Palace of Clouds
Page 24
After graduating from school, I was admitted to Lady Shri Ram College for girls or LSR as it was more popularly known. I chose to study English Literature as my major and also had history and philosophy as my two minor subjects. The two years in college were a mixed bag. I found the unstructured day daunting, having come from a school day, which was rigidly disciplined. The tutorials and classes were scattered across the day at random and hanging around college from morning one in the late afternoon was too tedious. Chamba House where my sister-in-law’ Padma Kumari’s mother Rajmata Chamba and sister Pinky Jija lived, was reasonably close and more often than not I ended up there. Rajmata Chamba or ‘Tummy Bhua’ as she was affectionately called by us, was always most gracious and readily provided lunch or coffee, depending on what time of the day I arrived at her house and was never put out in any way by my unannounced arrival.
If I was bored with the tedium of the day then imagine the agony suffered by the poor driver and Hari Singh who accompanied me. There are only so many ‘bidis’ (Indian equivalent of a cigarette) one can smoke or glasses of ‘cutting chai’ (tea served in small shot glasses), that one can drink. Acknowledging that they were part of my entourage was impossible. I gave them explicit instructions to hide every time I emerged from the college premises with my friends. They did so with great alacrity. However, it did not mean that they were not observing my movements, however furtively to head to the local ‘dhaba’ across the road for a coffee with my friends. I was incidentally the only one who was chaperoned in the entire college. Everyone else came and went as they pleased, some lived in the college hostel and were independent girls and many hitched lifts with perfect strangers without a second thought, while I felt like a bird in a cage as I was not allowed to partake in any of these ‘normal’ activities.
I envied the freedom some of my distant cousins such as Saroj and Rekha enjoyed, by living in the college hostel. As I passed the tree where Hari Singh and the driver were suitably hiding a disembodied voice would call out, “Anta (meaning my father) will not like your going to the dhaba, it will ruin your stomach. Stop, desist, go back!’ Undaunted by these pleadings and alternate threats, off we went for an hour. My stomach never caused a problem from all the fast food I ate in vast quantity. The one unfortunate habit that I picked up in college was smoking. Virtually all my friends smoked and the peer pressure was too strong- it was considered to be very adult and cool to smoke menthol cigarettes till one of my friends brought around a couple of packs of French Gitanes cigarettes which tasted absolutely vile, but rather than admit that I smoked them anyway, pretending to be hugely sophisticated.
The unpopular Vietnam War was going on at the time and of course we were all very much anti- war and anti-establishment and admired Jane Fonda or ‘Hanoi Jane’. President Nixon was mired in the Watergate scandal and the debate to impeach him was on in the United States. Delhi University was awash with drugs at the time. Those were the ‘flower power’ days of the hippies, exhortations to ‘make love not war’ and the whole world was psychedelic and very, very pink. Fortunately, no one ever offered me any drugs and I was far too self- controlled to try them, but smoking was a vice I unfortunately picked up at college.
For a time I managed to keep it secret at home and used to smoke in the bathroom, till one day my ayah Champa Bai found cigarette butts and boxes of matches hidden on the window ledge of the bathroom. The staff that looked after us had to report anything untoward to my mother so off she went and told her that I was most probably smoking. Since I was over eighteen at the time, there was not much that my mother could have done about it but as usual, skirting the subject in a direct confrontation with me, she instead went to my father and complained to him, which was her habit a she knew full well that getting into an argument with me would only end in irritation for her. The next thing I knew he walked into my room one day and handed me two packets of cigarettes, ‘If you must smoke, then do so openly,’ he said. ‘They are your lungs and if you want to ruin them, that’s up to you,’ he said, and walked out. That was the last conversation my parents had with me on the subject of smoking. I smoked the two packets he brought in due course and only gave it up some years later. I was never really a heavy smoker but having given it up feel much better for it; it is a vile, unhealthy and evil habit and I would not recommend it to anyone.
I had two unforgettable years at Lady Shri Ram College and made lots of friends. It was my first brush with independence and though at first it was new and foreign since I had lived such a regimented and supervised life so far, in the end I came to enjoy it and liked making my decisions. My one regret is that I did not stay on in College and complete my degree. I got engaged when I was at the end of my second year, and my father was very keen that I stay on and complete my third year and get my degree before getting married, but the circumstances were not in my favour and I was confused about the choices I was making. Unfortunately, I never graduated from college. I hope very much that with all the travelling that I have undertaken in the subsequent years and all the wonderful people that I have met, I have gained some knowledge that has helped to polish me up and sometimes simple commonsense is more important than degrees: common sense they say is not all that common.
* * *
Shri Karni Mataji, deity of the Bikaner Family.
My great grandfather Maharaja Sir Ganga Singh of Bikaner.
My great uncle Maharaj Bijey Singh, Son of Maharaja Sir Ganga Singh of Bikaner.
My grandparents (centre) with their children and grandchildren.
