Palace of Clouds

by Rajyashree Kumari Bikaner

  Once, I remember my father bought a couple of recoil reducers to put into my guns. The recoil reducer fits neatly into the butt of the gun and reduces to a great extent the recoil when a shot is fired. He was careful to ensure that my gun did not deliver strong recoil, as this not only succeeds in distracting the shooter but also affects one’s performance and can easily cause injury. After the recoil reducers were inserted into my gun I was asked to shoot a round, at the end of which we found that I had rather a large bruise on the right side of my face where the gun stock rested. My father was most annoyed and immediately shot a letter off to the manufacturers of the recoil reducer but before that could be sent a photograph had to be taken of my profile with the large bruise on the side of my face. This was then included with the letter of complaint, much to my embarrassment, but then that was Dad. He was meticulous at all times, specially when it involved his beloved hobby.

  My father was the pioneer who introduced the sport of clay pigeon shooting into India: he was one of the few people I know who was capable of shooting both trap and skeet with equal ease, though he preferred and specialised in Olympic Trap. He started his shooting career with a pair of Model 50 Winchesters and then later when he attended the World Shooting Championships in Bologna, Italy he was introduced to Pirattzi shot guns by his Italian shooting colleagues and friends Matarelli and Rosini, both of whom were excellent shots. Always ready to try a new gadget or camera or gun, he immediately ordered a pair for himself which were duly made to his specific requirements. I remember the excitement when the guns finally arrived in Bikaner after clearing customs in Bombay.

  He shot with them for a short time but for some reason, they did not seem to suit him and in the end he set them aside and opted for a pair of Browning 12 Bore guns which he kept using right till the end. Today his competition guns belong to me, and even now many people want to see them. I would happily put them on display for all to see at the Sadul Museum in Bikaner, but unfortunately the law requires that for guns to be on display, one has to first render them unserviceable by boring a hole in the barrel which I am loathe to do and to ruin both their value and the history associated with them.

  Shooting was my father’s passion and he even wrote a book on the sport ‘From Rome to Moscow’ which were his memoirs based on his experience in shooting. A modest man, he was surprised when someone wrote to him complimenting him on the book and asking for advice on the sport:

  ‘Quite frankly, this is the kindest letter I received on my book “Rome to Moscow”. It gave me great satisfaction that you found my book of some use to you. This was my main object when I wrote it.’

  The book continues to be a reference bible to many even today. Recently in Delhi when I was attending an event called ‘Royal Fables’ I met a young girl in her early twenties, who came up to me and started animatedly discussing clay pigeon shooting, quite clearly a sport that she was seriously involved with. She said: ‘I read the book ’From Rome to Moscow’; it was a great inspiration and full of helpful hints.’ I am sure that would have pleased my father greatly, as all his life his aim was to help, guide and assist everyone, particularly young people who were just beginning their shooting career. Extremely generous with advice and guidance, he wrote painstaking letters in reply to those who consulted him:

  In a reply to another letter in which the person had asked my father’s advice on what colour the lenses of his shooting glasses should be he replied, ‘Regarding your reference to shooting glasses I would recommend either pure white or light green. In my opinion the photo chromatic glasses are not satisfactory but you can give them a try. I like to avoid variable factors’.

  That in fact, summed up my father—there was no scope for ‘variable factors’ in his life: it all had to be precise and meticulous at all times.

  At the time there was very little if any help from the Sports Ministry in India. Everything was a struggle, from importing guns and ammunition as well as spare parts to clay pigeon machines to practise on. My father was considered to be affluent as he was a Maharaja and it therefore followed that he could well pay his way. Even though he was selected to represent India he was even expected to pay his air- fare most times and if the Sports Ministry was in a generous mood, then they paid the fare one way. All this was certainly not a conducive atmosphere for winning medals for India.

