Of Kings & Kingdoms

He was History professor in the university of Hyderabad. Tall and very handsome person with a pleasant persona and soft spoken. In short, there would be hardly anyone who would not find him attractive and regal. But he was a very private person and had very few friends and received very few visitors at home. He lived alone in the university quarters. Once in a while he would visit a famous heart hospital in the city. Some of his colleagues and university staff who had nothing else to do, found out this and secretively tried to find out the reason for his hospital visits. What ever the reason, they could not get any information from the hospital also. So the gossip mongers started spinning imaginary stories around his hospital visits. The most convincing story was that the professor had a chronic heart ailment. Some people started to believe it and used to look at him with sympathy. When he came to know of it he did not clarify or say anything. He simply laughed and excused himself. 

Then there was an interesting article in a reputed local newspaper with the caption,” Kingdoms and Kings are gone but Royalty prevails. Long live the Trvancore prince.” In that article the background of the professor was given and he was the descendent of Travancore Royal family. Though the family was no longer the rulers, they had substantial wealth. The professor chose to live a life of a commoner, pursuing the teaching job as he was fed up with the high flying and wasteful life some of the younger generation were leading. He used to visit the hospital because few years ago, his sister had died due to a complicated heart disease and in her memory he would be financially helping the needy to get costly heart treatments. He would support one surgery every month, depending on its criticality. For that reason he would visit the hospital and talk to the doctors there. The latest beneficiary had leaked this information to the university students, who in appreciation of his noble gesture, saw to it that this news was published. In that article it was mentioned that even though the Kingdoms are gone, and the descendants of Royal family continue to be generous and magnanimous because of the royal blood flowing in them. 

The entire university wanted to felicitate the professor, but he stoically refused and requested them to forget the article and let him be in the background. Everyone respectfully obliged him and over time the status quo was restored, and he continued with his anonymous social service.

(This story is entirely a figment of imagination and has no bearing on reality)