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- [00:00]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
This is Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford from Therapy for Black Girls. You know that Amazon has millions of books, so you can find one that gives you just the reading feeling you're looking for. You know, like if you're looking for a relaxed feeling, like with a beach read, Amazon has got it covered. Or if you're looking for more of a terrified ah with evil twins or things lurking in the woods or something, Amazon's got you. I mean, even if you want an aw teen romance, Amazon has it covered too. Amazon Books. That reading feeling awaits.
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Aaron Manke
Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Whispers swirled through the streets of New Delhi for decades. A crumbling mansion in a dark forest. A birthright that had been stolen. A queen with no kingdom. It might sound like something out of a Victorian novel, but for 50 years, the last rulers of Ovid lived out their own gothic tragedy right in the center of the Indian capital. The whole affair began in the early 1970s when a regally dressed woman and her two adult children arrived at the New Delhi train station. The three quickly took over the lobby. Fine woven carpets, potted palms, Nepalese servants in twin outfits, even a pack of massive Great Danes marked their corner of the station. After the woman had finally settled in, she called over the shocked station master. She had a message for him. He was now standing in the presence of Wilayat, the begum of the stolen kingdom of Ovid. These were her children, Prince Cyrus and Princess Sakinah, and they would not move until their kingdom was returned to them. To understand the begum's demands, you have to look back over a hundred years before British colonization. Much of modern day India was made up of either the Mughal empire or independent states. Ovid was a kingdom in the north ruled by a noble Muslim family until the British took it in the 1850s. Wliet claimed that this was her family and she was the ruler of Ovid. And she would live in the station in protest until she was given back her rightful throne. And her demands soon reached the Indian government. And while they wanted to wave her away, they worried that doing so would stoke conflict. This was 30 years after the partition of India, when the departing British divided their colony into India and Pakistan. Partition led to mass violence as Muslims in India fled to the new country of Pakistan, and Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan moved to India. There was still religious tension in the country in the 1970s, so the Indian government wanted to avoid forcibly evicting Wliet. The government offered her a house, which she dismissed out of hand. She would settle for nothing less than a palace. And surprisingly, after 10 years, she finally got one. And in 1985, she and her family moved to Malcha Mahal, a grand medieval hunting lodge on the outskirts of Delhi. It had no water, no power, or even telephone, and was open to the elements, but it would do for now. Settled into the lodge, Wyatt and her children continued to demand their lands, inviting foreign journalists to interview them and broadcast their complaints. And then, sadly, in 1993, Waliat died by suicide. According to Sakina and Cyrus, she drank poison mixed with crushed pearls and diamonds. As one final act of protest against the government, Cyrus and Sakina continued to dwell in the lodge, seen only occasionally by their neighbors. The prince and princess, whose comments to foreign journalists hinted at well educated and wealthy upbringings, were spotted with ragged clothes, matted hair, and sharp cheekbones of near starvation. When the princess died sometime in the 2010s, followed by the prince in 2017, that seemed to be the end of the whole bizarre story. Or it would have been, had one journalist not grown curious. Ellen Barry, a New York Times reporter, had struck up a friendship with Prince Cyrus after interviewing him in 2016. After his death, she returned to the lodge and was surprised to find evidence of another sibling who seemingly lived in England. Traveling from Delhi to the former kingdom of Ovid to a small row house in Yorkshire, England, she finally uncovered the true story. Wliet Begum of Ovid was actually Wliet Butt, wife of a university administrator. Princess Sakinah was actually Farad, and Prince Cyrus was really Mickey. Their real story started with the partition, when the Bhut family fled to Pakistan. Walayat was always opinionated and had no issue pressing Pakistan's government over political matters. After one instance where she reportedly slapped the prime minister of Pakistan in the face, she ended up in a mental hospital. Soon after, she disappeared back to Lucknow with Mickey and Farhad in tow. And that's when she began to refer to herself as the Begum of Ahvad. Soon after, she showed up in that New Delhi train station, demanding a kingdom that was not hers. She continued the lie for decades, and her children continued it after her death. Whether Wliat was delusional or simply that dedicated to a very long con, we don't know. But she did prove that Sometimes the best way to get what you want is to be a royal pain.
