The Dancer and the Raja

by Javier Moro

  But these tactics do not work for the maharaja. Gita, like the other women, is upset by Anita’s role as “lady of the house.”

  “She wants to be treated as the official maharani,” she dares to say to her father-in-law one day.

  “I sent you to France so you could become a modern woman and I’m beginning to realize I’ve wasted my money,” the maharaja answers, angry and disillusioned at his daughter-in-law’s attitude. “The years you spent in Europe have not made you more open-minded. They were wasted.”

  Gita later said, “I did not answer him, but I would willingly have told him that I was shocked at the cold, insensitive way he treated his wives. I had caught Harbans Kaur crying on more than one occasion over the wedding preparations. If I’d had to make a huge sacrifice to accept the responsibilities of my marriage and my position, as the highest authority in the state, he should have been capable of doing the same.”

  In the midst of all this palace intrigue, Anita tries to keep her calm and not lose sight of her aims. She would like to go unnoticed and be invisible if possible, but her husband does not let her. He needs her, as was proved during the wedding. Fearful that the women’s anger may be taken out on her son, Anita worries about the safety of little Ajit. At nights she has trouble sleeping again and she is full of anxiety. She is the victim of nightmares in which she always sees herself running away with the baby in her arms, fleeing from a vague danger that finally catches her by the throat and wakes her up suddenly, soaked in sweat and tears. Only the sweet, serene presence of Dalima manages to get her back to sleep. The fairy-tale story of the curtain raiser at the Kursaal is turning nasty. She does not know what to do to change the direction events are taking. The weapons she has at her disposal, her frankness and spontaneity, are no good in this war.

  For the first time in his life Ratanjit, until now a docile son with a complex about the paternal figure in his life, decides to face up to his father.

  “My mother has asked me to intercede with you for you to reinstate her rank.”

  “No one has taken away her rank.”

  “You know what I’m referring to. That Spanish woman acts as though she were the maharani of Kapurthala. My mother feels bitterly rejected. I’m asking you to behave according to our traditions, as the rest of us do.”

  “The woman that you so disrespectfully call ‘that Spanish woman’ is my wife. I am just as married to her as you are to Gita.”

  “She’s your fifth wife.”

  “So what? She is the woman with whom I share my life. And I have given her the title of maharani. Your mother is faithful to purdah, and I don’t reproach her for it, but we have evolved differently. I’ve told you a thousand times, but you don’t seem to want to understand. Do you perhaps think your mother could have organized your wedding, for example? Could she have attended all our European guests? I need a woman who is free of the ties of purdah at my side. I thought my son would be able to understand that. But I can see not, that he is only capable of sticking his nose into his father’s private affairs in order to criticize.”

  “My husband and I often discussed the problem” Gita would say. “As a princess brought up in the Hindu tradition, I could not accept my father-in-law’s behavior. As a woman, I was upset at my husband’s mother’s suffering, whose heart was broken by the maharaja’s rejection. At the end of all our deliberations, a decision was made: we could not accept his marriage to the Spanish woman. We informed my father-in-law that from then on we refused to have anything to do with Anita and that we would not be present at the celebrations and receptions that we knew she would be attending.”

  A drastic decision of this kind is a humiliating blow for the maharaja. His son has taken his mother’s side. To a certain extent this is logical, but it was not necessary. The maharaja is not against his first wife. The fact that he does not share his life with her or with his other wives does not mean that he has abandoned them. He would never do that, and therefore he is annoyed at being accused of precisely that. He knows his son well and he knows that he is incapable of standing up to his father in that way, and so he attributes the insolence of his behavior to his daughter-in-law’s influence. High-caste Hindu princesses, imbued with prejudices regarding their superiority, take the divine origin of their lineage very seriously. From Sikhism and its precepts about equality among men they have learned nothing.

  But life has many ups and downs, and in the same way as he has put all his efforts into making Gita into the future maharani of Kapurthala, Jagatjit trusts that one day the opportunity may come for him to repay such ingratitude.

  During the two weeks of festivities around the Durbar, princes, clan chiefs, representatives of the provincial governments, Indian aristocrats, the British community, and the foreign guests, plus eighty thousand soldiers, invade the city of Delhi, whose population increases from two hundred and fifty thousand to half a million. It is a marvel of organization. The English have set up forty thousand tents, built seventy kilometers of new roads, forty kilometers of railway, eighty kilometers of water channels, and a gigantic amphitheater with space for a hundred thousand people. The emperor’s enclosure has two hundred and thirty-three tents, fitted with marble fireplaces, panels of carved mahogany, gold dishes, and crystal lamps. The others, equally luxurious, house the different royal households with their own entourages of courtiers, assistants, guests, servants, grooms, and so one. Each enclosure is different. The raja of Jamnagar’s tent is covered in oyster shells, the symbol of his state on the shores of the Arabian Sea. At the entrance to the raja of Rewa’s enclosure, two splendid tame tigers stand guard. This raja has requested permission to offer them as a gift to the emperor during the ceremony, but has been wisely refused.

