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Dear Readers, 

                     Whosoever resides in India has some story or the other about his or hers history or origin. Last evening I was chilling out with a bunch of senior fellas. A group of studs who lead a full and adventurous life dedicated to travel and camping. It was such a feast to share their jokes, anecdotes and glory-tales. It was amidst such company that I got to know a person from Delhi. 

                  He was a well-read, well-traveled Jat man who hails from a place called Mongolpuri. He narrated several stories about his childhood and his experiences of growing in a Delhi that was much smaller than the current humongous metropolis it has become now. He told us that how many decades ago, the limits of Delhi's urban habitations was the Delhi darwaza and places like Munnirka, Chatarpur, Mehrauli, Mahipalpur etc were tiny villages dispersed across the countryside. Also, that he belonged to a sub-clan of Jats called Sikand which owes its name to a place called Shiv-khand in the Himalayas from where they migrated into the plains.
                      Later at night, the historical imaginations about Delhi of the past continued to frequent my mind. I remembered vaguely the fact that how Mongolpuri was itself inhabited by a colony of Mongols who were settled there by the Delhi Sultans to check the threat of Mongol invaders from the north-west. Imagine the season of November AD 1415,  one can see  Jats and Mongols of Mongolpuri marching steadily towards Tughlaqabad to enlist into the Imperial army of the Sultans. One among them happens to be the ancestor of my new friend......