- [06:02]
Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford
This is Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford from Therapy for Black Girls. There are millions of books on Amazon, so there's a reading feeling for everyone. So if you're after that excited haha feeling, like when you discover you have a lot in common with Vikings or something, Amazon has books for you. Or maybe you enjoy the sort of nervous haha that comes when the hero barely escapes the zombies. Or maybe you like the smuggler that comes when the villain gets what he deserves. You know, Amazon has it all. Amazon Books that reading feeling awaits Gifting.
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- [07:12]
Aaron Manke
In 1933, a magnitude 8.4 earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, 180 miles from Japan's northeast coast. It struck far enough from any city that there wasn't much damage, at least from the quake itself. The shifting tectonic plates triggered a massive tsunami, though. For several hours, 30 foot waves battered the coast, obliterating countless seaside towns and fishing villages. When the waves finally subsided, thousands of people were dead or missing. In the aftermath of the disaster, 24 year old Kotoko Wamura wandered through his devastated hometown of Fudai, watching in numb horror as bodies were dragged from the rubble. And he kept walking, taking a trail up into the nearby mountains. Just as he was preparing to turn back, he discovered a large stone tablet etched with Japanese characters. It was a tsunami stone placed after a previous disaster to mark how high the water line rose. Japan is full of them. Actually, this one memorialized a tsunami that struck the area in 1894, causing similar destruction. Wamura read the inscription on the stone and was stunned by the implication. The stone had been left there as a warning that this type of thing could happen, yet no one had done anything to prevent a repeat disaster. It made him realize that even this recent tsunami could soon be forgotten, but not by him. After that day, Wamura was driven by a singular goal. He would prevent Fudai from falling prey to a third tsunami, even if it took the rest of his life. And 14 years later, in 1947, he ran for city mayor and managed to get elected. And he immediately threw himself into a pet project, the construction of a massive 51 foot seawall, including a floodgate. The city council balked at the proposal. This seawall would be a massive eyesore blocking the ocean view that residents had enjoyed for generations. Yes, they could see the wisdom of building a seawall of some kind, but did it really have to be so tall? Needless to say, Wamura refused to budge. And through the years, he eventually managed to get the project approved. Construction of the wall and the gates cost an astronomical 3.4 million Japanese yen, roughly US$40 million today, almost twice NASA's annual budget. The residents of Fudai weren't exactly thrilled that as the years passed with no more tsunamis, their feelings on the project only deepened. The wall became a laughingstock, a black mark on Wamura's reputation. But the mayor remained defiant, confident that he would eventually be proven right. At his resignation speech in 1987, he told attendees, and I quote, even if you encounter opposition, have conviction and finish what you start. In the end, people will understand. But for the most part, the people of Fudai did not understand. They continued to mock Uemura and his wall for years. When he died in 1997 at the age of 88, the seagull was still viewed as an embarrassing and expensive waste of taxpayers money. It would remain that way until March 11th of 2011. That day, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck near eastern Japan. It was the strongest quake in recorded history and generated a tsunami of 130 foot waves. For a nation that was used to natural disasters, this one was different. Those waves ravaged the Japanese coastline, leaving 20,000 dead, 6,000 injured and 2,500 missing. It also triggered the meltdown of a nuclear power plant, causing environmental damage and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents. It was the costliest natural disaster in history, and Japan's northeastern coast got the brunt of the disaster. Entire towns were washed away. Even a village with 30 foot walls was devastated. But for all the damage, one town was virtually untouched. Fudai's long maligned seawall and floodgates had held, and despite bearing the brunt of the storm, the town was still standing. In fact, it barely got wet. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities Podcast. The show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series and television show, and you can learn all about it over@theworldoflore.com and until next time, stay curious.