METROSCAPE
Fishing for a Fortune It's a tantalising clue in
a multi-million dollar treasure hunt. A terse newspaper story that records the sinking of
an ordinary Royal Mail steamship in the Mediterranean with an extraordinary cargo amidst
the fury of World War I in 1916: "Maharaja's $4,000,000 Jewels Lost." In March,
more than 80 years later, a hi-tech treasure hunt will begin to salvage what the New York
Times reported the maharaja, Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala, bought on a spree in New York,
and what could be worth more than $30 million (Rs 126 crore) in diamonds and gold
jewellery at today's values. Fearing German U-boat attacks, he played it safe. He put the
jewels on the steamship carrying mostly Indian army officers and civil servants while he
sailed on another boat to Cairo, intending to meet up with members of his retinue who were
escorting the jewels, in Port Said.
It's a mystery
that top international salvage specialists Alec Crawford and wife Moya plan to solve.
While they get their expedition ready in Newport on Tay in the UK, back in India
Jagatjit's son Sukhjit, who retired from the Indian Army as a brigadier in 1977, dismisses
reports of the treasure as "grossly exaggerated". And since the wreck is still
to be located, "What is there to claim?" He says he remembers his father talking
about "the wreck" in the 1930s and 1940s, decades after the incident, and
details about the treasure were already sketchy in his father's narrative then. By the
time Jagatjit died, it was all faded memory.
That is about to be jogged, Sukhjit's obvious reluctance
apart. The Crawfords say that they have written to the Kapurthala descendants about the
treasure and the operations but haven't received a reply. Sukhjit says the Crawfords are
yet to inform him. They are going right ahead, while mulling over an amazing coincidence
that their research has turned up. Alec's great-great uncle James Fairweather was a
physician at the Kapurthala court.
-- Paran Balakrishnan in
London and Amrith Lal in New Delhi
It's a tantalising clue in
a multi-million dollar treasure hunt. A terse newspaper story that records the sinking of
an ordinary Royal Mail steamship in the Mediterranean with an extraordinary cargo amidst
the fury of World War I in 1916: "Maharaja's $4,000,000 Jewels Lost." In March,
more than 80 years later, a hi-tech treasure hunt will begin to salvage what the New York
Times reported the maharaja, Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala, bought on a spree in New York,
and what could be worth more than $30 million (Rs 126 crore) in diamonds and gold
jewellery at today's values. Fearing German U-boat attacks, he played it safe. He put the
jewels on the steamship carrying mostly Indian army officers and civil servants while he
sailed on another boat to Cairo, intending to meet up with members of his retinue who were
escorting the jewels, in Port Said.