Such a long journey
COMPILED BY NIMI KURIAN
The legend of Alexander the Great lives on. In Himachal Pradesh’s sleepy Malana, a cluster of 12 villages comprising eight clans, the mystique comes alive when its inhabitants proclaim themselves as descendants of the Greek king and speak a language only they can understand.
This may be unravelled soon: a Swedish university is in talks with the Institute of Tribal Studies of Himachal University is to launch a research to understand the mysterious but small population.
Uppsala University, one of the oldest institutions Nordic countries founded in 1477, and named after the town where it is located, boasts of preserving a large number of ancient symbols that have survived even today.
The Institute of Tribal Studies director P. K. Vaid says that the project had been broadly divided into two parts — trace the origin of the language that the people of Malana speak and trace the origin of the people. Alexander the Great had defeated the Indian king Porus along the banks of the Beas. After a series of campaigns on India, his soldiers felt tired and wanted to return home. Alexander, too, is said to have gone back home. Lore has it that some of his soldiers, too tired to return, preferred to settle down along the banks of the Beas and it is said residents of Malana may be their descendants.
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