Mukarram Jah, Heir to an Opulent Throne He Abandoned, Dies at 89
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
> His father sued him for a greater share of the family wealth. His aunt sued him. Eventually the ranks of litigants would swell to several thousand descendants of the seven previous nizams. Then, in 1971, the Indian government cut off the nizam’s allowance and abolished the royal court’s titles.
That combination of events would be tough to get through! Family legal squabbles are rough, emotionally and financially.
A gradual weaning or reform of government funding would have probably been successful in the long run.
It's fascinating when people with historical fortunes, titles, and rigid social expectations of them suddenly have the latter two disappear. Usually followed by the former. Most of my enjoyment of Downton Abbey was of the unraveling and restitching of the social contact.
Warm ending to this story that he had the humility to ask his ex-wife (Princess Esra) to attempt to preserve and share the hereditary legacy. And that she apparently did an extremely capable job. Kudos!
Preserving and presenting history, good, bad, or ugly, is important.
They didn’t own anything. It’s basically stolen off the backs of people. I have no love lost there or any grief at them being cut off.
"When the Nizam was returning to the Deccan, on one of his hunting expeditions, he lost his way. Thirsty and hungry, he approached a hermit for succour. All that the saint could offer him was dry, baked bread called kulcha, and plain water. The exhausted noble had his fill. The hermit counted the remaining loaves in his basket and said, My son, you have eaten seven loaves. Your family will rule for seven generations. God bless you."
The last actual ruling Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, was parsimonious in his personal life and spent on public works instead. Sadly he could not quell the violent terrorist movement of the Razakars during the convulsions of Indian independence, and this led to both murders by the Razakars and a violent blowback from the Hindu majority, the government inquiries on the scale of the massacres are still classified to this day.
His grandson Mukarram Jah was the opposite and dilapidated his inheritance.
Although if I had to eat plain naan without any other side dishes…I might eat 7 too.
The style of "Naan" I've eaten in the home country (which in hindsight may technically count as Shirmal) is much less smokey and harsh, and much heavier. The naan they serve in most Indian restaurants here in US/Canada is much lighter than home style naans and also not cooked as long in a tandoor - which is unsurprising because their profit margins are massive on Naan and Rice.
At least in Pahari regions, Kulche and Tandoori Roti tend to be the staple, not Naan.
In general, though, by the time you collect all the things that could be "kulcha" and all the things that could be "naan," you end up with a Venn diagram that has a pretty healthy overlap.
A lot depends on regional variations and individual chefs. In a restaurant situation in modern times, you'd generally expect "naan" to cover the usual breads that people want/expect, given the popularity of the word at this point, whereas "kulcha" is probably reserved for the chef's desire to do something a little more interesting (e.g., an elaborate stuffing) in bread that might also be cooked slightly differently. You can likely bank on the triangle/circle difference, but... you never know.
In the context of the myth, it likely underlines the simplicity and home-made nature of the bread, especially because of the note about the water. Kulcha can be made with fewer ingredients, if you imagine the simplest possible "kulcha" compared to the simplest possible "naan." So the vibe I got from the story is, "This saint lives such a simple and enlightened life that he doesn't even bother with the fancy fluffy restaurant breads; a simple home-made kulcha will do just fine."
TL;DR: It's complicated, and it's still tough these days to find a half-decent paratha.
In the American eastern seaboard, the closest we probably have is the continuum of cornbreads, where the same word can be drastically different from place to place.
But I guess that's to be expected for a dish that started with Native Americans, filtered through English, Irish, Scottish, and African cultures, and then met a wave of more modern ingredients.
The core need remains the same, but tastes and ways to get there vary!
Good insight. Yeah, there are two different dimensions here.
> In the American eastern seaboard, the closest we probably have is the continuum of cornbreads, where the same word can be drastically different from place to place.
One important similarity all around: I'm usually up for just about any cornbread, naan, or kulcha. ;)
I only know of these old nizams and rulers from portrayals as incompetent narcissistic despots in Indian popular literature and television shows. The reality it seems is not far from it.
Good riddance.
While I agree that this is news and it's a fascinating story, it feels like something more for Reddit than for HN. But that's probably my naïveté or dad-of-an-infant sleep deprivation.
Interesting story just doesn't seem like HN material. But please correct me if I'm wrong or help me see the connection
The first paragraph states:
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Note: emphasis added for dramatic effect.
This the first sentence of the HN rules. If you only want “hacking-related news” you’re going to have to tolerate some other bits on HN.
There are many people here who are related to the culture and care.
It's really simple. HN is a place where like-minded people share things of interest. When people like a link, they upvote it. If they don't, they don't.
"HN material" is material HN members find interesting, not things you may or may not think are related to "startup culture" (if there's even such a thing).
I like how every time this is brought up, Reddit is used as an example. But Reddit has far, far more interesting and nuanced discussions that includes many people at the top of their respective fields. Nobody noteworthy would do an AMA on HN, but they all do it on Reddit. A comment here or there doesn’t really move the needle on the over all trajectory.
HN is more of a midwit sort of place, where you don’t get the shitposters or the exceedingly brilliant because the band is so narrow and conformist that nobody wants to deal with being downvoted/removed over the most trivial things. And then when people find out just how wrong the audience here can be, as attested by actual professionals usually taking the top comment to correct the majority of, then you really just might as well not bother with HN at all and stick with Reddit for breadth and depth.
So yes, Reddit is probably the better place for this article, along with just about every other article posted here.
Look, I don't even disagree with your overall comment on HN, but this is a complete joke. I can't tell if you are actually serious. Go to the front page of reddit now and point me to that nuanced discussion. Even AMAs are now outrage bait, with all the top comments/ questions being snarky stabs at the AMA guest.
Your comment is either only valid for very small subs, or you're a time traveler from 8 years ago.
(I've seen far more "celebrities" or experts pop on comment sections about themselves or their expertise here than on reddit. FWIW.
Likewise, some threads on this site are garbage, too. It's easy enough to hide them and move on, though.
I've also found certain subreddits now provide better value to discussions than HN at this point.
- /r/AskHistorians
- ...
Ehm well I can't think of any more x)
Whether or not the commenters on Reddit tend to shitpost AMAs doesn’t speak to the fact that AMAs occur there, and the people give long winded answers to questions and talk at length about things. Literally there are people there whose answers to each question is a blog post entry on HN.
Usually the reason why celebrities/experts pop on comment sections here is to correct others. Which again, is just sad that the community here is naive with misinformation and cargo culling.
"I have the correct opinion™, please validate me with upvotes", "Can you believe that some people have the wrong opinion™ They are dumb!" over and over again gets old fast.
Go to a post, nearly all the responses are deleted, hundreds of them, inbetween the deleted comments you find enthusiastic support for the current thing.
"I had to lock this post yall, too many people being crazy"
Got a bit confused here, what is this sentence?
I agree that the band on HN is somewhat narrow, though I feel it is a distinctly different band from most other places which makes it worth visiting.
Any subreddits in particular you recommend for high quality discourse?
As for what subreddits are worthwhile - I don’t follow any of them religiously, usually the good stuff is cross posted and even HN has its fair share of good Reddit links much to their chagrin lol. You can often start at the top of the list of popular subreddits as the good stuff is also often cross posted with attribution to the original subreddit. So pick what you’re into and go down the rabbit hole.
Well there's a sentence I didn't expect to read today.