The Jungle Prince, Chapter 1: The Railway Station

In 2016, while working as The New York Times Bureau Chief in Delhi, Ellen Barry heard the story of a family claiming to be descendants of the royal family of Oudh. The family, led by the Begum, had occupied a railway station in the 1970s to protest the government's failure to return their property. After a decade, they were granted an abandoned hunting lodge where they lived in seclusion. The Begum's children, Prince Cyrus and Princess Sakina, later told the Times of London that their mother committed suicide. Nick Kulukundis, who visited the lodge, recounted the bizarre experience of meeting Cyrus and Sakina, who lived in squalor, preserving the history of their family.