For many years, Thakur Guman Singh was appointed the major-domo at Gajner by my father. He was in the service of the Bikaner family from the time of Maharaja Ganga Singh and was a valued member of my grandfather’s staff and accompanied him on his annual safaris to Africa and also many hunting expeditions within India. He joined the palace staff in 1930 when he was barely seventeen years old, and began life as an assistant to the Toshakhana or the old stores where valuable items were kept, and later on as the head of the gun department. It was his responsibility to see that all the guns were cleaned and in working order at all times, that there was a plentiful supply of ammunition and that the shikaris working under him were there on any particular shoot in their correct positions and knew precisely what they were expected to do.
A distinguished looking man with a black handlebar moustache and a military bearing, I never saw him slouching about. He had impeccable manners and an old world charm and courtesy and always spoke to us politely though we were just little girls at the time. Gumanji, as we fondly addressed him, had been in Gajner from the time I was a child. His knowledge was extensive and detailed. He was trained by Maharaja Ganga Singhji in the nuances of hunting and knew exactly how many ducks there were in the lake, how many thousand grouse came in to drink in the morning and at what precise time the first flock arrived, and in which part of the lake the mallards slyly lurked. With him worked a trusted old aide called Roopji who kept the palace and all its contents immaculate. Together they ensured that not a single item of decoration was either out of place or stolen. The palace maintained two registers listing the contents of the decorations and objects of art; one in English and one in Hindi, which the staff could refer to.
Once, a Bollywood film company arrived in Gajner to shoot a movie. One of them was the rather portly actress called Tuntun, a hugely popular comedienne of the time. She found out that Gumanji had two wives and that both of them lived together in the supervisor’s house, and she asked him with utmost seriousness if he was looking for a third wife. Gumanji politely declined, at which point she offered to give him a gift and proceeded to offer him an ivory tiger that was part of the decorative objects in Dungar Niwas. It was one of Gumanji’s favourite stories, ‘She could have got us all into terrible trouble,’ he used to tell us. ‘If the tiger had gone missing, His Highness would have asked me to account for it and I would be in his bad books forever from then on’ he lamented.
At dinner time, a cry would go up from all of us to ‘call Gumanji to come and tell us more stories.’ He would arrive and patiently sit at the table while we ate. He had a set repertoire of stories but made them sound new each time he told them. The tales were told with full sound effects ‘hum hum hum’ the tiger roared when hit with a bullet. Marvellous tales about how they were charged by lions and tigers when he accompanied my grandfather on safaris and other anecdotes of how they got caught up in a migration in Africa and could not cross over for several days. We loved his tales and as we grew up, we realised that some of his stories were perhaps mildly exaggerated but that in no way altered our enjoyment of them.
When I was twelve years old, I felt I was all ready to start driving and where better to learn than in the open grounds of the Gajner sanctuary where there was no traffic. Thakur Kalu Singh or Coach as he was referred to, taught me to drive the jeep. After a short time I picked it up quite well and would drive around the complex quite confidently. One day, on our usual evening drive, my father arrived unexpectedly from a gate that was rarely used. We were certainly not expecting him. He saw me at the wheel and I was sure that I was going to get a proper scolding, but surprisingly he got in beside me and said, ‘Lets see how well you drive.’ After I gave him a brief demonstration, he announced that he was well pleased with my driving skills and complemented Coach. I was always a bit of a tomboy at heart.
Gajner was crammed to the rafters over Christmas and New Year. My father would invite his many friends to come and spend a few days there. They were businessmen, his friends from the world of golf and shooting and many from the diplomats. One of his more controversial friends, as I found out much later, was Colonel Paul Tibbets, who was posted at the American Embassy in Delhi for some years. He was a kindly man and always brought us crates of 7-Up and packets of Juicy Fruit chewing gum, which were not available in India at the time. I learned much later that Colonel Tibbets was a man with a reputation, as he was one of the pilots flying the ‘Enola Gay’ during the Second World War, and it was he who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The plane was named after Colonel Tibbets’s mother and was a B29 bomber. On 6 August, 1945 an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima which brought to an end the participation of Japan in the Second World War. Col. Tibbets was posted as the military attaché to India from 1964 to 1966, which was when he met my father and befriended him. It never occurred to me that this rather benign man who brought us fizzy drinks and chewing gum was responsible for vaporising thousands of Japanese citizens.