My father, Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh with his nanny Mrs. Dent.
Maharani Shiv Kanwar of Kota, my great aunt, daughter of Maharaja Sir Ganga Singh of Bikaner holding me.
With my mother Maharani Sushila Kumari of Bikaner.
With my father in his favourite Cadillac car.
With my paternal grandmother Rajmata Sudershna Kumari at Vallabh Gardens, Bikaner.
My father Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh and I with Prime Minister Pt. Jawharlal Nehruji.
The three musketeers – my brother Narendra Singh and myself holding our new born sister Madhulika Kumari.
Receiving a prize for winning Air Rifle Shooting Championship from Shri G. B. Pantji at age seven.
Family group photograph – my parents Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh and Maharani Sushila Kumari with their three children Madhulika Kumari (left) Narendra Singh (centre) and myself (right).
With my mother Maharani Sushila Kumari all dressed up for my fathers’ birthday celebrations.
With my father Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh in Srinagar during our summer vacations in Kashmir.
With my mother Maharani Sushila Kumari.
Representing India at the Asian Shooting Championship in Tokyo, 1967.
With my automatic 12 bore gun representing India in the World Shooting Championship in San Sebastian, Spain, 1969.
Family photograph taken at the time of my brother Narendra Singh’s birthday celebrations.
Receiving the Arjuna Award from President of India, Shri V.V.Giriji, 1969.
With Indian shooting team representing India at the Asian Shooting Championship at Seoul Korea, 1971. We won the bronze medal.
Class group photograph at Convent of Jesus and Mary with our teacher Mrs. Ravindran.
Rajyashree Kumari of Bikaner.
At the Bikaner Thunderbolt Shooting Ranges with my poodle Winchester.
With my brother Narendra Singh.
With my father Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh and sister Madhulika Kumari during the Olympics in Munich, 1972.
My parents Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh and Maharani Sushila Kumari enjoying an evening outing.
With Princess Bhuvneshwari Kumari of Kota and Nuria (Centre) from Mexico at the World Shooting Championship in San Sebastian, Spain, 1969.
My father Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh with my maternal grandfather Maharawal Laxman Singh of Dungarpur.
My parents Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh and Maharani Sushila Kumari enjoying summer holidays in S
rinagar.
My father Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh with Rajmata Krishna Kumari with her son Maharaja Gaj Singh of Jodhpur.
My father Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh meeting President Richard Nixon of the United States.
Rajyashree Kumari of Bikaner.
My parents Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh and Maharani Sushila Kumari performing a ceremony at the time of my wedding, 1973.
My mother Maharani Sushila Kumari.
With my mother Maharani Sushila Kumari and my baby daughter Anupama.
Four generations – My maternal grandmother Maharani Manher Kumari of Dungarpur (right) my mother Maharani Sushila Kumari (centre) holding my daughter Anupama and me on the left.
With my daughter Anupama Kumari at her first birthday celebrations.
With my mother Maharani Sushila Kumari in my first home at Edgware, London.
With my daughter Anupama and my poodle Winchester.
With my sister Madhulika Kumari in Gajner.
With my father Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh ‘The Chip and the Block’.
With my father Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh inspecting our agricultural farm at Sri Ganaganagar.
Rajyashree Kumari of Bikaner.
My brother Maharaja Narendra Singh of Bikaner.
With both my children, son Sajjansinh and daughter Anupama Kumari.
With my great aunt Rajmata Shiv Kanwar of Kota.
With my pug Siena.
My parents Maharaja Dr. Karni Singhji and Maharani Sushila Kumariji of Bikaner.
5
‘More than anything else, I have written this book for my daughter Rajyashree who started shooting at the tender age of 7 and was on the Indian team in Air Rifle shooting at the first Shooting Championship at Tokyo in 1967 at the age of 14, and who finished eighth in the World at the San Sebastian World Shooting Championships in 1969 in the Women’s Clay Pigeon event when she was only 16. Rajyashree and I share a great love for Clay Pigeon. This book is therefore, written for people like her who share our love of this wonderful sport.’
-Maharaja Dr. Karni Singh of Bikaner ‘From Rome to Moscow’
S
ince we came from a long line of ancestors who all loved guns and shooting, my father believed in starting us off at an early age. Since I was all of six years old at the time he must have delved deep into the gun store in Lallgarh Palace and found this tiny odd looking little airgun with its butt shaped like a hockey stick. It was just about the right size and shape for me—thus began my shooting career. A special jacket was made for me by the local tailor in Bikaner and my training began in earnest. I was made to shoot at targets rigged up in the palace gardens; grandmother’s empty cigarette tins were also fair game, and so were spent shotgun shells. There was no allowance made for the fact that he was teaching a little girl to shoot—it was essential that if I was to shoot, then it must be with dedicated discipline. Even when we went to Gajner for our holidays, the shikaris were asked to blow up some balloons which they weighted down with little stones and then rowed them to the middle of the lake and left them bobbing about, whereupon we had to shoot them. That at least, had an element of fun to it.
