We were normally in Bikaner at the time of my father’s birthday which was on 21 April and after the usual celebrations, we departed for Bombay (or Mumbai as it has come to be known since 1995), where we stayed in Bikaner House, a beautiful property located at a prime sea- side estate on Napean Sea Road, which was and still remains a desirable residential property. It was a nice, if slightly old fashioned property. My mother loved Bombay, as this was where her entire family congregated during the summer months and she, as the eldest of her siblings and numerous cousins, entertained a whole assortment of siblings and relatives, both close and distant and held court as they, in interminable numbers, continued to trickle in over the course of the day to pay their respects. I hated Bombay as there was little for me to do; the lawn was full of red ants – a sting from one would raise a welt on one’s skin and evoke tears; and the ever- pervading smell of brine and fish from the sea was almost unbearable and quite frankly, my mother’s many relatives got onto my nerves.
Bored with nothing to do and trying our best to avoid my mother’s endless troop of relatives, we occupied ourselves with going to the movies every afternoon. Our favourite at the time was ‘The Sound of Music’ starring Julie Andrews; we were absolutely enchanted with the children in the film and must have seen it over a dozen times. One evening, feeling very grown up, my parents took me to an after- dinner show of a Hindi film called ‘Bees Saal Baad’ (which means twenty years later). It was a horror film and one mysterious murder after another took place, with a bloodcurdling musical score in the background. I was of course, terrified and sat on the edge of my seat and my father sensing that I was scared out of my wits, immediately arranged for Jyoti Jija Sankhu who was staying with us at the time, to take me home, which she kindly did, missing quite a bit of the movie in the process.
If we were not going to the movies, then we spent the rest of the time playing cards or painting questionable water colours. I cannot recall many relatives from my father’s side coming to visit us, except for my father’s cousin Dev Kanwar who was married to my eldest maternal uncle Mahipal Singh of Dungarpur. She was a very welcome guest—a slim and extremely attractive woman, always beautifully dressed and a good conversationalist, was accompanied her two small children Harshvardhan and Kirti (my cousins) who we would play with in the evenings. We would then go back to their apartment at dinnertime to drop them off, and were invariably offered dinner by Dev Kanwar Bhua (a term for father’s sister). We loved to dine at her place as there were no restrictions on eating chillies as there were in our home. I happily ate vast quantities of chillies until tears streamed down my face and my lips turned red. When we would get home, my mother would question me about my mysteriously rosy lips, ‘Are you wearing lipstick?’ she would ask.
My aunt had several pugs who were collectively called ‘Fum Fums’ because of the wheezing noises they used to make. Each time we went to her flat we were greeted with much delight by the pugs who puffed and panted around our ankles. That is the nature of pugs, I was to discover many decades later when I had some of my own. Dev Bhua once gave me a set of junior encyclopaedias for my birthday—it was one of the best presents I have ever received, and I still remember the great joy that I experienced when opening the large cardboard box they were contained in. They were an absolutely wonderful source of information and I used to refer to them throughout my school years and then much later, passed them on to Shailaja Cookie Suket, one of my younger cousins, who I believe made good use of them too. It was a kind and thoughtful gift but then Dev Bhua was that kind of considerate person.
Another regular visitor to our house was the Rajmata of Rewa, a princess of Kishengarh who was married to my paternal grandmother Dadisa’s brother. She was also the elder sister of my maternal grandmother Nanisa, thus twice related to us. She lived in a lovely old-fashioned apartment just off Marine Drive. Rewa Nanisa as we called her was absolutely enormous in size and could only sit on the sofa as she was unable to fit into any of our chairs. Despite her size, she was very pretty—a sweet gray-haired lady who would invite us for either lunch or dinner at her place every time we visited Bombay. Nanisa loved drinking a cola, which was called raspberry and was very popular at the time, it was a heavily sugared drink and I am sure did her overweight problems no favours, but our pantry always maintained a ready stock of raspberry for her.
Rewa Nanisa used to take care of a number of orphaned little girls from the Rewa area and also some who belonged to underprivileged families. Some of them would come and play with us at Bikaner House. She used to pay for their upkeep and education and eventually made sure that they were all suitably married. When she died of cancer some years later, she willed her beautiful flat located just off Marine Drive, to my uncle Raj Singh of Dungarpur.
My favourite Hollywood film actress at the time was Jane Fonda or ‘Hanoi Jane’ as she was more commonly called, for her vociferous protest against the Vietnam War; I loved her feisty spirit, and thought she was fantastic in the fantasy film ‘Barberella’ and later in ‘Cat Ballou’. As a young teenager, I was deeply impressed with her anti-establishment stand and spouted her opinions to my parents even though my understanding of the Vietnam War was extremely hazy at best, but it was the fashionable thing to do to associate oneself with an anti-establishment figure like her.
