A pair of 200-year-old embroidered Mughal slippers belonging to an Indian "princess" has set an Australian delegate to the Commonwealth Games on a Cinderella hunt in India.
The pair of traditional hand-crafted "jootis" had been passed down to Australian delegate Eric Ronald's family in the early 1800s.
It is believed that the shoes belonged to an Indian woman, an early family ancestor, who was "quite possibly a princess", Ronald said.
The Indian princess had married an English officer during the British Raj. Their wards later settled in Australia. Briefing the media in the capital on Wednesday, Ronald said: "For generations, my family in Australia had treasured a pair of beautiful slippers, knowing only that they once belonged to a distant ancestor, an Indian princess, the daughter of a maharajah or a nawab." "Although her name has been lost in time, she was remembered as the daughter of an Indian ruler (perhaps Saadat Ali Khan II, Nawab of Oudh between 1798-1814, according to oral history)," Ronald said. However, much was recorded about the family of Ronald's ancestor, an English officer Samuel Need, who served in India, in the early 1800s. "Samuel Need's second son Johnston Need was settled in Australia and was buried at Tower Hill, Victoria. Johnston's birth details (and those of his siblings) list his mother only as "a native" - the princess, who probably owned the shoes," Ronald said. "I hope we can uncover the mystery of the slippers while I am here," the CWG delegate from Australia said. Ronald added that his filial ties with India probably explained his "love for garlic naan and dal makhani". Australian high commissioner Peter Varghese, in a statement here, said: "The shoes and the magical story have been cherished by an Australian family for generations".