Some of my father’s friends would give us large boxes of Quality Street toffees and chocolates, which my mother kept in her dressing room and which we slyly helped ourselves to throughout the day with little or no consideration as to the damaging effect of sugar on one’s teeth or waist line. My mother was very keen on a group called the ‘Moral Rearmament Society’. One of my mother’s cousins, Princess Nanda of Kutch was a member of this group and so of course, my mother had to support it as well. Some of the members were invited to Gajner in the winter where they brought a documentary film with them. One of the members was a handsome, tall aristocratic Scott who wore a kilt, much to the amusement of the local staff who were bewildered by a man in a skirt. That evening he sat us all down and showed us the film which was incredibly dull. I think we all left as soon as possible, and they were never invited back to Gajner.
As we got older, the gifts we were given became better and more sophisticated. Sometimes it was a pair of beautiful shoes and at other times silk tunics and shirts. Once my parents were given a box of cherry liqueur chocolates. I am not quite sure how my sister Madhulika got hold of them, but she managed to pierce a number of them and poured the contents into a glass and drank it all up, which resulted in a terrible stomach ache later.
Every once in a while, the younger generation would be invited to Gajner, such as our cousin Maharaja Gaj Singh of Jodhpur or Bapji as he is commonly called. He was an incredibly handsome young man and we greatly admired him. I recall one of Bapji’s college friends recalling that the rest of the boys had no chance as all the girls gravitated around this handsome young Maharaja! He would be home for the Christmas holidays from his college in England and of course there was Maharaj Kumar Jagat Singh of Jaipur too. I recall the first time Jagat Bapji came to Gajner with his elder brother Maharaj Kumar Jai Singhji and a retired army man, Colonel Kesri Singh, who was on their duty at the time. Though we did not interact much, it escaped no one’s attention that in the years to come, he could well be an excellent match for me. It goes without saying that there was much teasing from all my friends.
In July, once the new school term began, we returned to Delhi from our long summer holiday in Bombay. Bikaner House was then on Prithviraj Road, New Delhi, a prime residential site. It was a property bought by my grandfather Maharaja Sadul Singh many years ago; in fact, he bought two properties that straddled both the parallel roads Aurangzeb Road, now named after former President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, as also Prithviraj Road. My father sold the Aurangzeb Road house after my grandfather’s demise and retained the one on Prithviraj Road.
Bikaner House on Shah Jahan Road, New Delhi, was also our ancestral home prior to the merger of the states. At that point of time, every prince worth his salt had a residence around that area and I presume that is why it is referred to as Prince’s Park. Bikaner House was a beautiful building built by my great grandfather Maharaja Ganga Singh and is structured around classical lines. Standing prominently minutes away from India Gate, it is surrounded by beautiful parks. My gr
andfather spent a lot of time here whenever he happened to be in Delhi. I recall my father telling me that that both he and his brother Amar Singh used to live here when they were students at St. Stephen’s College. When the states merged in 1947, all the princes were asked to submit a list of private properties and those that they considered were officially State properties. In the case of Bikaner House, it was State property and so was handed over to the Government of India at the time of integration. Over the years, it has served as various offices of the Government and astonishingly, even as a bus depot. Over a period of time this gracious property had sadly declined. However, Shrimati Vasundhara Raje, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan has taken an interest in refurbishing the house in an attempt to reinstate it to its former glory. Today Bikaner House is shining brightly again, the interiors have been resorted and it hosts a multitude of events from book releases to photo exhibitions and lectures and other such events. Large and imposing houses such as Bikaner House were made with the very purpose in mind that they were used and were busy bustling places and now thanks to the transformation it is once more a centre for useful and interesting activities.