4 June brought around my birthday and with it came all manner of embarrassing events. The first was a friend of my parents called Mahendra Saboo, whom my parents had met in Calcutta during the National Shooting Championship that took place there. Every summer, Mr Saboo would routinely—almost like clockwork—gift matching dresses to my sister Madhulika and me. The fact that they were absolutely hideous was the problem: frothy confections ablaze with ribbons and bows in all the places one least expected them and of course, with copious quantities of glitter too. My mother thought they were delightful, and of course, while we were young we were forced to wear them to my birthday parties; there must be dozens of photographs of us in our archives with me grimacing and trying to hide as best as I could behind my brother or cousin or anyone who happened to be standing propitiously close to me. This finally came to an end when the poor man—he was quite young at the time—suddenly died of a heart attack.
The next embarrassment was the birthday party guest list—all manner of children were invited—most of whom I did not know, but were the children of my parent’s friends. The garden would be festooned with balloons and streamers. The cake would duly arrive and we would all sit around a long table and eat our party fare. This was then followed by several games like ‘pass the parcel, ‘musical chairs’ and other entertainment which would keep us busy for some time. A charming Parsi couple, Firoza and Jimmy Talyerkhan, were very close friends of my parents—in fact, they shared a common wedding anniversary (25 February) and years later, celebrated their silver wedding anniversary together at Bikaner. They had two lovely children called Gitanjali and Rashid, who were quite a bit older than me. Gitanjali was a very attractive and sophisticated girl and I admired her poise and her confident manner of speaking. Once, on her birthday, my mother gifted her a bottle of Revlon nail polish. I cannot begin to narrate the effect that bottle of nail varnish had on me—I coveted it and wished I was old enough to wear some too. I think that was the moment when my love affair with make-up first began.
The Talyerkhans used to call me ‘Rosebud’—a name that irritated me intensely, but I was too polite to say so. Gitanjali refused to see Hindi movies with us and would only agree to accompany us if we were going to see an English film. The irony is that years later she went on to marry the popular Bollywood film star Vinod Khanna and both her sons Rahul and Akshay Khanna are also well-known actors in Hindi films. Aunty Phi, as we called Mrs. Talyerkhan, was good fun and relaxed in the company of children. She was always exquisitely dressed and her hair was perfectly coiffured with never a hair out of place. They lived in Bombay and we would often go over to their place which was a small flat immaculately maintained what captivated m
e most was Aunty Phi’s dressing table, everything very precise perfume bottles all arranged in a row and little bowls in which she placed her jewellery, she was a gracious hostess and gave us cold lemonade to drink. Gitanjali who was extremely attractive did a stint in modelling and we would often catch a glimpse of her in magazines and boxes of soap powder. Her marriage to Vinod Khanna sadly came to an end when he became overly involved with the Rajneesh cult.
On the demise of my father in 1988 we wanted to bring out a memorial souvenir, and approached all my father’s friends and colleagues to write in with their memories of him. In her tribute to my father, Mrs. Phiroza Talyerkhan recalled the joint silver wedding anniversary held in Bikaner:
‘Those of us who had the privilege of being close friends of him (my father) and his family for many years, valued his sincerity, his humility and complete lack of arrogance. Apart from that he cared deeply for others all traits which are difficult to find these days, in any person, let alone in a Maharaja of such standing.
All those fine traits we had always known of, but they struck us most when we were their highnesses guests in Bikaner in 1969 for our mutual silver wedding, we were married in the same year on the same day and at the same time, which coincidence somehow brought us closer to each other in both friendship and affection.
It was in Bikaner that we actually saw the immense love and respect the people had for him, that simple faith in him, knowing that he would try his best to help them with their problems. He not only listened patiently to their tales of woe and looked into their grievances of his people as he possibly could.’
In Bombay, our annual summer outing was to Juhu beach. My Danta aunt would lead the expedition, and it was very exciting as we would pack our sun hats, buckets and spades the night before and start early in the morning, as the beach was some distance away. Once there, we had an amazing time playing in the sand and running into the slightly murky water. We used to collect little colourful shells and take them home where, they would begin to smell horrid as the little creature within them died, and we would then toss them back into the sea. Nearby at the beach was the Sun and Sand hotel, and after playing most of the morning we were taken to the hotel for lunch, where sometimes my parents would also join us and then we would all troop home tired, but happy.
Once, there was an incident when my cousin Ajayraj Singh of Danta—Dhundi Bhai as he was more commonly referred to—who must have been seven years old at the time, was standing in the water when the tentacles of a jelly fish connected with his leg. I believe these poisonous jellyfish-like creatures are called the Portugese men of war. Poor Dhundi Bhai was stung by their long trailing filaments, and wailed loudly in pain. We all panicked and my aunt decided to take him to a local doctor, who finally administered an antidote that took away the pain of the sting to some extent. I read somewhere in a travel guide that the best antidote for a sting of this nature is to pour acidic liquid on it to neutralise it, the best being lemon juice. However, the guide continued in a practical manner, that in the absence of lemon juice, urine would do just as well! Unfortunately, we were not aware of this sagacious advice at the time and relied on the local doctor to administer an injection to our poor cousin, who I am sure, would have objected most strenuously to being peed on. I believe that it was our last visit to Juhu beach.
