The begum declared that she would stay in the station until these properties had been restored to her. The core of the city is still made of Oudh’s vaulted shrines and palaces. The British annexed it in 1856, a trauma from which its capital, Lucknow, never recovered. Oudh (pronounced Uh-vud) was a kingdom that no longer existed. She appeared, on the platform of New Delhi’s train station in the early 1970s, seemingly from nowhere, announcing herself as Wilayat, Begum of Oudh. Why summon a journalist if you don’t want to be written about? How It Began For this, he said, I would need the permission of his sister, Princess Sakina, who was not in Delhi. When I asked if I could publish our interview, he balked.
He was flinging his hands wide, declaiming and then dropping to a dramatic whisper, as he spoke of the decline of the house of Oudh. He ranted a little, complaining of persecution by a criminal gang. I recognized quotes from articles I had read, written by colleagues from The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times. When I asked about his family, he launched into an animated speech about the perfidy of the British and Indian governments. My idea was to interview the prince and write the story.
