Begum Wilayat was known for living in the haunted Malcha Mahal, but her story goes beyond how she acquired this Tughlaq-era hunting lodge.
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00:00This was a Tughlaqera hunting lodge called Malcha Mahal, located in one of Delhi's posh colonies.
00:05It was known as one of the most haunted places in the city.
00:08And then there was Vilayat Begum, the woman who spent a decade protesting at the railway station,
00:13only to eventually be moved to Malcha Mahal.
00:16But what drove her to protest? And who was Vilayat Begum behind the mystery?
00:21It all began in the late 1970s, when a mysterious woman arrived at New Delhi
00:25railway station from Lucknow, along with her kids, a group of servants in uniforms,
00:30eleven hound dogs and fine carpets.
00:33The family moved into the waiting room at the station.
00:36The woman introduced herself as the Queen of Awadh, Begum Vilayat.
00:40She alleged that she was a descendant of Wajid Ali Shah,
00:44who was the Emperor of Awadh before the British annexed it.
00:47She demanded compensation for the loss of her ancestral property in Awadh,
00:51which was seized when Wajid Ali Shah's kingdom was annexed by the British.
00:56Many officials, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister's aide Amar Rizvi,
01:01tried to convince her and offered her 10,000 rupees.
01:04She angrily threw the envelope, refusing to accept the money, saying it was too little.
01:09In the following months, she was offered a four-bedroom house in Lucknow.
01:13But again, she refused to accept it, since it was too small for her.
01:17Anytime the station master gave her any trouble or raised concerns,
01:21she threatened to kill herself by drinking snake venom.
01:24Her children Prince Cyrus Ali Raza and Prince Sakina were said to be under her control,
01:29and they addressed her as Your Highness.
01:32Her story soon made headlines,
01:34with people highlighting how the descendants of the last Nawab of Awadh were treated.
01:39At the time, she refused to speak to Indian journalists,
01:42and only gave interviews to foreign journalists.
01:44She had set strict conditions that she could only be photographed when the moon was waning.
01:50After protesting for years at the New Delhi railway station,
01:54the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi granted them Malcha Mahal in 1984.
02:00There, they had neither water nor electricity.
02:03But Vilayat was never seen in public again after she moved into Malcha Mahal.
02:07It was alleged that she died by suicide in 1993 by drinking drink of silence,
02:12which was made of crushed diamonds and pearls.
02:15Her children had preserved her body themselves and cremated it about a year later.
02:20Now here comes the twist.
02:21The story of this woman claiming to be the descendants of the last Nawab of Awadh
02:26was all a big fat lie.
02:28Ellen Barry, a New York Times journalist,
02:30went to Lucknow, where the family had resided in the 1970s.
02:34The people from their old neighbourhood told Barry
02:36that everyone had considered the family as imposters.
02:41Even the descendants of the Awadhi royal family in Kolkata had denied their claims.
02:46After Prince Ali Raza died in 2017,
02:49Barry launched an investigation into the true origins of the family.
02:52While searching the palace, she discovered a stack of receipts
02:56indicating regular small cash transfers from a city in Northern England.
03:00The sender referred to himself as a half-brother.
03:04She also found a letter dating back to 2006 which read,
03:08I am in so much pain that I cannot go to the toilet even.
03:11For God's sake, try to sort yourself out financially.
03:14In case anything goes wrong with me, may God help us all.
03:17The letter was signed by a person named Shahid
03:20and it was sent from an address in Bradford, Yorkshire.
03:23Barry then made her journey to Bradford to uncover the truth.
03:27She met Shahid, who turned out to be Cyrus's older brother and Vilayat's eldest son.
03:33When Barry met him, he had lung cancer.
03:35And that's when Barry uncovered the truth behind who these people really were,
03:40secrets that had been hidden for decades.
03:42In August 1947, during the partition of India,
03:45the family in Lucknow had to make a quick decision.
03:48Vilayat loved Lucknow and didn't want to leave.
03:50But when her husband in Ayatollah was attacked, they moved to Lahore.
03:54Vilayat reluctantly followed her husband, but she kept thinking about what they had lost.
03:59After her husband's untimely death, she had no one to stop her.
04:03Shahid said that once she slapped the Pakistani Prime Minister in public to avoid prison,
04:08she was sent to a mental hospital in Lahore for six months.
04:11When Vilayat was finally set free,
04:14she fled to India with her children, taking all her belongings.
04:17Later, Shahid said he ran away when he was about 14,
04:20then emigrated to Britain.
04:22And in India, the family adopted new identities.
04:25Farhad Butt became Princess Sakina,
04:28Mickey Butt became Prince Ali Raza,
04:31who later called himself Prince Iris,
04:33and Vilayat Butt became Pegum Vilayat.