiment known as "Skinner's horse" or "Yellow Boys", which still exists in the Indian army.

By the 1820s, he was perhaps the most popular commander among the Indian soldiers of the Company. It is from them that he received the nickname of Sikandar. He would become incredibly wealthy, setting up his durbar in Hansi and living like a true Mughal era Zamindar.

Interestingly, he would write numerous Persian works on the court nobility and culture of the Mughal empire, as well as establishing a church, temple and mosque in his domains

By the time of his death in 1841, at the age of 63, he had multiple areas named after him and his children. These include Sikandarpura, Alakhpura (after his son Alex) and Enipura (for his daughter Annie).

Sources:

The Remarkable Life and Legacy of Colonel James Skinner (Sikandar Sahib): An Anglo-Indian Soldier in Northern India . Mohd Imran Ali

Sinkander Sahib; Life Of Colonel James Skinner 1778 - 1841, Dennis Holman

Images: Wikimedia commons, National Army Museum.

In 1928, a wealthy cinephile in Travancore named J.C Daniel would endeavor to shoot a film of his own, titled "The Lost Child" or Vigathakumaran, in Malayalam. This prospective film would be the first coming from Kerala, and possibly the first true social drama film in Indian cinema, interrupting a string of Purana themed films starting from 1913.

The actress who would eventually agree to play the role of heroine in Daniel's revolutionary venture would be Rosy (born Rajamma), a talented Dalit girl in her 20s. Rosy lived in the outskirts of Travancore's capital of Trivandrum, and belonged to the Pulaya caste. Her caste was considered one of the lowest in Kerala's caste hierarchy, with intense slavery and harsh punishments being the norm.

Rosy however, was becoming increasingly popular and in high demand as an actress, first gaining notice in local Kakkirasi (a local folk dance) performances, which was upto then only played by men. Multiple troupes competed for her, driving up her star value in the 1920s.

She would eventually agree to joining Daniel's film, playing the role of the main heroine, an upper caste Nair woman named Sarojini. She would be paid the handsome sum of 5 rupees a day for 10 days.

Much to Rosy and Daniel's misfortune, their film created a massive controversy in Trivandrum on the first day of its screening. Angry mobs of Nair men threw rocks at the screen in Trivandrum's Capitol theatre, after realizing that the heroine was a Pulaya woman. Daniel and his crew, including Rosy had to flee from the hall.

Daniel would face financial ruin, but otherwise be left unharmed. Rosy however, would face the frenzy of the mob as her house would be set on fire and burned to the ground. Not even police protection could save her, as ultimately she chose to flee Trivandrum.

After this incident, she would remain silent in the historical record for the rest of her life. Traumatized by the ordeal, Rosy would kill her own Dalit identity, eventually adopting the new identity of "Rajammal" and marrying an upper caste man, living out the rest of her life in obscurity. Vigathakumaran would never see the big screen as all its copies would be destroyed, the last one by Daniel's own son in a fight between his siblings years later.

Years later in 2013, a Malayalam news channel would contact Rosy's daughter who was living in Tamil Nadu. The Daughter knew very little about her mother's acting career. Her other children also refused to accept the fact that their mother was a Dalit, instead adopting the upper caste identity of their father, as recorded by Rosy's own nephew. The latest attempt in 2025 by BBC would also yield little result as Rosy's descendants refused to speak further on their mother.

Source:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30q1rvqn17o

https://doodles.google/doodle/pk-rosys-120th-birthday/

In the post-Mauryan period, northern India saw a heavy influx of Greek migrants coming in from the regions of Bactria, Gandhara and beyond. Many such "Indo-Greeks" quickly became integrated into local communities through their interest in Indian religions as well as culture.

The above panel was found from the northern entrance to the Sanchi Stupa, a highly popular Buddhist pilgrimage destination in the 1st century BCE.

Here, Indo-Greek pilgrims worship at the Stupa by playing Hellenic musical instruments. A speciality is the Carnyx. This was an ancient trumpet used by the Celts. However by the 1st century BCE it had become videly popular throughout Asia.

The physical appearance and clothing of the musicians are all vidily Hellenic. This includes the "Pilos" cap worn by the musician playing an Aulos, or a double flute. Several pilgrims are also shown with the iconic ancient Greek curly hair. Some are also seen wearing headbands, commonly worn by elites or athletes.

Indo-Greek contribution to the Sanchi Stupa has been confirmed by various inscriptions left by individuals calling themselves "Yavana", the Indian term for the ancient Greeks as well as Romans.

Source of Images: Wikimedia commons.

Pictured above is Savitri Devi, born as Maximiani Julia Portas, to parents of Greek and English heritage. She was born in France.

