The lake was a haven in the winter for migrating birds like mallards, teal, pochards and pintails that flocked to the lake for almost four months in the winter, making for great shooting for the family and their guests. Gajner also played host to what is considered the king amongst the grouse, the Imperial sand grouse which migrates here in the winter months, flying in all the way from their breeding grounds in Siberia. Maharaja Ganga Singh was adept at what became known as ‘grouse diplomacy’: he invited the great and the good from all parts of India and Europe to visit Gajner during the Christmas-New Year period and entertained his guests lavishly; not surprisingly, the invitations to visit Gajner were eagerly sought after. It was here with an atmosphere of easy bonhomie and beautiful natural surroundings that friendships were cemented, deals made and favours sought or returned. Great grandfather had perfected the art of grouse diplomacy and used it astutely to his advantage, or I should say, to the advantage of the Bikaner since he did not require any personal favours.
The most important event was the Christmas breakfast shoot that occurred along the lake shore and the highland area. The grouse flew to the lake in the early morning for a drink and I recall vividly, the great dense clouds of grouse that used to come in—millions of birds would arrive in wave after wave to the lake shore. Shooting butts were dotted along the high ground area and the lake front. The more important guests got the best butts with the grouse flying in directly overhead and the rest had to manage with butts further away and rely on their marksmanship. After the shoot the birds would be counted and tallied and then the hunting party would retire to the palace for a hearty English breakfast.
After the shoot, the birds were kept in a large frozen chest at Lallgarh and my father sent a brace of them to all his Parliamentary colleagues and golfing friends in Delhi including the then Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi who always remembered to thank him for his gift. Once when he read in the newspapers that an atomic test had been conducted in the Siberian region by the Soviets, he was wary of letting us eat the grouse and being pernickety, he even bought a Geiger counter and each bird was tested before it reached the table.
C.W Waddington in his memoirs of India writes about just such a grouse shoot:
‘The sport of Kings at Gajner is the shooting of the Imperial sand grouse as they came whirling down in the early morning hours from the desert plateau round the lake to drink for a brief moment from its waters. Pack after pack, they rise above the distant horizon, and wing their way, swift as driven partridges or grouse to where the lines of guns are waiting in their butts along the lake side.’
Shooting duck was much more demanding than shooting grouse; the instant the first shot was fired, the birds would leave the lake and start flying in ever increasing circles – an account that is endorsed by C.W. Waddington:
‘On the surface of the lake duck and teal cluster in little colonies; round the gently sloping shores are thick groves of feathery mimosas under which herds of black buck and wild pigs may be seen wandering.’
I was never much good at shooting duck, though in the season we trawled one small lake after another in the hope of shooting a few for the table, but when my father was shooting duck with pin point accuracy it was my task to retrieve the birds; quite clearly, I did not stand a chance matching him, he made it look so easy when in fact, it was nothing of the kind. He could, without any effort, shoot a duck when it was a mere speck in the sky. I have even seen him shoot a coin flipped in the air in the true Wild West style!
There were times when even the best shot was not able to make a clean kill. This was of course, extremely distressing both for the bird and also for the hunter. It was the common to swiftly twist its neck to end its suffering, however awful it may sound. Most times this worked perfectly. On one occasion however, when I was seven years of age, and went out on a shoot, a wounded grouse landed close to the car where only my father’s chauffeur, Raivant Singh and I were standing. He of course, being a chauffeur was clueless as to how to deal with this situation. Anyway, he felt the moment required him to step into the breach and dispatch the poor grouse. Not knowing how to do this, he put his foot on the bird and pressed hard. Fortunately someone came up just then, stopped him and dealt with the bird in the correct way and chastised the him: ‘Not in front of the child,’ he said. I still recall the immense distress that I felt watching this, and though I did not say so, it is an awful memory that has endured till today.
Wild boar was and still remains a common sight and some of them were quite large and handsome specimens. Hunting boar was fairly common during the winter months and this involved hair- raising rides in a bouncing jeep. In the early days, there was a full complement of staff in Gajner in the time of my grandfather: there was a fully functioning shikar (hunting) department and a camel on which the shikari went about scouting for wildlife. Hukam Singh was the principal shikari. He was an elderly, handsome Rajput with a weather beaten face that was deeply lined, and a curling grey moustache. Before a proposed hunt he or one of his assistants was sent off on camel back to scout for wild boar. The reason the camel was used was so that big game did not get scared off as they would have done by the noise of an approaching vehicle.
Once a confirmed report came in of a sighting we would all pile into a jeep with Thakur Devi Singh of Malasar (or ‘Kaka’ as we called him) at the wheel. He was excellent at manoeuvring the uneven ground and following the boar through rough patches and stubble. My father would sit in the front and when he allowed me to shoot I would stand in front of him and he would keep his hand on my back to steady me while I held on grimly to a bar specially installed there for me to steady myself, as I was quite small. Shooting a moving target while the vehicle is also bouncing around is very difficult, but sometimes I was lucky.
