Bitterness rules Tipu's kin in the city of sorrow

Distant memories

The tea arrived, not in fine china but in two tiny plastic cups,  the likes of which the beverage is served in on the grimy pavements of Kolkata’s numerous ramshackle tea stalls. Sahebzada Mohammad Maqbool Alam, a direct descendant of Karim Shah,  the brother of the swashbuckling 18th century hero of Mysore, Sultan Fateh Ali Tipu, would not look me in the eye as he motioned me to drink the tea.

With that first sip, Maqbool Alam launched into a bitter diatribe against the Left Front government. “There is no law and order here, and whoever I vote for will ultimately turn out to be corrupt,” the 80-year-old said,  leaving no doubt in my mind that come May 13, when Kolkata goes to the polls, he and some of the other descendants of Karim Shah, who live off Prince Anwar Shah Road in the southern part of the city, will “opt for change”.

While Maqbool and his elder brother Mohammad Syed Alam live a decent life in a highrise that came up on the old colonial-style building where all of Tipu’s 12 sons lived after being exiled to the then Calcutta following the Tiger of Mysore’s death in Srirangapatna, the direct descendants of Tipu live on the edge of this city in a Muslim-dominated area called Metiabruz. The highrise apartment block is named Fort Mysore.

Some of Tipu’s descendants pull rickshaws in Metiabruz which is close to the banks of the Hooghly and borders the port. None of them could be reached. Maqbool dismissed them as fake pretenders to Tipu’s royal lineage. Maqbool Alam had no qualm in admitting that he has never ever worked and lived off the  “huge property”  left behind by Tipu’s eldest son Ghulam Mohammad all across Kolkata.

“We just sold everything off and lived well,”  he said.

Maqbool’s son, Mohammad Shahid, 50, was a high-school drop out who tried his hand in running a ladies’ beauty parlour in Rippon Street, but the venture failed. Shahid now dabbles in real estate and construction. “The Left is passé,” Shahid said, proclaiming that the time had now come for his family to switch over to the Trinamool and try and see if a new dispensation in Writers’ Building, the state secretariat, will help the family get its dues. “Besides, there are the ones in Metiabruz who are in dire need of financial assistance,” Shahid said.

The Alams’ main grudge against the Left Front is that it did nothing to honour Tipu or Karim Shah. “They could have at least named the Metro station nearby as Prince Ghulam Mohammad Station since it was constructed on property once owned by the prince.

Instead, they named it Uttam Kumar Station after the great Bengali actor,” complained Maqbool Alam.

There is no royal heirloom left, only a lingering memory that they once belonged to the family of the “Tiger of Mysore”. In that faded glory, Tipu’s descendants now want to be on the winning side in Bengal’s partisan politics.