From her early childhood, Portas would be an exceptionally smart kid. She became proficient in five languages by the age of 11 and had earned 2 masters degrees and a PhD by age 29. Philosophy, Chemistry and Mathematics were her favorite subjects.

But somewhere along her teenage years, she would start developing an unhealthy and fanatical hatred towards Western notions of equality, likely influenced by her father's Greek nationalist views. Her views would solidify into Nazism by the 1930s as her views become increasingly more fascist and radical. By the 1930s, she had finished reading (and had grown a fan of) the 700 page Nazi propaganda book The Myth of the Twentieth Century , making her one of the very few people to have completely read that book. For context, even Hitler commented that it was painfully unreadable.

Her quest for a pure "Aryan" culture would lead her to India in the 1932, where she would spend years misreading and misinterpreting Hindu texts to confirm her fanatical thoughts. In the process, she would go on to marry Indian nationalist Asit Krishna Mukherji, changing her name to Savitri Devi and professing her conversion to Hinduism.

During World War II, Savitri and her husband would live in Calcutta, orchestrating espionage operations for the Germans as well as the Japanese. She would play the role of an intellectual house wife in parties, inviting influential officers of the Allied powers in India and collecting information, which she would then pass on to the Japanese. She claimed to have played a crucial role in connecting Subhas Chandra Bose to the Japanese. This she did while being under heavy British monitoring for years.

After Hitler's defeat, Savitri would elevate him to godhood. Her views became more erratic as she made parallels of Hitler to Vishnu, and World War 2 to the end of Kali Yuga. She began pumping out a high volume of neo-nazi literature while stopping to take baths and constantly chewing garlic. She advocated for the execution of meat eaters while also denying the Holocaust.

By the 70s, an ailing and broke Savitri lived in seclusion in New Delhi, among many cats and at least one pet Cobra whom she adored. Some years following her husband's death in 1977, she would relocate to England, where she would die in 1982.

By the time of her death, she was considered one of the most significant forces pushing neo-nazism in the world. Her deep connections with the neo-nazi underground were confirmed following her death, as her ashes were shipped to the Nazi Hall of Honor in Wisconsin, USA.

Sources:

Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Published by: NYU Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg323

BBC Article on Savitri: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41757047

Featured above is Mahaprabha Amma, a royal lady of considerable standing in Travancore. A close relative of the Maharaja, and a matriarch of a collateral house of the state's ruling family, she had come to prominence by having two of her daughters adopted by the Maharaja in 1857. Some years later, the famous painter Raja Ravi Varma would marry her third daughter.

Despite her high standing, Mahaprabha's reputation would take a disastrous hit in 1862. In this year, one of her palace servants, a man by the name of Madhavan, would be found hanging dead from inside a bathroom. It soon became clear that he was murdered, and his body placed there to seem as if he had taken his own life.

The person arrested for the crime was Mahaprabha's own husband. It turned out that the consort grew suspicious of an illicit relationship between Mahaprabha and Madhavan, and as a result, framed him for the supposed theft of a pair of diamond earrings.

Madhavan met a gruesome fate as he was beaten in his stomach with a heavy jackfruit and ultimately killed by being stabbed.

As the scandal spread throughout Travancore and into the newspapers of its rival state of Cochin, the alarmed government of Travancore responded by erasing all evidence of the crime and completely whitewashing the family associated with it. This was done as the main accused was none other than the father of two of the state's princesses.

Ultimately, the punishment of Mahaprabha's husband would be life imprisonment and the removal of his name from all records available to the public within Travancore. The case was also completely erased from public memory.

This painting of Mahaprabha was by Ravi Varma, who shows his mother in law in a fierce form and dark skin, with blood shot eyes, a stark departure from his usual style of pale women who reflected Victorian beauty standards.

Source: False Allies: India's Maharajas in the age of Ravi Varma.

Source of Image: Google Arts & Culture. Titled: Bharani Thirunal Amma Thampuran.

Shuja-Ud-Daula was the Nawab of Awadh, ruling from 1754 to 1775.

In 1772, English painter Tilly Kettle arrived in Awadh and painted several court portraits of the Nawab and his family before leaving the next year. A specific painting of the Nawab and his ten sons became particularly popular, and it became the inspiration for the painting above by an unknown (possibly Indian) artist in the 1800s. The work shows The Nawab and sons posing for Kettle, as the latter paints the exact scene in his canvas.

Source: Wikimedia Commons (Original attributed to Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Source:

Early Man At Bhimbetka, Bansi Lal Malla, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.

Yashodhar Mathpal, Prehistoric paintings of Bhimbetka, 1984.