India, Dec. 19 -- I'm baffled by how such few people have read or even know about The House of Awadh: A Hidden Tragedy by journalists Aletta Andre and Abhimanyu Kumar. This astonishing book unravels one of Delhi's most infamous mysteries: the family of strange aristocrats who lived in Malcha Mahal, a medieval hunting lodge in Delhi's Ridge, like ghosts in the ruins, without electricity or running water, for decades.

Begum Wilayat Mahal and her children Sakina and Ali Raza (who called himself Cyrus, well, Prince Cyrus) claimed to be descendants of the last nawab of Awadh Wajid Ali Shah and his freedom fighter wife Hazrat Mahal. In the 1970s, Wilayat and her adult children occupied the VIP waiting room of the New Delhi railway station, dem...