WHATSAPP Shared: The phrase “Phuddoo Khata” refers to lawlessness, chaos, embezzlement, misappropriations and specially compromising deserving people’s rights in Indo- Pak. I always wondered about the origin of the phrase, but was surprised how venerable and pious were its origins.
Forwarding as received:
Few years ago I was with some Hyderabadi (Deccan) friends probing their culture. For them Nizam Usman is a god. The greatest philanthropist, greatest Muslim leader of subcontinent ever, a human with unmatched values etc etc etc Even a slight criticism or fault finding by a person like would constitute blasphemy.
Describing his kindness, I was told he had 303 wives and 1760 children and he treated them equally. (both numbers easy to remember, bullet, yards in a mile). He founded Usmania University, the unmatched tower of learning of entire India.
I intervened by asking, did he established the university for his own 1760 kids or for the general public. Ignoring my question, I was told that any day one of his wives delivered a baby, a loud gunfire informed the city of the arrival of the newborn. On some days people heard multiple cannon fires signifying more than one delivery since he had 303 wives. I was warned for my subdued laughter.
Since he treated every wife equally it was imperative that each wife be assigned her nuptial appointment with Nizam. For this purpose a special department headed by equivalent of grade 20 officer was created which handled the appointments.
Appointments were entered in a register. Name, date, duration etc and strictly followed with honesty.
Every wife almost had to wait a year for her turn.
Since it was the ultimate desire to make her child possible heir to Nizam.
As we all subcontinentians are, corruption set in. Women secretly started bribing that grade 20 officer for prioritizing their appointments in the sacred sex register. That register was officially called ‘phuddoo khata’, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, by the time the masses heard about it, the phrase was overly corrupted -courtesy that grade 20 officer.
Noteworthy: Since Nizam was a good Muslim and very afraid of adultery, he used to check the ID card of his wife. For that reason, he is also credited with the ID card idea.
