India, May 3 -- When New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani was asked what he would ask the visiting King Charles III of the United Kingdom, it did not take him a second to reply: "I would encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor (Mountain of Light) to India". It took seconds for this quip of the Democratic Party politician to go viral the world over. The greatest joy was that of the Punjabis for they have never forgotten the loss of the legendary diamond, 105.6 carats, one of the largest in the world which was found in India's mines some 800 years ago. Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the founder of the secular Sikh kingdom of Punjab, ruled from 1801 till he passed away in 1839. The Maharaja wore it on his forearm as a symbol of Punjab's sovereignty. It was confiscated from the crown prince, Duleep Singh, when he was but a child by the East India Company in 1849 with the annexation of Punjab. The sorrow, humiliation and deceit sat heavily on the Punjabi heart and the diamond that is a part of the British crown became a symbol of the loss. Shah Mohammad, a poet of the Sikh Raj, wrote a dirge which is still sung, "De gaye tohamatan te Kohinoor lai gaye, aas kaum di Kunwar Duleep Singh nu gore des Punjab ton door lai gaye" (Defaming us, they took away the Kohinoor, and took Kunwar Dulip Singh, hope of the people, far away from Punjab). It was thus the Punjabi blood in the veins of the New York mayor that urged him to raise the betrayal again. Mamdani is the son of famous filmmaker Mira Nair, whose roots lie in the Punjabi soil. His father Mahmud Mamdani is a Ugandan academic. His remark is also a gentle reminder of the East to the West that war crimes are never forgotten. Our lost Koh-i-Noor has journeyed from kingdom to kingdom, never being faithful to anyone and some call it ill-fated too. It is said that the journey began from Kollur mines, and then passed from one kingdom to another, often in acts of violence. It came to Babur, and the Mughals later gave it its name and set it in the Peacock Throne during the regime of Shah Jahan. Then Persian ruler Nadir Shah seized it. After his death, it passed to Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durani and then back to India through Shah Shuja Durani and finally rested on the upper arm of Maharaja Ranjit Singh to be taken away from his son by the British. Is the diamond faithful to none? To this question, Sharjil Anzar of Lahore, a former bureaucrat and active member of 'Leftover' discussion group that meets regularly at the Lawrence Gardens, which was, after all, the capital of Ranjit Singh, quips: "It has certainly served the British crown very well. They cut it further and embellished their crowns and now it is part of the UK royal collection". Anzar adds that Punjabis on both sides of the border see it as a symbol of Punjab's multi-faith and peaceful era despite constant Afghan attacks. Interestingly, several claims to Kohinoor have come from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran of rightful ownership but the British have always dismissed them due to a 'forced' treaty of 1849. Well it required Mamdani to remind them once more. From the time I joined the newspaper world, I would remember one Punjabi or the other visiting the offices to do a story on the return of the precious diamond. When Queen Elizabeth II visited the Jallianwala Bagh along with demands for an apology for the massacre, there were also cries for the return of the Kohinoor. The highways across Indian Punjab are marked by any number of resorts and dhabas named Kohinoor. Author Ranjit Powar, who recently released a novel on women of the Punjab Raj, says: "It was a period of peace and plenty from invasions and a time of entitlement and sovereignty of Punjabis and the diamond its symbol." City's veteran theatre actor Rani Balbir Kaur, who played the mother of Duleep Singh in a 1981 Punjabi play that was staged also in USA, recounts a tender folk tale: "It is said that when the British tried to take away the diamond from the young prince, he held it tight and wouldn't part with it. But when he fell asleep, the grip loosened and it was taken away". A good summing up is done by Navtej Sarna, author and former High Commisioner to the UK, who would have been the third author of 'Kohinoor' with William Dalrymple and Anita Anand but had to give it up as a diplomat. Sarna says: "For Punjab, the Kohinoor is a symbol of a stolen heritage. Its loss becomes even more poignant because of its close association with the twilight of Ranjit Singh's mighty empire and the duplicitous annexation of Punjab. Maharaja Duleep Singh was the last Indian to have worn the crown."...