The city of New Delhi was established around the mid-1900s; Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker were the primary architects of this new city, which was to become the capital of India. A large part of the new city is now designated as the ‘Lutyens zone’, mainly to protect the originality of the buildings that had been designed by Lutyens. Most of the homes in the Lutyens zone are Government houses meant for Ministers, bureaucrats and judges of the Supreme Court. They are majestic and spacious mansions with vast and beautiful gardens. Strict draconian building laws now govern this area and the New Delhi Municipal Council does not give permission for any additions or alterations without the tightest scrutiny.
Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens was an eminent British architect and over a period of about twenty years from 1912 to 1930 was responsible for designing what is now known as New Delhi. In his homeland of England, he was responsible for designing some of the most beautiful country homes and was known as perhaps the greatest British architect. He started up his own practise in 1888 and teamed up with the well- known and popular garden designer and horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll, a professional partnership that would define the look of many English country houses. Lutyens also designed India Gate at Delhi, and what was then the Viceroy House, which after Independence was renamed the Rashtrapati Bhawan, the home of the President of India. A prolific designer, he did not limit himself to homes in England and Government houses in Delhi. He was also responsible for designing the British Embassy in Washington and a little known fact is that he was also commissioned to design the ultimate doll’s house in the world for Queen Mary. Now famously known as Queen Mary’s Doll’s House, it is housed in Windsor Castle: it was not meant for children to play with – instead, it was to showcase the very best workmanship that England had to offer at the time, ranging from perfect tiny leather- bound books in the library, to miniature Rolls Royce cars in the garage and miniature bottles of wine in the cellar. I was fortunate to be able to see it for myself on a recent visit to Windsor and it is absolutely delightful.
Our house was a modern bungalow: Delhi was our main base as we had our school here and my father was a Member of Parliament and had to remain there while the House was in session. My parents prepared lengthy and detailed lists of written instructions for the staff regarding our welfare in their absence; which was akin to a Bible regarding the do’s and dont’s where we children were concerned. All the members of staff had to refer and adhere to it at all times.
Delhi was always buzzing with some form of activity or other: there was always some adventure afoot and there was never a dull moment! It so happened that on one occasion a strange and mysterious man took to standing outside our gate daily—he would arrive early in the morning with his little Tiffin box in which I presume he carried his lunch, and remained there throughout the day, keeping a watch on the house. It was a complete mystery as to what his motives were. One day he vanished just as mysteriously as he had appeared, leaving us none the wiser as to his preoccupation with us and our home.
On another occasion, when my parents were away to Bikaner and Thakur Hari Singh of Satasar was officiating as the major domo of the Delhi house at the time, a rickshaw arrived one day at our gate. The man inside announced to the guard on duty that he was the Maharaja of Jaiselmer and proceeded to make himself comfortable on our porch. Thakur Hari Singh was quickly summoned and after taking one look at him he declared the man to be a complete fraud and gave him short shrift from the property. When my father was informed of this incident, he thought that it was a terrible breach of security and issued immediate instructions for the guard on duty at the gate to carry a camera with which he was to photograph any strange visitor who approached our gate henceforth. The poor guards thereafter stood with little box brownies around their necks for a while, though I am convinced they had no idea how to use the camera should the need arise. My father did come up with some amusing and impractical solutions to problems every now and then; needless to say, we found it all absolutely hilarious.
Thakur Ganpat Singh was the resident supervisor appointed by my father to look after the Delhi property; he lived there with his family in the staff quarters at the rear of the house. He was responsible for the smooth running of the household and the large gardens that surrounded it. While we were at school, we were permanently in some titanic verbal battle with Ganpat Singh who was caught between obeying our parents’ instructions on one hand, and us wanting to have our own way altogether.
One day, when the staff was about to leave for Bikaner and mind you, this was a huge operation involving mountains of luggage and several dozen members of staff, a taxi – the first of many was summoned and loaded up with a huge quantity of luggage. My parents did not believe in travelling lightly. Ganpat Singh was supervising the loading of the taxi and when the driver was trying to reverse, he kept instructing him confidently, ‘It’s clear, come on!’ to the extent that the taxi driver neatly drove over Ganpat Singh’s foot! Poor Ganpat Singh had to be sent to hospital to get his fractured foot put in plaster, much to the amusement of us kids. I must confess that as children, we were rather unsympathetic, as children usually are, and were wont to burst into peals of laughter each time we saw Ganpat Singh hobbling about.
