...The Gelbu Special was designed after a villager khukuri from the village of Udhaipur, currently in my posssession. I've often wondered if this prototype was the work of old Ganga Ram, who hailed from the same village.
The prototype is very much lighter than the HI Gelbu Special model inspired by its design. It is one of my favorite working blades. After years of use and abuse it has a big epoxy and sawdust patch on the handle to repair a chip where I dropped it on the concrete, and a blob of JB Weld on the butt end where the keeper came off.
I took this to a rendezvous of knife guys and they wanted to see how their various expensive knives (a couple Busse's, some other comparable) compared with chopping. I brought out my khukuris and they wouldn't even let most of them into the competition. They were so obviously choppers that it wouldn't have been interesting. However, they did let the littlest one, the little Udhaipur villager, compete. It was still the best chopper.
You can read about it at
http://www.himalayan-imports.com/faq/Styles2.htm . Scroll down to Udhaipur.
The artists at HI obviously took some liberties with the design, beefing it up considerably to become the Gelbu Special.