  A news clip from the Hindustan Times newspaper dated August 2010, barely six weeks before the Commonwealth Games were to begin in Delhi, states:

  ‘With barely 50 days to go before the Common Wealth Games, India’s leading shooters are facing their worst ever crisis for ammunition. Government red tape is holding up the import of practise ammunition which is lying in limbo at Berlin and Milan airports. India’s shooters won more than half of India’s medal tally in Melbourne Games in 2006 and are expected to do equally well here. Already the lack of readiness of practise venues has deprived shooters of any home advantage. The fact that they cannot import ammunition because of a delay on the part of the finance ministry’s revenue dept which is yet to issue the requisite notification for hassle free customs duty exemption, is only making matters worse.’

  It seems that little has changed in the last forty years to make the life of sportspersons any easier, and yet there are enormous expectations that they bring home medals from International competitions, which seems both unreasonable and unrealistic. In my view, in sporting venues such as the World Shooting Championships, Asian Games and the Olympics, our sportsmen are pitted against the world’s very best: they do not lack for training, coaching, facilities or guns and ammunition. The fact that Indian shooters still manage to do so well despite all the handicaps is all to their credit.

  My father used to tell me that one needed immense concentration when shooting. If your attention is diverted even for a split second you can miss the target. He cited an apocryphal tale in which a shooter was given 100 clays and asked to hit each with a hammer and break them. It seemed like a perfectly easy thing to do and so he began smashing the clays with his hammer one by one till somewhere along the way, his attention wandered for an instant and he missed one. The coach said ‘if you can’t hit the clay with a hammer in your hand then how can you hit travelling clay at high speed and distance?’ This is a fact—clay pigeon shooting requires absolute concentration and focus.

  The night before a match my father made sure that we had an early night. He was not a drinker or a great party person so that was not an issue but the younger members of the team liked their late-night parties and drinks. Raja Randhir Singh of Patiala still remembers the letter that my father wrote to him, telling him that ‘drinks and shooting don’t mix!’ Allowing me to party on the night before a match was of course not permitted, but he could not possibly stop others from their evening entertainment. Most times he was blissfully unaware of what actually went on. Raja Randhir Singh maintains that there were many times when they would party till the early hours of the morning and more often than not, come straight to the ranges in time for their match! This may have worked for Raja Randhir Singh, who was a natural shot but in practise, it is not a good idea to have a late night or too many distractions the evening before a match, as it disturbs the concentration.

  My father used to import tracer cartridges to help us correct our shooting. Almost every shooter has one particular target that they have had trouble hitting, and mine was a low left target on station one. The only way to correct this was to fire a tracer shot which showed very clearly what exactly was going wrong and helped to make that slight adjustment that managed to correct that particular shot. The tracers were used very sparingly by us as they were not available in India but they were a very useful tool. The strange thing here is that I was better known in college for my Mustang car than my shooting career. Though it is surprising that although my shooting career is now long over, people still associate the name of Bikaner with shooting: first my father and then me. It seems that many named their daughters Rajyashree, since I was in the news f
rom time to time and also, it was an unusual name. I had at one point of time called upon a Minister in Rajasthan for some work and he told me that his daughter had been named Rajyashree after me. He said: ‘Your name was in the newspapers in those days and when my daughter was born my mother said to me that Rajyashree is a good name and if it is good enough for the Rajkumari then it is good enough for your daughter and so we named her after you.’ I was both touched and flattered, and it seems that I had made some mark even if it was to popularise my name and the way it was spelt.

  I think I shot because it was fun and it came quite effortlessly, but now that I think back it was in large part because it gave my father great pleasure. He loved telling anyone he met all about my shooting prowess. He was very proud of me, which was of course very nice but on the other hand, being asked to perform to order every time a new guest came became a great burden. I was very happy to give up my shooting career around 1983 or so. I had my fill of shooting competitively since age seven. In one of my letters to my father I made the pertinent point that ‘I only shot because it pleased you,’ and he said ‘I did not realise that,’ which is perfectly possible because he was so single minded himself that I doubt if it even occurred to him that I was not built in the same way as him.

