Hyderabad\'s Nizamate comes to an end, mystery shrouding a chequered saga continues

Hyderabad: On Wednesday, the body of the last Nizam of Hyderabad will be laid to rest here along with many unanswered questions about his life, inherited riches and his life away from India. Described by some as the 'story of the decline of the grandest hereditary princedom', the recorded life story of Nawab Mir Barket Ali Khan Walashan Mukarram Jah Bahadur, the titular eighth Nizam of Hyderabad, who passed away in Turkey on Saturday, is sketchy at best. Mukarram Jah, the Prince was proclaimed as the successor designate in 1954 by his grandfather and the Seventh Nizam of the erstwhile Princely State of Hyderabad Mir Osman Ali Khan. "For years I had read stories of the eccentric ruler of a Muslim state who counted his diamonds by the Kilogram, his pearls by the acre, and his gold bars by the tonne, yet who was so frugal he would save on laundry bill by bathing in his clothes," wrote John Zubrzycki, the author of The Last Nizam: The Rise and Fall of India's Greatest Princely State, while describing Mukarram Jah. Journalist Ayoob Ali Khan said people of Hyderabad had expected that Prince Mukarram Jah would do a lot of things, particularly for the poor, because he had inherited immense wealth from his grandfather who was the richest man in the world at one time.