centuries. The Bhawals were descended from one of the Baro Bhuiyan families. It was a fashion among the Zamindari families of those days of acquiring high-sounding titles like Roy and other honourable titles graced by their British heads. Ramendra Narayan Roy's surname of Roy was in fact a title. His original surname was Bhawal. Rumors and return In 1920, a sanyasi appeared in Buckland Bund in Dhaka covered in ashes. He sat on the street for four months and attracted attention because he was of unusually good physical stature. There were rumours that he was the returned second kumar, even when the man said that he had renounced his family. Buddhu, the son of an elder sister of the brothers, visited him but was not convinced. Some of the locals arranged for the man's visit to Joydebpur, where he arrived on 12 April 1921 on an elephant. Under public pressure, the sanyasi finally disclosed that he was Ramendra Narayan Roy, the raja of Bhawal. The sanyasi claimed that while in Darjeeling he was poisoned and a cremation was attempted. But the people hired to cremate the raja left his body unattended and not cremated because a strong hailstorm had started raging at that time. A group of naga sanyasis found him lying unconscious, took him to their abode and nursed him back to health. He recovered but had suffered memory loss and wandered India for the next 10 years. While returning from Chittagong to Dhaka in 1920, he recovered his memory and was instructed by his guru to return home. Over the following days, his sisters became convinced that this sanyasi was indeed the second kumar, but he returned to Dhaka by 25 April. Relatives invited him back to Joydebpur on 30 April, when various relatives and tenants came to see him. When the crowd questioned him, he remembered the name of his wet nurse, a fact that was not public, and so they recognised him as the second kumar of Bhawal. Popular acceptance There was considerable rural acceptance that the man was the second kumar of Bhawal. Many of his former tenants and relatives began to support him. On 15 May a large crowd gathered before the Jaidebpur Rajbari in Dhaka and announced in public that they believed that he was the returned kumar. But the kumar's widow, Bibhabati, refused to meet the claimant and regarded him as an