While preparations are afoot for young Jyotiraditya Scindia's coronation as the new symbolic king of the erstwhile Gwalior royalty, the city is already agog with talks about a curse that many believe in hounding the royal family for generations.

Jyotiraditya's illustrious father and India's leading opposition leader Madhavrao Scindia died in a plane crash last Sunday along with seven others.

Ironically, while Madhavrao Scindia was hailed as a young politician with a bright political career ahead of him, locals point out that at 56, he lived the longest ever since Mahadaji Scindia established his kingdom in the central India 280 years ago.

Scindia's father Jiwajirao Scindia, the last ruler of Gwalior, had died at 44 of a mystery illness.

Locals here say that there is a need for the Scindias to do away with some of their old traditions like naming their princes with alphabets 'M' and 'J' in the alternate generations. They point out that all kings with their names starting with the alphabet 'M' have died in accident. Scindia's grandfather named Madhaivrao Scindia had died in a sea accident.

Besides death through accident in alternate generations, another curse running in the family is supposed to be that all kings would only have one son. Jyotiraditya, the ninth generation of Scindias, too has one son.

According to Goswami Ramswarup Upmani, a priest associated with the Gwalior royalty for the last 45 years, the first Gwalior king Mahadaji Scindia incurred wrath of a saint who gave him and his army shelter when he first came to the Gwalior region from Marathwada (now Maharashtra).

The story goes that the saint gave a roti (bread) to Mahadaji with instruction that he should make his queen eat it.

The queen, however, ate only half of it, which infuriated the saint who said that while his seven generations would rule Gwalior, no king would survive beyond 55 years of age and that they would not have more than one son. Jiwajirao Scindia was the seventh generation Scindia when the State was incorporated in the Indian republic following its freedom from the British rule in 1947.

The locals, who are still emotionally attached with the royalty, now want the royal family to do away from two of their traditions. Besides stopping using 'M' to name alternate princes, they also want the family to stop cremating their dead on Thursdays.

Thursday, many point out, is not considered an auspicious day to cremate a dead body according to Hindu belief. Scindia himself was requested by many not to cremate his politician mother Vijayaraje Scindia on a Thursday in January this year.

Scindia, however, insisted on following the family tradition. The family once again insisted on following the tradition when Scindia's cremation was postponed by a day from the originally scheduled Wednesday.

"It could be a curse or mere co-incidence, but the fact remains that our kings have been dying quite young and that none of them had more than one son. May be, it is time for the royal family to break from their past traditions and make a fresh beginning," Pradeep Sengar, a local television journalist feels.