The normal practise when a boar was shot was to keep some for the table and distribute the rest to the shikaris (huntsmen) and staff. On one particular occasion when I was quite young and was euphoric with my first kill, it seems that when the order was given to share the boar among the staff I remonstrated loudly and said it was mine and I was going to keep it all, much to the amusement of all including the shikaris.
Recently, when I was reading the biography of Coco Chanel by Justine Picardie, I came across the chapter recounting an anecdote where Coco often visited the then Duke of Westminster who was a close personal friend of hers and also considered to be one of the richest men in the country. He had homes all over the world, and all of which were perfectly organised and maintained at all times:
‘On the moors of Scotland, the grouse are ready to be shot, or the salmon to be fished; at the same moment, in the forest of Villers-Cotterets or in the Landes, the stalkers who track the wild boar or stags have only to saddle their horses to prepare the way and pick up the right scents.’
And so it was in Gajner at the time of Maharaja Ganga Singhji—every detail was thought of and every effort was made to make the experience of his guests as perfect as possible.
CW Waddington was at one time the principal of Rajkumar College in Rajkot and also Mayo College in Ajmer. He visited Bikaner for one of Maharaja Ganga Singh’s famous Christmas grouse shoots and has recorded in his memoirs, Indian India in which he goes on to say:
‘To spend Christmas at Bikaner as a guest of His Highness the Maharaja is like an “Arabian Nights” entertainment, when every wish of the fortunate visitor is anticipated by the ADCs who can only be compared to the genii of Aladdin’s lamp.’
The compliment is not entirely surprising since Maharaja Ganga Singhji’s staff was extremely well trained and their boss kept a strict eye on their performance at all times: after all, they were representing him and he was the head of the Bikaner State.
My uncle M.K. Ranjitsinh of Wankaner a wildlife enthusiast and who during his Government service devoted his life to the preservation of the Indian wildlife, he was also the person primarily charged with producing the Wildlife Protection Act which is in many ways crucial for the su
rvival of the Indian flora and fauna in the sub continent today. In his book “Wildlife in Princely India he writes of great grandfather and Gajner ‘Rajputana, now Rajasthan, consisted almost entirely of princely states. The centre stage here for shikar was taken by Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner and his family. The main animal persued was the blackbuck, which reached its maximum horn proportions in Bikaner and in neighbouring Punjab. Before Ganga Singhji brought the Ganga Canal from the Sutlej River to irrigate the northern parts of Bikaner, Hanumangarh and Suratgarh held some of the largest concentrations of this antelope in India.”
It is very simplistic to blame the princes for the erosion of animal wildlife in the country. This is an uninformed and ignorant point of view. There is no denying that the princes enjoyed hunting and shooting: it was a passion among aristocratic circles not only in India but all over the world. However, since they loved the sport they also, at the same time, took all possible measures to ensure that the animals were protected so that their numbers could increase and thrive and the forests and their breeding grounds were maintained. They made sure that they did not shoot female animals or birds during the breeding season. Both in the case of animals and wild birds there was a very strict ‘open’ and ‘closed season’ and during the closed season there was absolutely no hunting allowed. Wild life was both prolific and healthy.
In Gajner, during the summer months when the lake dried up, large blocks of salt were placed by the side of the lake so that the animals could use it as a lick and gain the minerals that they needed to replenish their reserves. At the very centre of the lake was a much deeper area which was called the ‘fish pond’– even when most or all of the lake had dried up, there was always water to be found in the fish pond and it is here that the turtles and fish retreated during the peak summer months when the rest of the lake was bone dry.
Now anyone with a jeep and a gun – legal or otherwise – can go out and illegally shoot both animals and wild birds without any hesitation. There are strict laws in place to protect Indian wild life. However, that is in reality the mere tip of the iceberg of what is really going on. Rampant poaching continues at a frightening rate in every single animal reserve and sanctuary in India. Rhinos are indiscriminately killed for their horns, tigers are mercilessly shot for their skin, teeth, bones and other parts for the Chinese market, all manner of birds, animals and mammals are smuggled on demand out of the country, endangered creatures are being hunted to extinction, not to mention the exceedingly strange and bizarre animals that are in demand on oriental tables to include the poor little pangolin, whose population is decling rapidly.
It is a grave problem that cannot be wished away. The habitat of the animals and birds is fast being eroded by the mining industry mafia, swathes of forest have been cut for timber trade, and all of this has continued since Independence and goes on unabated. The princes are no longer hunting as it is now against the law, yet wildlife is still vanishing at an alarming rate, so is it really fair to blame them for the loss of wildlife in the country? The very idea is not only preposterous but quite frankly risible.
My father, besides being very particular about the safety aspects of hunting, was also most concerned that the weapons that we used were right for our age and size. He maintained that if the gun was not suited to the age and size of the person using it, it could lead to jibbing and freezing besides of course damaging one’s shoulder physically. I was initiated in the field of hunting with an elegant little 410 shotgun which once belonged to my grandfather. It was light and easy to use—despite that, there were times when my father had to hold the barrel of the gun so that I could keep my balance while shooting. In my teens I was given a pair of 20 Bore Automatic Winchesters and finally graduated to 12 Bore Remington Automatic shot guns, which my father specially bought for me when he was visiting the United States. Later, I also used them for clay pigeon trap shooting.