  Perhaps many parents of talented children do not fully realise that their children perform to please them and not let them down. Parents can be very demanding without realising it and this is evident from the number of sportsmen and women who have early burn-out in their career because they were driven far too hard, not just by their parents but also by their coaches and this happens more often with young tennis players who are expected to maintain a punishing schedule of practise and competitions. Undoubtedly though, it is well-meant: nonetheless, it is not realistic to live one’s ambitions through one’s children and to drive them so hard that it affects their lives and well being. This is, in my view, very evident from these TV talent shows where such young children are called upon to perform under great stress and pressure. There are coaching agencies opening up to hot house these children so that they can win talent shows on television. But what of their futures lives? The fact that many of the child actors in Hollywood came apart at some time with addictions ranging from drink, drugs and depression is therefore, hardly surprising.

  Our coach Thakur Kalu Singh was a renowned shot himself and had won prizes and medals in various national and international shooting competitions. He used to coach me when my father was not around. Thakur Kalu Singh’s arrival in Delhi meant only one thing; practise had to start in earnest. When I used to come home from school, hot, tired and longing for some lunch, followed by some rest and relaxation, I was greeted by coach, air gun in hand standing in the porch. ‘Time for a few rounds of practise,’ he would say, and then dutifully I would shoot a few rounds, and listen carefully to his comments, and then move on to the other things that I had to do. Thakur Kalu Singh’s father had served on the staff of Maharaja Ganga Singh, and as such, his attachment to the House of Bikaner was deep and profound. He was an excellent coach and his techniques of training were worthy of great praise. I had all admiration for his skill.

  He was blessed with technical abilities and could turn his hand to just about anything: he even fixed our glasses if the lens worked its way out of the frame. He was able to diagnose a problem in a gun swiftly and dealt with it efficiently. He even tried to teach me how to dissemble my gun and then reassemble it, but try as I might, I could never do it right. He was very considerate and ensured that my father had his chilled Coca Cola waiting for him after a match and that there was ice ready if we needed it after a hot and tiring shoot. I recall once when we were in Chennai for the National Shooting Competition and as a slightly chubby teenager I was busy dieting, which coach disapproved of. He felt I was quite alright as I was and should be eating normally. ‘We used to eat bhujias (savouries) with ghee (clarified butter) at breakfast time and washed it down with a tall glass of milk with a pinch of saffron added to it,’ he told me: ‘We had great energy levels and were never tired, but now all you fashionable girls are dieting and don’t have the stamina to shoot 50 shots a day!’ Of course the very thought of ghee and milk made me feel quite nauseous.

  On days when I was not eating properly, he would ask the chef to make something special for me. At Chennai he persuaded the chef to make a lovely multi-coloured layered jelly for dessert and since they had both gone to so much trouble to prepare this concoction to tempt me, I had no alternative but to eat it. Coach died a few years ago of kidney problems but till the last he was always thinking of us and our welfare. The last time I met him, he was confined to his bed but he was writing something in the Thunderbolt’s club register and he told me that he was updating it. I owe as much to him as I did to my father for the success in my shooting career.

  Since shooting air rifles in the beginning and clay pigeon shooting in later years was such an integral part of my life, I cannot avoid writing about it. However, I have tried to confine the details of my shooting career to the three or four major events that took place internationally and ignore the endless nationals and other competitions that went on unabated throughout the year. We were in fact forever training and practising for some future event. The details of my shooting career are tabled at the end of the book for those who may be interested.

  My father had a portable clay pigeon machine that travelled with him virtually everywhere he went. Even in Bombay when we were on holiday I was hauled off to the Bombay range which was on a promontory and it was always extremely windy. It was virtually impossible to shoot accurately as the clay target was buffeted and bounced around by the high winds. I hated shooting there but it did not deter my father in any way. In fact, clay pigeon shooting at one time was regarded as good practise before the ‘open’ season for grouse and duck shooting began. It makes perfect sense as the random directions that the clay pigeon machine throws the targets is very much like grouse and ducks emerging from the water or the scrub and flying in various directions.