I was about twelve years old when the Indo- Pakistan war began in 1965, and so far, all I knew of blackouts was from novels and movies about the Second World War. Suddenly this became reality at home: here we were in Delhi with the country at war with our immediate neighbour Pakistan, and since Bikaner is very close to the border the pressure there was even greater. My father was worried about Lallgarh Palace or the Fort in Bikaner getting bombed. My father believed in dealing with everything in a proper and correct manner or not at all: thus, to impose on us the gravity of the situation, he procured for all of us proper helmets that we were supposed to don in the event of need, and a proper air raid shelter to shield us from potential bombs. An architect was hastily summoned who drew up elaborate plans for a designer shelter—shaped much like an undulating snake, with doors at both ends. Most of it was underground but the top bit was great to run up and down and play games on during the day. Once ready, we were all summoned for a proper drill. My father gave strict instructions that the minute the warning air raid siren sounded, the staff were to immediately gather us together and usher us into the bunker. We were told that we must immediately find our helmets and put them on and make a brisk run to the shelter and hide there until the all—clear siren had sounded. Not merely satisfied with just instructions, several dry practise runs were put into motion to put his mind to rest.
The air raid siren wailing at all hours of the evening and night was certainly a hard fact of life at the time, though we thought it was a tad too melodramatic to be taken entirely seriously. Fortunately, Bikaner was not bombed, though the planes that flew across the border did pass over Bikaner, th
erefore the threat was certainly not imagined. I believe some bombs were dropped around the region but failed to go off, and my mother was convinced that it was due to Karni Mata protecting Bikaner, – an argument that I cannot refute.
The war came to an end and the air raid shelter remained there until the house was sold. I cannot recall ever actually using it, but we did sit on top of it whenever the siren sounded. It was a great place for fun and games and meanwhile the bunker was inhabited by a family of foxes that lived there happily for quite some time.
Television in those days was abysmally boring and tedious and entirely in black and white. Most of the programmes were on farming and agriculture such as ‘Krishi Darshan’ in which the experts advised the farmers on the best time to plant certain crops, the best seeds and insecticides and so on. It was impossible to watch, as was the programme on Swami Dhirendra Brhamachari, who encouraged people to do yoga. He was apparently the yoga guru of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and a part of her close circle of advisors at the time. On Sundays in the evening, a Hindi movie would be screened, which we all watched together with most of the staff. Mother was not about, so who was to know. They all joined us in the large dining room in front of a small television screen. Once a week, there was a half-hour programme called ‘Chitra Haar’ based on a selection of contemporary songs from Hindi films. Apart from this, there was nothing really worth watching.
Those were the days of snake charmers and other street performers replete with dancing bears and monkeys. The man with the monkeys used to play his little drum (called damru) and when we heard him arriving outside in the street, we would ask him to come and perform in our garden: the poor monkeys were made to dance and do somersaults and we would give them some fruit for their pains, besides some money. Similarly, a poor sloth bear would also be forced to dance on the beat of the little damru, and all the kids would clap their hands in delight at the end of the show. In retrospect, it was quite awful and cruel for the animals but at the time of course, we could not see that. Such street performances have completely phased out now, after regulations against animal cruelty that have been carried out following protests from activists fighting for animal rights, although one can still spot a few snake charmers who are popular with foreign tourists. During one such performance in Bikaner House, one of the snakes made a bid for freedom and escaped into a flower bed of sweet peas. I cannot recall if the man was able to retrieve it, though with abundant caution in mind, we bolted into the house. I believe the snakes are treated very badly, most having their fangs ripped out or even worse, having their mouths stitched up – it is all extremely cruel and barbaric and tourists visiting India should not encourage such street acts that are harmful to the poor reptile.
Palace of Clouds Page 17