A ceremony called ‘pithi’ is carried out on both sides of the bride and groom. A paste called ‘pethi’ is usually applied to the bride or groom’s body several days before the wedding: it is a concoction made up of turmeric and sandalwood and other ingredients. The significance is to lighten and soften the skin so that the bride and her groom look their best on the day of the wedding it is in fact the old fashioned substitute for the contemporary spa treatments that the bridal pair enjoy in preparations for the big day. I was quite stubborn and set in my ways and I refused to have pethi applied all over my body and they had to settle with a token anointing of my feet. I was a difficult bride-to-be and in retrospect, gave my mother and other relatives a very hard time. Another ceremony that is integral to Rajput weddings is that of the Mahira Dastoor. In this ceremony the bride’s mother’s side of the family traditionally bring gifts and offerings and offer a ‘chunri’, a sari to the mother of the bride—since my mother comes from Dungarpur this ceremony was conducted by my maternal grandfather Maharawal Lakshman Singh and my maternal uncles Maharaj Kumars Jai Singh and Raj Singh.
At some point, among all the excitement that was going on, my father asked me if I was absolutely certain if I wanted to get married and asked if I was unsure in any way. He said, I could still back out of it if I wanted. I was a bit taken aback by this but then my father was a very modern man and was very broad-minded. I am afraid no one has been granted the power to pierce the veil of future events and so I assured him that I was in fact, quite happy to get married. I was young and naive and came from a very protective family, and like all young girls on the cusp of matrimony, had really romantic ideas of what married life was going to be. So with any thoughts of not going through with the ceremony firmly cast firmly aside, we went through with the wedding rites which were conducted in the Fort with all pomp and circumstance.
MJ and his family, having settled in London for the past many years did not know many people in India and so it became a bit of a problem to rustle up enough members to form a proper Barat party. As usual, my maternal uncle Raj Singh Dungarpur came to the rescue. He was a hugely popular man and socially well connected both within the Rajput community and otherwise, in Bombay. He was asked to help the Gohel family out and found several suitable people that formed the Barat that arrived in Bikaner on the morning of the 18 February by train, and my father and brother with the Bikaner contingent went to welcome them at the station.
Nawab Mansur Ali Khan ‘Tiger’ Pataudi, the famous cricketer, was a good friend of uncle Raj Singh and he was persuaded to come along with the Barat which was a huge treat for my sister and me, she being a lifelong cricket fan and I was a fan of both him and his lovely wife Sharmila Tagore, the successful actress who had appeared in dozens of Bengali and Hindi films. Tiger and uncle Raj Singh both shared a wicked sense of humour. Once Tiger told me that when Raj Singh uncle thought of selling his flat in Bombay he quietly inserted an advertisement in the local newspaper to the effect that Raj Singh was auctioning his furniture. My uncle was both irate and astonished when a host of strangers descended on his apartment with every intention of buying his old furniture. Uncle Raj Singh after selling his beautiful apartment in Bombay then bought a house in Pune and moved there, after spending almost his entire life in Bombay, I asked him how exactly he would occupy himself in Pune, ‘I will read books’, he told me. Tiger had a huge laugh when I repeated my uncle’s intentions to him: ‘What nonsense! He has never read a book in his life’, he announced blithely.
The Barat party arrived by train from Delhi and the instructions in the wedding booklet went on to state that ‘railway authorities should be approached to ensure that the carriage occupied by the Bridegroom comes opposite the main gate. Thakur Hanwant Singh will be responsible for this.’ The Barat party and the bridegroom are customarily met at the station by the father of the bride, the brother and uncles and cousins and other male relatives who have arrived for the wedding. ‘His Highness the Maharaja sahib (my father) and other Princes who may like to go to the station to receive the Barat party together with Maharaj Kumar Sri Narendra Singhji (my brother), Maharaj Sri Amar Singhji (my uncle) and Raj Kumar Chandra Shekar Singhji (my cousin) will arrive at the railway station at 8.50AM’. The Barat party—once the formalities at the station had concluded—were to proceed to Karni Bhawan where they were camping for the duration of their stay in Bikaner.
