India, April 14 -- It is November 1675. A man is heading north from Delhi, towards the Punjab. He is carrying something. The man can get into a lot of trouble if he is found out and his package examined.

Travelling on foot under the cover of darkness in disguise, taking backroads to avoid the main ones monitored by Mughal soldiers, the man finally makes it to Anandpur Sahib, the seat of the Guru of the Sikhs.

He is known to history as Bhai Jaita, later baptised as Bhai Jiwan Singh. The package he is carrying is, in fact, the severed head of Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, who had been beheaded in Delhi's Chandni Chowk on the express orders of Emperor Aurangzeb.

Bhai Jaita is, however, not from the upper echelons of the subconti...