What are stories and facts about Nizam of Hyderabad ?

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This eccentric Indian ruler was the world's richest man. He had 86 mistresses, 100 illegitimate sons and employed 38 staff to dust palace chandeliers.

Yet the last Nizam of Hyderabad, Sir Osman Ali Khan, also knitted his own socks, wore the same patched clothes for months and cadged cigarettes from his guests.

The crumpled turban that he always wore was in stark contrast to the £50million ostrich-egg sized diamond he used as a paperweight.

He was officially called His Exalted Highness, but was nicknamed His Exhausted Highness because of his complicated lovelife.

The last Nizam was the ruler of India's largest princely state - the size of Scotland and England combined - and was the richest man in the world until he died, aged 80 in 1967.

More than 40 years later, India has finally agreed to begin negotiating a settlement between the Nizam's 470 bickering descendants over cash he left in a London bank 60 years ago

The Muslim ruler had deposited £1million in a high street bank account in 1948 just before his kingdom was taken over by India while he pondered letting his southern state become part of Pakistan.

He kept much of his fortune, but lost most of his power.

It was a drop in the ocean for him - his wealth was then estimated at £100m in gold and silver and £400m in jewels.

But £1m then has swollen to £30m now.
So as the legal wranglings begin, the legacy of the eccentric Nizam lives on in the stories of his extreme decadence... and eccentric tightfisted frugality.

There was the time he wanted a new blanket to keep him warm and ordered a servant to buy him a new one - with strict orders not to spend more than 25 rupees.The aide came back empty-handed because a new blanket cost 35 rupees .

So the Nizam made do with his threadbare old blanket.

Then there was the time he donated trunkloads of gold coins to the National Defence Fund of India and said to his workers: "I am donating the coins, not the trunks. See that they are returned."

He disciplined himself to live on the equivalent of £1 a day and smoked the cheapest brand of cigarettes, relighting and smoking the discarded butts - he once took a cigarette from an adviser, cut it in half and offered the man half back.Yet he surrounded himself in outrageous sumptuousness. It is said he owned enough pearls to pave Piccadilly Circus in London.

In one of his many palaces he had a wardrobe half a mile long, bulging with exquisite silks, brocades, damasks and fine muslins.

Another palace had a mile-long banqueting hall. In the basement of yet another palace was an underground vault full of run-down trucks and lorries

They were stuffed full of gems, pearls and gold coins.

Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan of Hyderabad donated 5,000 kg of gold to the National Defence Fund in the aftermath of the 1965 war with Pakistan.

The Nizam, terrified of a revolution or takeover of his state, made plans to transport his wealth out of the country. But then he grew bored with the idea and left the lorries to rot.

In 1955, when he heard that mice had nibbled away £3m of old banknotes stored in trunks in a palace cellar, he shrugged off the loss.

The Prime Minister’s Office, under which the National Defence Fund functions, responded to this reporter’s RTI query that it has no information of any such donation.

But he also had a sensible side. He was taught English, Urdu and Persian and is credited as being the genius architect of modern-day Hyderabad, which is now one of the biggest cities in India.

According to popular lore, Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan is said to have given 5,000 kg of gold to Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri during his visit to Hyderabad in 1965. The Prime Minister was touring the country to raise funds to steady the post-war economy. The story goes that after donating the gold, the Nizam asked only that the boxes containing the precious metal be returned.

His rule saw the expansion of roads, railways and the postal system, established universities, hospitals and factories.