In Rajput marriages the Bari and padla ceremony takes place on the morning of the wedding ceremony: this is basically a presentation of jewellery, poshaks and other gifts, sweetmeats and fruits that are ceremonially sent by the bridegroom’s side to the bride. Usually, the bride wears the jewels and the poshak that have been sent by the bridegroom and in most cases this is strictly observed especially where prickly mothers in law are concerned. As the Gohel family, due to paucity of time, had no way of preparing anything I wore a red poshak that my mother had ordered for me from Ugamraj Bishenraj tailors in Jodhpur.
The wedding ceremony was to commence at 7.15 PM. The bridegroom was timed to leave the Queen Empress Gate at 5.30 PM. Since MJ was not comfortable riding a horse it was decided that it would be safer for him to arrive in my father’s white 1956 Cadillac instead. Needless to say the barat party was quite small. In some cases in India the barat can comprise close to several hundred or more members. Traditionally, Rajput Barats are all male, female family members remain at home to welcome home the bride and groom. Traditionally only ‘nautch’ girls were allowed to accompany Rajput Barats both for entertainment as also a symbol of good luck. The Gohel family enquired if members of the Morvi family could accompany them but my father politely declined explaining that ladies were not permitted to accompany barats in Rajasthan. The bridegroom then arrives at the gate of the Fort and the groom then leans forward with a long branch and then touches the ‘toarn’ mounted at the top of the Fort gate and then enters with the Barat Party. Here the groom is whisked off to the Devi Dwara to get married and the barat party go up to the Karan Niwas Courtyard of the Fort where entertainment and food and drink are provided.
The long and tedious wedding ceremony was conducted by the two court pundits Jai Narainji and Shiv Ratanji. Not only did I develop an acute backache that day sitting in a cramped position but there was a mild dust storm blowing that evening and my contact lenses were causing my eyes to tear up and itch as well. My paternal aunt Maharani Sushila Kumari of Udaipur was standing behind me all through the ceremony and every now and then I would quietly ask her to urge the pundits to complete the ceremony as quickly as possible. Finally it was over and we were whisked off to Karni Bhawan for some dinner. Both my parents did not drink and frowned upon those who did: however, my father promised that when I got married he would send me a bottle of champagne. True to his word, shortly afterwards as we were having dinner Thakur Kalu Singh, ‘Coach’, and Thakur Raghubir Singh Bidasar arrived carrying with them a bottle of champagne. We asked them to join us and we all had a glass each. The next morning I felt quite sick. Clearly the champagne had not been stored properly in the Palace cellars. When I told my father he declared that drinking was very bad for one and this incident proved his point.
The next day the ‘Bidai’ or the send off of the bride and the bridegroom’s party took place from the Jungarh Fort. It was time to say good bye to the family and friends, I recall there was much crying as is the usual case in Indian wedding- the bride and her family are all extremely tearful as they say good bye. My poor father was trying to be very brave and wearing a pair of sun glasses to hide the fact that he had tears in his eyes. I had mixed emotions as I was and remain deeply attached to Bikaner, it was a wrench to say goodbye at least for the moment; on the other hand I was also looking forward to a life of freedom in London.
My father had arranged for the family saloon to be used to take us from Bikaner to Delhi: my sister was also returning to Delhi to rejoin school and my parents were to join us shortly thereafter. We stayed at our Prithviraj Road residence before le
aving for London. Within a few days of arriving in Delhi there was an unfortunate incident when one of my cousins from Jashpur suddenly fell ill and was admitted to hospital. He was the son of my father’s first cousin Princess Jai Kanwar, Maharani of Jashpur. The young man and his lovely little wife and sweet little son had all been at my wedding just a few days ago and now he was seriously ill in hospital. It did not bode well and even though I am not particularly superstitious I feel that if some tragic event takes place soon after a wedding it does not bring good luck and a few days later my cousin died in hospital leaving behind a young widow and a small son who must have been under the age of two. We were all very sad at the turn of events.
