niramish:Last November (2017), on my visit to India, my father’s uncle handed me some letters and pa
niramish:Last November (2017), on my visit to India, my father’s uncle handed me some letters and papers that he had picked up on his visit to a haveli built by my great grandfather. Nobody has lived there for many decades and as per him, it’s full of business related correspondence between my ancestors and other traders - largely from present day Sindh, Pakistan. Among the things he gave me was a tattered copy of a weekly newspaper titled: Marwari Samachar. It was published in my hometown, Jodhpur and this particularly copy is dated Wednesday, 5th February 1941. Yesterday, I sat down to have a read of the paper and one of the first things I read was the story in the pictures above. The story is titled Jodhpur - Stabbed in the back - Murder in Udaimandir. It reads: “On – January, a person named Rahamtull stabbed a person named Amir Rahman in the back. As a result Amir Rahman died immediately. Rahamatulla had a friendship with a boy named Abdul Gani and there are rumours that they had illegitimate relations with each-other. On his father’s advice, Abdul Gani broke his relations with Rahamtulla and became friends with Amir Rahman. Because of this, Rahamtulla became jealous of Amir Rahman but they were still friends. On – January, these two went to have tea at a restaurant and then Rahamtulla brought Amir Rahamn to his home. As they got closer to Rahamatulla’s home, Rahamutalla stabbed Rahman in the back and as a result Rahamn died. Upon being phoned, police arrived at the place of the incident and started investigating. Murderer has been arrested!”Now to most people this may seem like a normal crime reportage. However, as a gay man, this story is extremely important. If I am reading this correctly, this is the first time I have stumbled upon a historic account of homosexual relations with particular reference to my hometown. There is a possibility that perhaps the rumours were not true and maybe the paper inserted the reference to illegitimate relations to make the article more salacious. Nevertheless, it is still fascinating because it validates that fact that homosexual relations have been present in the past too. I am now very curious as to what happened with Rahamtulla and whether I can find any police or legal records of what was his fate. Perhaps, I’ll try to explore this on my next visit to India. -- source link