  Around the tents there are gardens in which roses have been planted in the colors of each state, lawns with avenues that are perfectly looked after, pools, parks, polo fields, stables for horses and elephants, parking space for landaus, carriages and cars, and the thirty-six railway stations for the private trains of the princes. Anita is impressed. She notes in her diary: “I had never seen so many gold thrones in all my life, so many elephants decked out in precious stones, so many solid silver carriages. And the Rolls-Royces! … Never in any event before have so many Rolls-Royces been seen parked one next to the other. God alone knows how much such a display cost with so many kings, each concerned to appear richer and more powerful than all the others.”

  The parties take place one after another at a dizzy pace: garden parties, purdah parties for the ladies, games of polo, and public and private entertainment of all kinds. Harbans Kaur attends the reception held by Queen Mary, accompanied by her daughter-in-law, Gita, who acts as interpreter for her when the sovereign asks them a few courtesy questions. Anita, of course, is not invited to the official receptions. This is not Calcutta and, although she would like to greet the governor of Bengal and his wife, she could not even get close to them. Once again, her case has aroused a copious exchange of letters between different civil servants. In the end, a letter from the viceroy to the secretary of state for India, in London, has solved the situation as follows: “No invitation will be sent to Prem Kaur of Kapurthala to attend the garden party which Her Majesty the Queen will hold for the wives of the princes, but she will be accommodated at any act where there is no possibility of her meeting, or being presented to Their Majesties. As for the Durbar, she will be given a seat at the back of the amphitheatre and she may attend the coronation ceremony like any unofficial spectator.”17

  The Durbar, as such, takes place on December 12, 1911. The spectacle is unforgettable for all those present: for the peasant who has walked for days to see his emperor, for the young men dressed in white cotton cloth perched among the branches of the trees, for the twelve-year-old girls with their babies in their arms, and also for the emperor and empress, who find themselves facing an ocean of green, yellow, mauve, blue, and orange turbans that stretches as far
as the horizon. “This is the most wonderful thing I have ever seen,” George V would declare, sitting by his wife on a solid gold throne on a stage well above the level of the crowds, his shoulders covered in a cape of ermine and protected from the blazing sun by a purple and gold canopy. It is the view of a man who knows that, without India, Great Britain would not be the largest empire the world has ever known, or the number one power in the world.

  The places of honor are occupied by the princes, followed by their relatives and members of the nobility, dressed in their gala clothes of brocade and gold. Each of the maharajas is wearing the most famous jewels in his treasure. Jagatjit Singh is wearing his enameled sword decorated with precious stones and an emerald as big as a plum in the brooch on his turban; Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, a diamond chest-piece; the maharaja of Gwalior, a pearl belt, and so on. George V appears wearing the new imperial crown of India, sparkling with sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, the work of the jeweler Garrard, who has charged sixty thousand pounds for that gift from the Indians to their emperor. In order that the ceremony should not seem like a second coronation, which would imply a service of religious consecration, inappropriate owing to the presence of so many Hindus and Moslems, the Royal Household has taken the decision for the King to appear already wearing the crown and for him to receive the homage of the princes sitting opposite his throne.

  One by one, the rajas and nawabs approach the dais, climb the steps, bow before the emperor, and there is a brief exchange of gifts and “honors.” The first are the more important sovereigns: Hyderabad, Kashmir, Mysore, Gwalior, and Baroda, whose states have a right to the supreme honor of a twenty-one-gun salute. Then come those with nineteen-gun salutes, and after that, those with seventeen-, fifteen-, thirteen-, eleven-, and nine-gun salutes. The begum of Bhopal, the sovereign of a small Moslem state situated in the middle of India, is the only woman among so many princes. In spite of her appearance, covered from head to toe in a white silk burqa, she has a reputation for being fair and progressive and has made Bhopal into one of the most advanced states in India.

  The spectacle is long and magnificent, and it takes place at a stately rhythm, like the steps of an elephant. This time Anita is not next to her husband. It is better that way, since it is preferable to having to be next to Harbans Kaur and the other wives. To the irritation of the English officers in charge of protocol, the maharaja of Kashmir has invited her to watch the ceremony from the place reserved for his family. No Englishman dares to bother the maharaja of one of the most important states of India about the problem caused by the place the Spanish woman occupies, as she is his guest. And so there arises the paradoxical situation that Anita finds herself closer to the emperor and empress and in a better position than the Kapurthala delegation.

  The British wanted to make the occasion more important with something more than just a grandiose spectacle. For the first visit of an English King to India they wanted to add something able to capture the people’s imagination, something to mark a new era in the history of the country. They have kept the idea secret until the last minute. Only twelve people in the whole of India are aware of it. Not even the Queen knew until she arrived in Bombay. At the closing of the Durbar, the emperor unveils the surprise: the capital of the empire is to be moved from Calcutta to Delhi. It will be like in the times of the great Moghul emperors again. He adds that he has charged the architect and city planner, Edwin Lutyens, with the design of an imperial city on the outskirts of the old town center. The new capital will be called New Delhi, and it will be the pride of India, the new bright star that will cast its light into the farthest corners of the subcontinent.

