The Bourbons of Bhopal

The attention he got since the publication of a historical novel called Le Rajah de Bourbon, which traces the story of his first royal ancestor in India, has overwhelmed Balthazar on the one hand and gave him a headache on the other.

‘‘We have not sought any glory. If my father says I am his son I believe him,’’ he says gesticulating at no one in particular. ‘‘You can’t get a direct evidence to everything.’’

A journalist saw him fixing his vehicle and called him a mechanic. Another described him as a part-time farmer. ‘‘I own land but I don’t do any labour there. Please,’’ he says folding his hands, ‘‘don’t call me a king but don’t pull me down either.’’

You let him take out his frustration and he opens up slowly. He’s always conscious of his lineage but drops guard occasionally.

I AM always aware of my royal connection,’’ says Balthazar who has never set foot in France. ‘‘I have a wish. I will go there once.’’ The flight he takes to visit his sister in the US stops at Amsterdam, the closest he gets to the lost French throne. ‘‘I am not aware of what I lost and what I will gain,’’ he says.

The Bourbon kings ruled France from the 16th century till the French Revolution in 1789. The crown was briefly restored in the 19th century.

Jean Philippe, the nephew of King Henry IV, who fled France in 1560, is believed to be the royal ancestor of Balthazar, who looks Indian and speaks like one. All his family members have French names though none of them speaks the language.

Prince Michael of Greece who wrote the book has given a detailed account of Jean Philippe’s escape and how he landed in Mughal Emperor Akbar’s court in 1560. His descendants moved near Gwalior and later to Bhopal a few centuries later.

‘‘It was a duel. Jean Philippe did not murder anyone. Had he not fled he would have been assassinated like his father,’’ Balthazar says frowning at the description of his ancestor as a murderer on the run. ‘‘Why would any emperor welcome him? I can still feel his pain of being uprooted,’’ he says growing expansive.

The father of three is not sure what awaits him in France should he make a trip. He is not going immediately, not till the hype lasts. He has an inexplicable fear that something could go wrong, either there would be a hostile reception or he could meet doubting historians asking for evidence.

‘‘If I wanted I could have visited France anytime. That shows my ‘kingness’,’’ he says in one of those few moments when he the crown gets better of him. Another moment he describes hunting as his only hobby of the past. His office had both Hindu and Muslim lawyers but was damaged in post-Babri riots. Since then he has scaled down his practice.

He harps on his commoner status and a struggle that does not make him even remotely royal.

AND yet he has painstakingly collected articles and books that detail the lives of Bourbons and their luxurious past as the administrators of the Bhopal State. The property they owned before infighting and how they fell out with the Nawabs.

His father wrote a book on the Bourbons to make it easy for the young Balthazar to understand. His father worked as a deputy tehsildar, the first Bourbon to work as a government servant. His sudden death in 1978 saddled Balthazar with a responsibility to run the family.

‘‘It was a struggle,’’ he says. In 1984, he and his wife started a higher secondary school in the huge courtyard of their present house. The Bourbons lived in a palace till a few decades ago before they renovated an outhouse and shifted in this neat bungalow. When Balthazar renovated the outhouse ten years ago, he only retained the brass plaque that reads ‘House of Bourbons’ and fleur-de-lis, the coat of arms of the French monarchy.

The House of Bourbon is on the narrow church road in Jehangirabad, a bustling locality of Bhopal. The interiors are graceful, almost a throwback to the royal days. The frames of the Palace of Versailles and the Statue of Liberty once adorned the house but Balthazar says he removed them sometime ago.

NEITHER Balthazar nor his wife Elisha can speak French. His elder son Frederick, a student of business management, younger school going son Adrian and daughter Michelle who is studying foreign trade, don’t know the language either. But Balthazar makes it a point to pronounce French names the way Bourbons in other parts of the world would. He says he is related to Spain’s King and Prince Philip. Prince Michael’s book says Balthazar’s claim to the throne is more than any other Bourbon’s.

Balthazar says he was always aware of his lineage. Several visitors from across the world had told him so and the newspaper and magazine clippings, he has stored, are a constant reminder. He says references to his family could be found in at least 32 books. Besides books, gazettes he has stored correspondence from the old Patna diocese that governed the Bhopal church.

After his father’s death in 1978, he started collecting documents. ‘‘My father was able to establish the history of Bourbons in Bhopal but I connected them to Jean Philippe,’’ he says. He says Jean Philippe’s name appears in Ain-e-Akbari. But is the latest book that has plugged all the gaps. ‘’Unlike me, he has the means to collect evidence and he is an authority on the Bourbons,’’ he says.

‘‘I don’t know what my destiny is,’’ he says suddenly. But parents of children who study in his school are worried that despite his denial he might leave the country.