India, April 7 -- By Pratika Yashaswi I've been waiting for over an hour outside the restaurant, Chicha's. We were scheduled to meet at 3 pm, butHyderabadhas its own standard time. I got Wajid's contact from a kind man months ago. Before long, he arrives on a scooter donning a colourful African-style

. He beckons my friend and I to follow. We ride through the capillaries of Hyderabad's AC Guards area and find ourselves in a tiny shed with 'KGN Arabic Duff' painted on it in bright red.

Six men are seated in the room, a handful of the last living descendants of the Hyderabadi Nizams' African Cavalry Guard. Their ancestors were brought to India from Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) hundreds of years ago. In the 18th Century, the Nizams beg...