  The first international event that I attended was the First Shooting Championship in Japan in 1967 when I was fourteen years old. The National Rifle Association of India set certain criteria score wise that the participant had to level or exceed before securing a berth on the team. In my case it turned out that I had a score that was tied with a young Army Captain. Obviously since only one of us could go to Japan to participate in the event, it seemed that there would have to be a tie shoot to decide which person was finally selected. The NRAI decided that the tie shoot would take place in Ahmedabad in Gujarat. My father and I flew to Ahmedabad and obviously my father was very keen that I should qualify and represent India in Japan, especially since he was already selected to shoot traps.

  On the morning of the tie shoot the young army captain was there on time before me. He seemed like a very nice young man. He smiled when he saw me and I could see in his eyes that he was thinking: here is a little school girl who he was going to have to convincingly best, and was already mentally packing for Japan. Despite the obvious stress that my father was generating and that I was picking up on, I shot quite well that day, and at the end of it all my score was higher than his. I will never forget the look of astonishment and surprise on the face of that army captain when he realised that he had just been soundly beaten by a little school girl. It must have been extremely galling for him. I think that was pretty much the end of his shooting career since I never saw him again at any of the nationals. What his army colleagues made of this would certainly make an interesting story.

  I was naturally very excited to be on the team and to be representing India at an international meet; it was both an honour and a great responsibility. I must at this juncture, point out that the attitude of many of the shooters and the officials that accompany them leaves a lot to be desired. There are many serious competitors and officials who take their duties and responsibilities seriously but equally there are many who think travelling abroad is like a
holiday for them and the scores they shoot are incidental. Once when the Indian contingent was travelling to Kuala Lampur for the Asian Shooting Championships, the only subject of discussion and priority that I picked up on it seemed was the attraction of the massage parlours there.

  My father on the other hand, was deadly serious whenever he was selected for any match or competition and did his very best, meticulously preparing months in advance. In most international matches and Olympics in particular, he was shooting against men who had the very best equipment, guns and ammunition and also the best coaches their country could afford to give them. The same sense of duty and responsibility was also instilled into me from a very young age—we were there to represent India and not to enjoy ourselves, and it was not meant to be a holiday in any sense. My father maintained that in order to perform under stressful conditions one needed what he called ‘match temperament’; it required confidence and the ability to block out everything else and just concentrate on the match at hand. He had the grit in abundance whereas I on the other hand, less so.

  I recall once in Spain at San Sebastian, when there was a tie between an American and another shooter. Colonel Michael Tippa who was the manager of the American team, he was a pleasant and highly motivated man and was a good friend of my father’s. When asked whether he was nervous about the forthcoming tie shoot he said: ‘my boys are used to it, we make them shoot competitively against each other all the time: it will be no bother to him’. I am afraid the same could not be said of Indian shooters. They were never asked to shoot in mock- tie shoots against each other so that if and when such a situation presented itself they were ready for it.

  Going to Japan was my first international flight and we travelled on the Australian airline Quantas. My parents were in the first class section while I was travelling coach. One of the stewardesses took a great liking to me and pampered me throughout the flight. I was awestruck by just about everything and was trying to absorb it all like a little sponge. We spent a few days in Tokyo, it was an amazing city and the view from the hotel room was breathtaking. The competition was to be held in the city of Tachikawa, not far from Tokyo. At Tachikawa we stayed in a small, typically Japanese hotel with low beds and paper screens and had to take our shoes off at the front door. I was then using a gas fired fairly basic Hammerli air gun and as it always inevitably happened just on the eve of our departure for Japan, it developed some problems. My father believed in a belt and braces approach to life and promptly ordered an alternative gun from Germany. It is a cardinal rule never to change one’s gun and if possible ammunition, on the eve of a competition, as it makes one conscious and without intending to, it has a direct bearing on one’s performance: anyhow, in this particular case there was little alternative.