Indian
-> Babur, the first Mughal Emperor, was fond of making parodies, of crimson Oleander flowers (called “Kaner” in Hindi), and swimming. Whenever he came across a river he swam across it to and fro. Though he was the emperor of India, then arguably the richest nation in the world, he disliked almost everything about the country – climate, topography, native customs, religion, scholarship, and even looks! He longed for his motherland Samarkand, from where he had started his military career as a local gangster. In accordance with his wishes, his remains were taken from Agra, 14 years after his death there, and buried in the outskirts of Kabul. It is a sad irony of history that the founder of the Mughal dynasty never identified with the country that his progeny would rule over for the next three centuries.
->Despite their self-avowed humanism and liberal approach, the British treated the native Indian sepoys in their army as sub-human, so much so that there were separate memorials for the English soldiers killed in battle and their Indian subordinates. who gave their lives for Britain. In sharp contrast, during WWll the “racist” Nazi Reich’s fabled general, Erwin Rommel, ensured that catured Indian soldiers, who were fighting against his country were given the same rations as his own Afrika Corps fighters.
World
->Napoleon Bonaparte would clean his hands every morning with Almond paste. According to observers, he had delicate ladylike hands and the brooding looks of a philosopher. During his war meetings, he would make his generals and junior staff sit down and stand himself. Being a short man, he did so in order to tower over his generals. Incidentally, the great military leaders have been short – Alexander, Ghengis Khan, Timurlane, Napoleon, Hitler et al. Though he divorced Josephine for want of an heir, she remained the only true love of his life, so much so that his last words were – “Le Grande Armee…. Josephine”. There is forensic evidence discovered now that he was poisoned with arsenic over his six years’ exile (1815-1821) in St Helena by the British.The walls of ‘Longwood’, his residence at Saint Helena, still bear traces of arsenic. Hudson Lowe, the British Governor, a petty bureaucrat himself, but eventually kighted, derived great malicious pleasure from humiliating Napoleon. However he did not succeed in denting his prisoner’s morale.
The quirks, traits and hobbies of the famous & powerful –
->Nikolai Tesla would always append to his signatures the letters G.I. which stood for ‘Great Inventor’.He remained a bachelor throughout his life believing that celibacy was a pre-requisite to intellectual and scientific achievement. He would twiddle his toes for long periods in the belief that the unusual exercise would sharpen his intellect! Thomas Alva Edison refused to pay him promised fees for contract work and justified it by saying that his earlier promise was just American humour that Tesla did not understand! Do we not see instances of such American humour today?
-> Jehangir was so fond of liquor that he would get drunk four times a day, consuming about 3.6 litres of the liquid. It is inexplicable how he could attend to his imperial duties and govern an empire for 22 years.
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