Before handing any guns over to us, we were taught gun safety. As far as my father was concerned, this was the most important lesson to learn. There had been, in the past, a near-fatal accident in which my grandfather had been injured. The incident happened in Gajner when he, as a young man accompanied Maharaja Ganga Singh and some foreign guests on a wild boar shoot. One of the European guests was completely overtaken by the excitement of it all and did not pay attention to the safety aspect. His random shot grazed my grandfather’s arm: it could have been a serious accident but fortunately, it was only a surface wound. It is said that Thakur GopSingh who was appointed guardian to my father and his siblings and who happened to be sitting in my grandfather’s jeep at the time, leapt out and attempted to strangle the hapless shooter but was stopped just in time by Maharaja Ganga Singh, who intervened before an un- diplomatic incident took place.
When shooting parties were using both 12 Gauge Shotguns and 20 Gauge ones at the same time, my father would strongly emphasise the danger of mixing up the shells of the two. Since the 20 bore shell is slimmer and lighter than the 12 Gauge cartridges, if it is put by mistake into a 12 Gauge Shotgun it slips into the barrel and when the trigger is pressed, it causes a dangerous explosion within the barrel which can badly hurt or even kill the shooter. We were diligently taught this lesson and learned to be careful when loading our guns.
A poem by Mark Beaufoy written in 1902 when he presented his eldest son Henry Mark with his first gun comes to mind:
‘If a sportsman true you’d be
Listen carefully to me...
Never, never let your gun
Pointed be at anyone.
That it may unloaded be
Matters not the least to me.’
Whether a gun is a safe weapon or not depends on the person who is handling it. Fully aware of the accident that nearly killed his father, gun safety was the first thing that my father taught us all: you had to respect the weapon and use it with responsibility, if not as Mark Bufoy so succinctly puts it:
‘You may kill or you may miss
But at all times think this:
“All the pheasants ever bred
Won’t repay for one man dead.”
Gajner, of course, was the greatest treat of all during our holidays when almost a small army of people—cooks, maidservants and guardians—relocated there for a week or ten days. Gajner to me has always been the perfect place in the world to relax and unwind. Great grandfather modernised Dungar Niwas which overlooks the lake and with his usual style he made sure that it was perfectly furnished and had at hand every amenity his guests may require, including a swimming pool, billiard room, and tennis and squash courts. Because of its proximity to water, the gardens in Gajner have a wider variety of trees, flowers, and shrubs than in Bikaner or indeed even a few miles away. The most fascinating part of the gardens are the massive Banyan trees—some must be hundreds of years old with wide girths of over twelve to thirteen feet in diameter and thick, ropey aerial roots, which while they are still in mid-air, are perfect to swing on and that is precisely what we used to do as children. The peaceful air of Gajner was often punctuated with Tarzan-like yells.
Once the Privy Purses were abolished, it became impossible to maintain a huge estate like Gajner. In the past, parts of the lake were dug annually to ensure that the water remained at a certain level, and to remove the weeds that grew thickly in the water, because if this was not done and the different channels that fed the lake were not cleared routinely, then the levels of water would fall. This meant that the lake water dried up more quickly once the summer months arrived, the water supply would diminish and the wildlife would be the first to suffer. Soon after the abolition of the Privy Purses and knowing that the princes were bad news at that point of time, one officious Chief Minister of Rajasthan passed an Act to acquire several properties belonging to the princes. All princely states suffered, and in the case of Bikaner, they decided to acquire the outer complex at Gajner as well as the lake.
That period was a dark one for the princes, when most ministers thought that that they were fair
game and open to harassment, more so in the case of my father, as he had always been in the Opposition to the Congress Party. Being an independent MP, he was loved and respected by his people. I suspect that their plan was to see how far they could go to harass the princes who were in the Opposition. Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur was even briefly jailed for some extremely petty trumped up charge. It was the most blatant abuse of authority. Bikaner was a feather in the cap of the then chief minister, an act that he thought would win him good marks on his report sheet from the Centre.
The Rajasthan Government brought in a couple of rangers to patrol the estate who needless to say were completely ineffective. While this time of flux lasted, the well-preserved wire fences had broken at many points and the wild animals roamed freely all around the countryside. Poaching became rife. All manner of people arrived, armed to the teeth in their jeeps and were regularly shooting the chinkaras and wild boars. My father moved the court and we were granted a stay order. The lake, during the time the Government took it over, was also in shambles, as they had neither the experience nor the inclination to maintain it. Gross neglect caused the silting of the bed and the banks were on the verge of caving in. My father, in addition to his other woes, had to move to the courts against the Government order. In India legal wrangles can go on not just for decades but for generations without there being any resolution. However, the lake issue was resolved and another Chief Minister announced that the lake should be returned to the Maharaja, together with a certain amount of land in the outer complex which was deemed the ‘sports complex’.
Palace of Clouds Page 16