  The architects of the Pax Britannica conclude the celebrations of the glory of the empire by declaring war on animals, practicing the most exclusive and prestigious of all sports, which, furthermore, is the prerogative of princes: tiger hunting. The emperor, who is going to spend the New Year in Nepal, kills twenty-four of these felines, and, as proof of his near perfect physical condition, he demonstrates his prowess by firing simultaneously at a tiger with a gun in one arm and a bear with a gun in the other. And he hits both of them. To round things off, he leaves eighteen rhinos dead behind him.

  The flamboyant maharaja of Kapurthala sends all his family home along with a large part of his entourage and goes off with Anita to Kotah, in Rajputana, invited by Maharaja Umed Singh, who is famous for the hunting parties he likes to organize. What a wonderful surprise for Anita to find herself in a lift that takes her up the five floors in the medieval palace in the city where the prince has put them up! “The Maharajah of Kotah is a very intelligent man with quite liberal ideas,” says Anita of this personage who incorporated a modern electric lift in his palace, although, when she gets to know him better, she adds, “but he is still too orthodox to sit down and eat in the company of people who do not belong to his caste.” Kotah is known for offering a unique spectacle, the fight between a wild boar and a tiger, in which the nobles sometimes bet large sums of money. Anita and her husband witness the spectacle from above a pit, but she excuses herself before the end, because the dreadful blood and gore turn her stomach. What she really enjoys is tiger hunting, which she sees at dawn from the deck of a steamboat sailing slowly up the waters of a river amid a wild, rocky countryside. Her husband shoots a tiger and manages to kill it. “His Highness’s emotion was indescribable and the joy of the beaters was so great that they even came up to him to kiss his feet.” For princes, killing a tiger is always a moment of intense rejoicing. It is a throwback to olden times, when the princes practiced this sport, considered as the most elite of all, in order to know how to defend themselves and keep themselves ready for war. Nowadays, for young aristocrats, killing their first tiger is considered as an initiation rite to pass into life as an adult. The maharaja of Kotah killed his first tiger when he was thirteen, from his bedroom window, which gives an idea of the number of animals that inhabited the jungles of India. He became famous for being able to drive a vehicle with one hand and shoot with the other and always hit the mark.

  For Anita the shikar18—an activity that does not exclude women—is a revelation. The excitement of hearing the prey approaching, and the fear of missing and leaving the animal injured, is less important than everything that surrounds the hunt. Life in open-air camps, conversation at night around the campfire, and the complete peace and calm of the countryside and the jungle are the image of another India, in which men and women relate to each other in simple terms, as though Nature were an antidote for all the obstacles placed between them by society.

  17 Proceedings of the Foreign Department No. 46 (British Library, London).

  18 To go on a shikar is to go hunting.

  32

  After all the excitement of Delhi, Anita is happy to go back to a quiet life in Kapurthala. With Ratanjit and Gita’s departure for Villa Buona Vista, and the other sons leaving for England, only the small central core of the family is left in the palace, consisting of Jagatjit, who since the Great Durbar everyone calls maharaja, Anita, and little Ajit. Horse rides, shopping trips to Lahore, and games of tennis once again mark the rhythm of a peaceful and luxurious life. In spite of its size, the palace does not give the impression of being cold or overwhelming because it is an ants’ nest of activity. All the ministers attend daily to present their reports or problems to the maharaja, who receives them in his office. Interviews are granted, decisions are made, and meetings and conferences are organized. The basement is overflowing with accountants, financial experts, treasurers, and administrators of all kinds.

  Anita takes great care of her corner of the garden. She has planted it with aromatic plants, flowers, and tomatoes for gazpacho. In the shade of her rose garden she writes every day in her diary, in some leather-bound notebooks, in tall, spiky writing. She does it because her husband has asked her to, and she writes in French so that he can read it. She has gotten used to the paternal love the maharaja profe
sses for her and, although at times she has been tempted to reproach him for the wheeling and dealing that went on with regard to her marriage, she now understands that he is a man who is used to giving orders and buying anything he likes: palaces, cars, horses, ministers, women … She loves him a little like she might love a banker who opens up the fortune in his basement for her. He has given her splendid jewels so that she can be even more beautiful and resplendent, and also to justify his whim for this sudden love to his family and to his world. He wanted her to be pretty, sparkling, attractive, and irresistible. Together they represent a new image of Kapurthala. But Anita does not overvalue the sentimental side of the presents; her husband is so rich that the fact alone does not mean much of a sacrifice for him. Besides, she has rather lost her idea of the value of money. For her the pendants, earrings, brooches, and rings make up her security and perhaps one day her freedom, even though she might live in a world where that word does not mean much for a woman.

  Apart from writing in her diary, where she does not note down any intimate thoughts, Anita keeps up a correspondence with her old speech teacher in Málaga, Narciso Diaz. He sends her long letters full of questions about life in India. Once, regarding Hindu customs, Anita tells him, “There are princes who, when you shake their hand, go running off to wash it for fear they have touched someone of an inferior caste.” She avoids answering questions about the maharaja’s other wives, and she no longer signs, as she did in the early days, “Anita Delgado, now Princess of Kapurthala.” Now she is “Prem Kaur of Kapurthala.”