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The Jagaji brothers have been running the family business for more than 2000 years (Photo: Chhavi Sachdev)

It seems fitting to meet the Jagaji brothers in one of Mumbai’s oldest office buildings, musty with old files and oppressive wooden cabinets. The Jagajis don’t work here — they’ve come to meet two sets of cousins — and to update the family tree.

Jaga is the brothers’ title. Nihalchand Jaga is 40 years old. Radheshyam Jaga is Nihalchand’s younger brother: he’s 38.

For the last two millennia, since the year 9 AD, the men in the Jagaji family have criss-crossed the country to update their books. The Jagas are the genealogists for the Maheshwaris — a small merchant community within a larger clan of the caste of Marwaris from the state of Rajasthan.

There are 72 original families in the Maheshwari clan. The brothers have kept track of all their births, deaths, and marriages.

Nihalchand and Radhayshyam have made Mumbai their base for a month. They’ve stayed with other Maheshwaris and updated the records for 400 families in their cloth-bound books tied in string.

Nihalchand Jagaji said it isn’t an easy job.

“Our ancestors used to travel the width and length of our country on camel. It would take a month to reach Bombay; they’d stay six months, travel around, collect lots of money and information and then return home the same way.”

Travel now is easier. But the brothers still spend fall, spring and winter on the road. In the summer and during monsoon season, they regroup in their hometown of Bhilwara and enter the notes they’ve gathered into big books called “ayiaans.”

In Bhilwara, they have 72 of these ‘bayiaans.’ Radhayshyam Jagaji said each one is about the size of a large coffee table book, weighs 110 pounds and is immaculately kept.

“Even now, if you look at the books that are hundreds of pages long, you won’t see a single strikeout or change, everything is exact and that’s what our work, our reputation is based on,” Jagaji said. “We have only facts and they’re all correct.”

His brother, Nihalchand, added: “The old records were written on leaves, then bricks, in the moodi language. The last four generations have transferred all the records on to these paper ‘baiyaans.’ We make our own pens and our own ink, which doesn’t fade or smudge because it’s made from ground charcoal ash. We then put tobacco leaves between the pages so they don’t get insects.”

The brothers said once upon a time their books were tantamount to law — admissible as proof of lineage and land ownership. They produced a laminated letter and court summons from the 1930s when their grandfather presented evidence of an adoption to help settle an inheritance dispute.

In the times of kings and noblemen, landowners and feudalism, it was your lineage that decided your vocation as well as how you dressed, what you ate, what language you spoke and whom you married. And Nihalchand Jagaji said he and his family were crucial.

“In earlier times, there were no weddings without consulting us. Not only would they ask us for suitable matches, but also ask us to verify that a family was a true Maheshwari family. Now people are educated and choose their own spouses. Today, only 50 percent of the families are still interested in arranged marriages in the clan.”

Now, with old traditions waning, the Jagajis have had to improvise. Nihalchand and Radhayshyam have come up with a sort of “who’s who” book for the Maheshwaris, each featuring 500 families with bios and photos, telephone numbers, and business information.

Vinay Somani is one of many cousins who have offices in the old Mumbai office building.

“[What they do] isn’t really important but it’s interesting,” Somani said. “It’s sometimes nice to have a sense of history; it’s nice to see how families evolve. I’m actually gratified that there are people who’re doing this. You can’t make a lot of money doing this so it’s got to be driven by passion, or commitment. Maybe they feel that as a family they’re destined for this.”

But commitment is waning among the next generation. They don’t want to travel across the country updating records, even if transportation isn’t as punishing as it once was. The Jagaji brothers expect their sons will convert the records into English and do most, if not all, of their business on the web.