MJ and I left for London at the end of February. At that time there were health checks for everyone coming in from India for residency purposes at Heathrow Airport, I presume to rule out disease such as tuberculosis. I recall that we were made to wait for quite some time in a queue while a few young doctors went from cubicle to cubicle examining the people concerned. Most of the people there were from Punjab who quite clearly were not well conversant in English and it turned out that a Punjabi cleaner nicknamed ‘Blossom’ who worked at Heathrow airport was pressed into service to translate where required. I was finally checked out by a harassed young doctor who congratulated me on my recent wedding and then checked my chest with his stethoscope and declared me fit as a fiddle, and we were finally allowed to leave.
While I was away in London at the time, back home in Bikaner, my father who already had a large staff at his disposal decided that he wanted to hire another more efficient secretary. ‘The ones in Bikaner are simply not up to scratch’ he told Raja Randhir Singh of Patiala one day at the shooting range, ‘I want to hire someone from outside who will do a better job of dealing with all my correspondence and documentation.’ Raja Randhir Singh warned him ‘Be very careful Maharaj’ but my father was adamant, and once he decided on a course of events then it had to be followed to its logical conclusion. So he advertised and soon a man called Desai applied for and was confirmed in the post. A fact that no one knew at the time was that this ‘Desai’ was actually a notorious confidence trickster and Desai was one of his many aliases. He began very well and my father was full of praise for him. Around that time, my father had sold our house on Prithviraj Road and had signed a collaboration agreement with a group of builders to build a three storied building comprising nine apartments where our old badminton court and air raid shelter had previously been.
Desai meanwhile had mapped out his strategy very carefully; he used to observe my father when he was signing his cheques and must have practised his signature till he got it just right. One day, he asked my father for leave to attend to some personal work. He asked Thakur Dalip Singh for his brief case and a tie for a formal meeting, he said, he was to attend in Delhi. Taking all these items he left for Delhi. There he met one of the builders who were in the process of constructing the flats at Prithviraj Road. ‘Maharaja saab needs some cash right away can you please give me the cash and he has sent you a cheque for the same amount you may lodge it in the bank after five days or so by then the funds to cover it will be in place’.
The builder in question thought nothing of this and gave him the cash and accepted the forged cheque. The signature on it must have been extremely convincing as shortly he lodged it in the bank and the bank cleared the funds. My father only found out about this several days later when in a routine call to the builders they revealed that they had given the cash to his secretary as requested. There was an immediate inquiry; by then, Desai had vanished with the cash and much to Dalip Singh’s chagrin his brief case and tie. The police were informed and a criminal case was lodged. Meanwhile, my father had to enter into a lengthy battle with the bank for clearing a forged cheque, and after much effort and correspondence in this regard managed to recover his money.
Thakur Anand Singh was put in charge of solving this problem and apprehending Desai, like a good sleuth he decided to go and lurk around Gujarat Bhawan in Delhi during the day and also at night just in case Desai was going to turn up there, his logic being that Desai was a Gujarati so obviously he would go to Gujarat Bhawan to live! Desai a hardened trickster was of course nowhere to be found. In the mean time, the police revealed that he was in fact a ‘Natwar Lal,’ named after a famous confidence trickster of the same name and had many such charges pending against him. Needless to say he was never heard of again. My father finally came to the conclusion that the staff from Bikaner was tried and tested after all, compared to the outsiders who could not be relied on.
When I arrived in London after the wedding I was living with my in laws in their house in Golders Green and slowly getting used to a completely different life. My mother-in-law, Sajjan Kanwar Gohel, was very particular about her appearance and was always very smartly turned out; she was well-groomed and took a great deal of interest in how she dressed. Unless she was at home she was always dressed in a sari and kept her head covered, like most Rajput women do. She wore slightly tinted glasses all the time. She was a talented home maker and extremely proficient in the kitchen. The first few meals at her house in Golders Green were an absolute disaster as far as I was concerned as she used to cook in the Gujarati style by adding some jaggery or ‘gur’ to just about each dish; this gave it a slightly sweet flavour which we north Indians especially from Rajasthan who like our food spicy, are simply not used to. She was concerned that I was not eating my meals properly and then when she discovered the reason very considerately altered the way she made her dishes and from then on all the food was made in the north Indian savoury way. I imagine the rest of the household had to adapt to my palate.
