Brotherpur: A Brief History

In Brotherpur it is still fashionable for cows to rest on brown gobar pillows. It's a sign that the spirit of Brotherpur lives on. It's also a sign of eternity. Anyone who has lived and ambled on the wide streets of Brotherpur once lives forever. It is said that anyone who has lived in Brotherpur comes back, at least once.

Such is the magic of Brotherpur.

Before us Brotherpur was inhabited by the royals. They still hang around here. Some people think they are dead inside fish-reliefed mausoleums. Forgotten as road and park names. But the royals of Brotherpur live on the streets like the common people. In Brotherpur everyone is a royal.

The royal 'we' is still used here.

This is not the beginning of Brotherpur but as beginnings go it is as good as any.

In our beginning Queen Mother Jennet Alia dies of acute Easternitis. She had just met Queen Prictoria of In-Gland.

In-Gland at that time was a tiny island off mainland Kurupa, but it was growing like a blowfish. It was almost about to swallow Brotherpur, twice its size, insanely rich and uniquely cut off from In-Gland. These obviously were not separations enough for In-Gland's monster appetite.

Queen Mother Jennet Alia went to In-Gland on a ship loaded with gifts and grand illusions. She was expecting to be heard-and not seen-by the curious Prictoria.

But Brotherpur was fast running out of its fat load of luck.

It is believed Jennet Alia's cover came in the way. Prictoria couldn't get across to Jennet Alia.

The veiled Jennet Alia died veiled in firangi Faries after a dream where she was eating cherries. It is said she died of shock. Because in the dream she was not smoking her favourite hooka pipe. She was also unveiled and 'undressed' Prictorian style-in glass jewellery and umbrella skirt-for a white portrait maker.

Today Jennet Alia sits unveiled on a cheap ancient-marble stool below a cheap ancient-marble cherub 'n' cherry canopy in faraway Faries, right behind the famous I-fell Tower. Reduced to cheap ancient-marble her kingdom is now an eight-by-twelve canopy in firangi Faries.

Her Hotheadedness, Begum Has-rut Moll, arch consort of the Dancing King of Brotherpur, His Majesty Nawab Watched All-ye Saw, fought In-Gland's incursion like a tigress. But she was naïve about war. She was hounded out of her beloved Brotherpur.

On her way out she was pierced with cheap pig-iron blade-guns on the orders of the Beast Indi-ya-ya Company of In-Gland.

Till very recently, Begum Has-rut Moll was a huge and dusty park where loud speakers snarled amid gassy arena noises. Today Begum Has-rut Moll is a jogger's park.

The fat Dancing King of Brotherpur lived, as a live Beast Indi-ya-ya mascot, in the Beast Indi-ya-ya-ruled Bend-all.

There he was fattened to fit a new line of Indi-ya-ya cotton shrouds the Company had designed for the local rulers.

The last King of Brotherpur breathed his last in a spacious In-Glish-style bungalow.

There Watched All-ye-saw penned his favourite dance-songs. And danced his favourite Cattock dance.

Some say the fat Watched All-ye Saw cattocked to death.

Like the apocalypse Shiva, he finally danced on the debris of his own creations.

But little has changed in the new improved Brotherpur. It is said that the spirit of Watched All-ye Saw still hangs over Brotherpur like an invisible cumulus.

Several notches above, in another invisible cumulus lives Lushman, a.k.a. The Bro, Brotherpur's founder king. The Bro had given up his father's kingdom to serve his brother in the jungle. But when all was well in the family the brother gave him the boot. So lonely and dejected Lushman started walking. And walking he stumbled upon Brotherpur. But he couldn't enjoy the fruits of his reign. Lushman began drinking heavily.

And soon Lushman also died of acute Easternitis. Heart-broken and misunderstood like the Queen Mother Jennet Alia.

Today the kingdom of Brotherpur has shrunk to a municipality. The district of Brotherpur. The capital of You Pee. But the spirit of Brotherpur lives on.

Especially among its resting cows.

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