Having discovered that I had some semblance of talent in the shooting department, the next thing my father did was to enter me in the National Shooting Competitions. I have only a faint memory of my early years. My father used to accompany me to the venue and either he or Thakur Kalu Singhji, our Coach would lay out a series of pellets in a row and then I was pretty much left to my own devices. My father in his book, ‘From Rome to Moscow’, wrote of my first shooting competition:
‘Rajyashree, who was 7 years old, then, was made to enter the “below 12 years” air-rifle event which she won with 57/200, in the standing position on the International target. The prize-giving took place with Shri Govind Vallabh Pant, India’s Home Minister, giving away the Prize, and Rajyashree, tiny as she was, drew great applause from the audience when she walked up to receive her prize.
‘In this very championship my daughter Rajyashree was so small that we had to find a very tiny little air gun which she could hold in the standing position as the rules required, and fitted it with an aperture sight. It was not an accurate weapon by any stretch of imagination and yet her score of 57/200 in the air rifle “junior below 12” age group competition helped her win quite comfortably.’
That in fact, was the beginning of my shooting career that was to last from the age of six till I got married in 1973, by which time I had had quite enough of it, although I do not for one moment, regret taking up shooting. It was a great experience and taught me discipline and allowed me to travel to wonderful cities in India and also around the world. Meeting fellow shooters who were also dedicated to the sport was very interesting and I learned much from them all besides making friends as I went along. It was also a great honour to represent India at international shooting competitions, wearing my blazer with the Indian badge emblazoned on the pocket was a matter of great pride, just as representing our Bikaner Thunderbolts Rifle Club was important in the Nationals.
My father was a perfectionist, and all had to be exactly right with the equipment that we used. Devi Singh Shikari was in charge of the security at Lallgarh Palace and he was also responsible for making clay pigeons at the rear of the palace. He was a slightly eccentric man but absolutely devoted to my father and every word that he uttered was an absolute command as far as Devi Singh was concerned. He managed a disparate band of men from the security officers who were still known as ‘bodyguards.’ Devi Singh took his duties quite seriously and made sure that the guns were clean and every afternoon religiously at 4P.M. he would load the cart personally with all the equipment necessary for the evening shoot and get one of the security men to wheel it to the Thunderbolts shooting range, which was situated just outside the palace and was a matter of great pride and joy to my father.
My father bought a machine that made clay pigeons and which was ceremoniously installed just outside Man Niwas, an annexe behind the palace where the body-guards and Devi Singh lived. It was here that Devi Singh proceeded to make the thick tarry mixture in an open kiln that generated masses of oily, smelly black smoke which he poured into the mould and then pressed it into shape. As soon as my father had had his tea, he would drive down to the range and shoot off a round of twenty five targets, and if I happened to be in Bikaner then I would also have to shoot with him.
More often than not there would be visitors who came to watch my father shoot and he painstakingly explained the details of the sport to them. In fact, every single person who happened to visit Bikaner and who called upon my father was whisked off to the range in the late afternoon. The number of people that I have met, who all remember vividly going to the Thunderbolts range and watching him shoot must run into hundreds. He was by then a famous shot and an Olympian and people considered it a great privilege to see him shooting on his own home range. That was all very well but the part that I hated the most was when I was also roped in to shoot with him, regardless of whether I wanted to or not. ‘You must watch my daughter shoot,’ he would command the unfortunate visitors who, whether they liked it or not, would then have to watch me shoot off a string of twenty-five. Unlike my father, whose performance was consistent mine was erratic and on certain days I shot well and basked in the adulation and applause, but on other days I shot an indifferent round and my father would come to my rescue and point out that it was probably the light, the strong variable winds or a completely new target that had thrown me off course on that particular occasion: the truth of the matter was that I was simply not as good as him.
Thakur Kalu Singh was our coach and gun mechanic. He knew all there was to know about guns; mostly it was my automatic 12 Gauge that had recurrent problems. I was using Winchester AA plastic shells and each time the bolt was raised, it took microscopic shavings of the cartridge plastic with it. This in the end would jam the trigger mechanism and then Coach would have to open up the trigger assembly and clean it up. Khiya was also part of
our merry little band of technicians. He was a lovely old man dressed in a dhoti and an orange pagri and looked very out of place with the rest of the palace staff who all dressed smartly, but he was an absolute magician with the trap and skeet machines and fixed any problem effortlessly. If the gun stock needed to be filed down or shortened he could be relied upon to do a perfect job; he was our ‘gun whisperer’. He was completely unskilled but had a natural ability to handle these weapons and machinery perfectly. When we needed to raise the stock slightly, my father would take out what he called moleskin, and apply a patch to the stock. It always pained me to think of this poor unfortunate little mole that was being skinned so that we could apply it to our guns as needed, but all was put right when it turned out that the mole-skin was actually a kind of cloth and no mole had been harmed in the making of it.