THE LION CUB IN CHAINS
A grandmother's story, told by a boy who didn't know it was real.
In a quiet village hut, where the walls were made of mud and timber and the wind crept gently through the cracks, a five-year-old boy curled into the lap of his grandmother. The lantern flickered against her wrinkled face.
"Grandma, tell me a story. One I haven’t heard before," Satyansh whispered.
She smiled, brushing her fingers across his forehead. "Then I will tell you about a boy born to a lion but raised in a cage."
1838. Lahore.
I was only fourteen when I became a companion to Maharani Jindan Kaur. Fierce and brilliant, she was unlike any other royal woman. She spoke like a soldier, thought like a strategist, and lived like fire. I was just a servant girl named Bachanpreet from Punjab. But she kept me close.
When her son was born, she named him Duleep Singh. He had his father's eyes — Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Punjab. Even as an infant, he looked as if he understood everything.
I remember one day, he was maybe five or six. Sitting on her lap, he asked, "Ma, why am I in Baba's chair? Where is he?"
She looked at him for a long time. Then whispered, "He lives in every breath you take. But this world will not let you breathe freely."
When the British came in 1849, they tore the kingdom apart. Duleep was just a boy. And still, they forced a crown onto his tiny head only to steal it later.
They ripped him from his mother’s arms. The memory haunts me still. Jindan clawed at soldiers. Screamed his name. He screamed hers back, begging to stay.
But they took him.
They first brought him to Fatehgarh, then to Landour, claiming it was for his health. But they weren’t healing him. They were erasing him.
There, a Scottish surgeon named Dr. John Spencer Login began raising him. At first, Duleep cried each night. He refused to eat. He would whisper his mother’s name in his sleep.
But over time, Login began to break through.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvxMTTM0IBp
He brought him books. Taught him games. Told him he was special. Wanted.
Duleep began to smile again. He began to call Login Chacha — uncle. He believed he was loved.
He thought he had found someone who understood him. But it was all an illusion. The love was a mask, meant to reshape him into something he wasn’t. Fooling a lonely child was easy. That’s why they targeted the young—older minds wouldn't have bent so easily.
Age 15.
They told him: Christianity was truth. His gods were false. His language outdated. His clothes savage.
They baptized him.
They gave him a new name. New clothes. New rules.
And then they sent him to England, to live in luxury. A pet prince.
Queen Victoria doted on him. She folded his handkerchiefs. Placed his silk turban at her feet. She would ask him about his turban with a soft chuckle, as if it were a costume.
He began calling her Grandmother.
He began forgetting.
At banquets, they’d serve dishes he couldn’t pronounce, and smirk if he asked for makki di roti or sarson da saag. Once, when he ate with his hands, they exchanged glances, then gently reminded him, “Proper gentlemen use forks.”
He smiled through it. But inside, something cracked.
One night, years later, he overheard laughter behind a door—laughter about him. How he spoke, how he prayed, even how he slept. It wasn’t affection. It was performance. He was exotic entertainment. A trophy of conquest.
And then he found the papers.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC9nAsIgzyX
Detailed records—daily habits, meals, private conversations. Everything he did was written down, reported. He wasn’t family. He was a case study.
He stared at the reports for hours.
It was the final blow.
But his mother never forgot him.
Every day, I saw her touch the cloth he once wore. She would mutter his name like a prayer.
"Duleep, mera sher, mera puttar... where are you?"
One night, she whispered to me, eyes lost: "They turned him into a gentleman. A Christian. A loyal servant to those who murdered his kin. And yet, they smile while folding his turban."
Twelve years later.
She found him.
When Duleep saw her again, his hands trembled. He didn’t know what to say. Neither did she.
He looked like a stranger. But in his eyes, her boy was still there.
She took his face in her hands and whispered, "They changed your clothes, your gods, your name. But your blood is still mine."
That meeting broke him open. Everything he had buried began to surface: the sounds of Fatehgarh, the smell of his mother's dupatta, the taste of food he hadn't had in years.
He remembered the quiet mockery. The soft correction. The isolation. The betrayal.
He was drowning in shame.
He tried to escape.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡytzbQJGQLA
He reached out to the Irish nationalists, the Russians, anyone who would help him reclaim Punjab.
He renounced Christianity. Tried to return to Sikhism. But the world turned away.
No army came.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwOBfC2Rm3n
No nation stood beside him.
For seven years, he fought. Alone.
He died in a cheap apartment in Paris, broken, in debt, betrayed.
His last wish? “Take my ashes to Punjab.”
They refused.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5HrYeVIHXr
They buried him in England, as a Christian.
It wasn’t exile that destroyed him.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpXoIG0vfTB
It was betrayal.
"And that, Satyansh," I said, looking into your eyes, "is what they did to a prince."
You stared at me, puzzled. "It’s just a story, right?"
I smiled. I said nothing.
The next morning, you came across an old drawer.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVB2vEpBPMB
Inside was a yellowed portrait.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYAP5kIbhAa
A royal boy with lion eyes.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCgWdB3COAf
A woman beside him who looked just like your grandma.
You turned it over.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJqpQkyeyaA
It read:18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrGttH9YcHB
Prince Duleep Singh & Bachanpreet, 1854.
And then you knew.
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It wasn’t just a story.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsDrLj4CVXy
It was our blood.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiKcVQ5usfj
Our memory.18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuxPZcRcIkX
Our pain.