In 1959, our parents took us for a family holiday to Srinagar in Kashmir. At least my brother and I accompanied our parents together with a sizable staff to take care of our collective needs. We stayed at the Palace Hotel; a property which once belonged to the Maharaja of Kashmir but by then was run by the Oberoi chain of hotels. It was a lovely hotel with spacious rooms and stunning views of the lake. The weather was wonderful and most days we visited the beautiful gardens that were located around the city of Srinagar. My little companions were the Oberoi twins, Maya and Priya, who were the daughters of Tiki Oberoi and his beautiful wife Leela Naidu. Tiki was the son of Rai Bahadur Oberoi who established the very successful and popular chain of Oberoi hotels, both in India and abroad.
The twins were rather pretty children, very much like my walkie- talkie doll Bella Bambini back home. Besides them, the entire ‘royal family’ of Bollywood—the Kapoor clan were also in residence at the hotel that year: Prithviraj Kapoor, Raj Kapoor, his charming wife, aunty Krishna, and his four children. Little did I realise as we played games together, that one day, they would go on to be famous film stars! Once, Ritu Kapoor took me up to their hotel suite where her grandfather Prithvirajji was trying unsuccessfully to feed one of the grand children some egg for breakfast. Needless to say, at age six I was not overly impressed with the fact that I was in the presence of a great thespian of Indian theatre and cinema. Raj Kapoor’s wife, aunty Krishna, and my mother were good friends; she was a charming and gracious lady. I don’t think my mother thought very highly of Raj Kapoor though; mother had decided views on people who led colourful lives and indulged in heavy drinking. I believe, in her judgement, Raj Kapoor met both these criteria. However, despite that, my parents and the Kapoors struck up a friendship and spent some pleasant times together.
In happy times, somehow a cloud always appeared on the horizon to dim our sunny days. My brother, who had not been feeling very well since he returned from Mayo College, came down with a bout of chicken pox. My father immediately went into quarantine mode, as is the normal requirement in such a case; he hated diseases and did his best to stay as far as possible from germs and infections. My brother was immediately confined to his room. Dr. Alijan, the local doctor, used to arrive daily with a large black Gladstone bag in hand to check on my brother. I was not allowed to go into his room, so instead I used to stand at the door and chat with him. His chicken pox scabs itched dreadfully and he went through several bottles of calamine lotion trying to soothe them.
I was the next person to come down with chicken pox. Once again, my father insisted on my confinement to my room so as not to pass the germs to everyone else. Jiji had accompanied us that summer and took care of me. It goes to show how carefully my father was raised by his grandfather, as he had never had chicken pox as most children normally do. Anyway, despite all his precautions, he could not escape it and finally he too succumbed to the infection. Since I was confined to quarters I did not see my father for several days and finally when I was allowed to see him he looked decidedly strange having no shaved and developed a full beard. I was extremely distressed and could not believe that this bearded stranger was in fact, my handsome father.
During our stay, we had a dedicated guide to ourselves called Cherry, a cheerful man with deeply pink cheeks, he used to take us out of trips in and around the city; we went to Gulmarg for a picnic. Jiji was doing double duty looking after my brother and me at the time, as my regular maid Champa Bai, was on leave. The two incidents that were the highlights of the trip were the acrimonious relations between Tiki Oberoi and his wife Leela Naidu: they had screaming matches virtually every evening and since we were all living on the same floor, there was no avoiding the unpleasantness. The marriage, not surprisingly, ended soon after. Leila Naidu went on to star in several Hindi movies though she did not have a particularly successful career on screen. I recall that even as a child I was struck by her stunning beauty, she was a naturally beautiful woman, with her hair tied up in a neat bun and barely any make-up. Despite that, she was simply ravishing and remained so till the time of her death. She was also, I recall, soft -spoken and quite charming to children and adults alike.
Raj Kapoor, of course, was a hugely successful actor and director. He spent some time with my parents and was fond of eating the ‘supari’ or betelnut from the small silver box that my mother carried around with her in her handbag. One night, when my poor father was ill and feverish with chicken pox and they were both asleep in their beds, they heard the door open and in came an inebriated Raj Kapoor, demanding the little silver box—‘chandi kidibiya kahan hai?’ (Where’s the little silver box?). ‘You will catch chicken pox, please stay away from
me,’ pleaded my father which of course, had no effect on Raj Kapoor as he was well away and continued to demand supari. My mother finally produced the box and he took what he wanted and then finally left.
The Maharaja and Maharani of Kashmir, Dr. Karan Singh and his beautiful wife invited us all to their stunning country estate in Dachigaon, a lovely property where we spent a very pleasant day with them. Their daughter Princess Jyoti was slightly younger than me in age and she was an astoundingly pretty little girl, almost like a little doll. We became good friends, and at some point, we decided to wander off on our own to explore the garden, when suddenly I tripped and tumbled most indecorously down the bank to the edge of the lake. Fortunately I stopped short of falling into the water and when I looked up I saw Joyti looking down at me in pure astonishment! I quickly recovered my composure and we made our way back to our parents. That particular trip to Kashmir will always remind me of sunny days and a fun- filled family holiday, despite the illnesses we endured.
Palace of Clouds Page 18