My mother-in-law had befriended a neighbour called Mrs. Collins who lived opposite her house. Mrs. Collins was a typical British neighbour always curious about what was happening in the neighbouring homes or a ‘curtain twitcher’ as such ladies are normally referred to: the term comes from those suburban housewives who are forever peeping out of their windows to see what the neighbours are up to. In all the time that I lived in North West London I never once met Mr. Collins but his wife made up for his absence. She used to come over quite often and have coffee at Dipak, I think she was curious to meet me, the new bride in the family, and for want of a better name she used to call my mother-in-law, ‘Sue’. Soon after in 1976 once the large shopping mall, Brent Cross, opened up close to my in-laws home, they used to go shopping together. I recall Mrs. Collins very kindly gave MJ and me a lovely gift of a dozen porcelain coasters which I believe I still use in my home. My mother-in-law was very social and maintained good relations with the Gujarati Diaspora that had settled in and around London. She lived to quite a ripe old age and died in July 2012 in London.
My father-in-law Jayawantsinhji Gohel or Jay Gohel as he was more popularly known, was a prominent Asian supporter of the Conservative Party and was knighted on the recommendation of Mrs. Thatcher for his work in fostering valuable links between the politicians and the Asian community in the country. He was, in fact the first Asian to be conferred with the honour of Knight Bachelor. He died in 1995, soon after the wedding of my daughter Anupama. My father-in-law was always courteous to me though we did not exchange much conversation. He was very busy with his social life and soon after coming back from the office would have his tea, get ready for the evening and head off again to a function by the Conservative Party or to some Asian reception. I rarely saw him at home. Every now and then, when we crossed each other in the house he would ask me if I had learned to speak Gujarati, ‘Yes, definitely’, I would reply convincingly and never really did get around to it. The fact was that both MJ and my mother-in-law picked up Marwari instead as did the children eventually.
My husband’s brother Jaidevsinh was several years older than him and worked in a bank all through the time that I was married in the Gohel family. He was married to Jyoti Kumari at the time who hailed from the Jamnagar family. When we first got married and came to live at Dipak it was a
bit of a crunch with all three couples living in one small house and with only one bathroom at our disposal. Since this was highly impractical, my brother in law soon after bought a house in Edgware and moved out.
We lived at ‘Dipak’ for almost six months after we got married; it was a lonely and isolating experience in many ways. MJ used to go each day to continue his studies and I was left alone in the house with my mother-in-law for company. I did not have any friends or family at the time that I could visit and at the same time and I lacked the confidence to go out on my own. My mother-in-law was most particular about her kitchen and did not like anyone, specially a novice like me, doing anything there—even if I was trying to make a cup of coffee if she heard any noise in the kitchen she would come straight down and insist on making it herself.
By the time my parents arrived in the summer in June 1973, I was well and truly fed up of living in Golders Green. It was absolutely clear that I was not cut out to live in a joint family system, especially not with my in-laws. My parents were living at the time in the Westbury Hotel in Conduit Street. We used to visit them most days and spend the day in town; it was a nice change to be close to the shops and museums. Eventually, I gave my parents an ultimatum; either they bought us an independent house to live in like my brother-in-law Jaidev Singh and Jyoti Kumari, or I was going back to India.
We decided that Edgware was a good residential area—my brother-in-law already lived there and Edgware was well provided for with all the amenities such as shopping and trains to town. We looked at many houses and flats and finally settled on a three bedroom house in Ranelagh Drive within walking distance from Edgware tube station. I had never independently set up house before and it was in many ways a lot of fun. Of course I had to have the very best of everything and my parents were enormously kind and generous and let me order whatever I needed without questioning either the price or my taste. I recall that I virtually lived in Harrods all the time, armed with a long list of items that I need for the house. I bought a beautiful china dinner service with a delicate butterfly motif in blue and white it was my very first dinner service and I took great pride and trouble in choosing it.
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