The CCI club commissioned a lovely portrait of Raj uncle and Sachin Tendulkar without hesitation agreed to unveil it. On the day that the ceremony took place the club was yet again full with his friends and colleagues; in fact, the crowd was so large that it spilled on to the cricket grounds. Uncle Raj would often tell me that he even called his driver by the polite term of ‘Ji’. He said that ‘If I am polite to the driver then there is every chance that he will be civil to me’. I will always remember that piece of advice it and taught me humility; it was an attribute that even my father had in spades. Recently the CCI Club also named one of their main gates in the name of Uncle Raj the plaque was unveiled by Sachin Tendulkar.
It is a legendary story that it was Raj uncle who offered captaincy to the famous cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin. He simply went up to Azhar and asked him, ‘Miya, kaptan banoge kya?’ (Would you like to be captain?) Azhar was already the captain of the South zone so he said he was already a captain. Uncle Raj told him that he was not referring to his captaincy of the South zone but was asking him if he wanted to be the captain of the Indian cricket team. I have had the good fortune of meeting Azharuddin many times and each time, he speaks of Uncle Raj with great affection and reverence. In fact, he took the time to go all the way to Dungarpur to attend Raj Uncle’s funeral, as he held him in such great regard.
Bob Simpson, the prominent Australian cricketer who he captained Australia during 1963-1968, writes of his cricketing colleague:
‘Not only did Raj worship the game of cricket, he gave his life to making Indian cricket better and I have no doubt that his influence in so many spheres helped to make it the power it is today. He held many positions in cricket as a player, administrator, and selector, chairman of the Indian selectors, Indian team manager, and above all confidant of to many Indian players. These include not only famous but those not so well known. Above all, his greatest love was the CCI. He played a huge role in converting the CCI into the glamorous and luxury club it is today.’
The world of cricket mourned his passing. The hallowed ground of Lord’s where Raj uncle spent many happy hours watching his favourite sport paid tribute to him in a message that Colin Maynard the Deputy secretary of the MCC wrote:
‘I also confirm that on the news of Raj Singh’s death, on Saturday 12th September 2009, the MCC flag on the Grand Stand was lowered half mast during the England v Australia One day International match. An announcement was made to the crowd over the public address system.’
It was a worthy and just tribute to a man who had spent his entire life devoted to the game.
The last Christmas card that Raj uncle sent to me was in 2003, the year of my fiftieth birthday in which he was brief but very much to the point:
‘My dear Biggy Baisa, very nice seeing you in Jaipur. Whatever is left of the great Bikaner heritage rests on your able shoulders. May God give you the fortitude and Karni Mata’s blessings to carry on.’
It was a great privilege to have known and be related to such a noble person.
Around September 1986, two events occurred which were to shake our family to its very core. The first involved my brother’s family where the differences between him and his wife were growing more volatile by the day, and eventually after an incident it was decided that my sister-in-law Padma Kumari and her three daughters, Daksha, Siddhi and Mahima would come and live with my parents at Shiv Villas in Lallgarh Palace. My parents were deeply distraught, the girls were very young and of an impressionable age, and the whole incident took a toll on the health of my sister-in-law who was unwell for some considerable time thereafter. Hardly had the dust settled from this most unfortunate incident when our daughter Anupama was taken seriously ill, throwing our orderly lives into absolute chaos.
The illness of a child is every parent’s ultimate nightmare. She was a young and healthy girl busy at school and a life filled with social activities with her many friends. It was absolutely mind numbing for us when suddenly and out of the blue she was taken ill. We were very fortunate in being close to the Royal Free Hospital which is a large teaching Hospital. The Doctors, nurses and staff there in general were all highly professional and caring, Anupama could not have been in better hands. My husband and I were quite naturally in a state of shock but we understood that the most important thing we needed to do was to regroup and be strong and restore her to good health as quickly as possible. At the same time our son was only 6 years old and needed to be taken to school daily and collected at the end of the day. Neighbours and the parents of Misha’s friends were all an enormous support system to us. We tried to keep activities at home as normal as possible but everyone was feeling the strain of what had occurred.
Thanks entirely to the wonderful staff at the Royal Free Hospital and her own inner strength and resilience Anupama made a speedy and complete recovery and her only concern all through this time was to return to school. She missed our two dogs Trap and Skeet enormously, dogs were not allowed in hospitals for obvious reasons, so instead we brought her out to the hospital garden and sneaked our Yorkshire Terrier Skeet in to meet her, I am convinced it was a turning point in her recovery, she was delighted to see him again as indeed he was to see her. After that there was no looking back and very soon was well enough to return home and start attending school.
If I were to look back at the first serious cracks that began to appear in our marriage, I would now say with some conviction that it started at the time of our daughter’s ill health. It is a fact that families either come closer together or are wrenched apart as a result of a death or serious illness in a family, particularly when it centres around a child. I have read books on both Jamie Bulger, the little toddler who was tragically kidnapped from a shopping mall and then murdered by two young boys when he was only two years old, and also the book by Kate McCan who wrote a moving account of her young six year old daughter Madalaine who was kidnapped from their chalet while they were holidaying in Portugal. In her book ‘Madalaine’, Kate McCan states, ‘The fact that we are still together and still doing okay is in itself quite an achievement. The statistics show that most marriages subjected to such traumatic experiences break down’. In the case of the Bulgers, the loss of their son led to them eventually divorcing; in the case of the McCans it brought them closer. There was no doubt that seeing a healthy normal child one moment and seriously ill the next is hugely traumatic experience for any parent. Neither MJ nor I bore it very well.
Shortly thereafter, we were invited to Number 10 Downing Street to meet Mrs. Margaret Thatcher. The Hinduja brothers were in the middle of arranging a contract with the British Government and quite obviously had made a sizable donation to the Conservative Party at some point, and as a quid pro quo they were then invited to Number 10 for tea. My father-in-law who was the introductory party between the Hindujas and the senior ministers was also invited and so were MJ and I, much to our surprise. For reasons that will remain an eternal mystery the Hindujas conveyed to my father-in-law that they would prefer it if we did not attend the function. MJ refused point blank and told his father that since we had been invited in our own right by Number 10 we would most definitely attend. I put on my best sari that evening and we went off to have tea with the Premier. I was quite naturally, curious to meet Mrs. Thatcher since I had never met her in person, but of course I admired and respected her like many others in the country. We all settled down with the two Hinduja brothers on either side of Mrs. Thatcher. Needless to say, the brothers completely monopolised her and talked non-stop for the next half hour or so. I could tell from her body language that she was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable and wanted to include the rest of us in the conversation but the Hindujas were having none of that.
They first presented her with a pashmina shawl and then insisted that they knew the best astrologer in India who they consulted and in fact, they went on to say he was so good that they had even introduced him to the late Shah of Iran. They asked a decidedly uncomfortable Margaret Thatcher if she would like
them to arrange for the astrologer they knew, to meet with her: if so they would fly him over at once. Perhaps for the first time in her entire life the Iron Lady was at a complete loss for words. She desperately looked at us all in the hope that we would start another line of conversation, but every time I tried to divert the conversation one of the brothers would continue the breathless diatribe. It was really quite amusing. Finally my father-in-law came to the rescue and narrated a joke about what was the correct way to address Lord Cholmondely—apparently it is ‘Lord Chumleigh,’ he said and then wondered what was the best way to address Lord Bottemleigh. ‘Say no more, Mr. Gohel,’ said Mrs Thatcher with a wide grin and a twinkle in her eye.
We had barely recovered from the shock of Anupama’s illness, when our marriage began to disintegrate. It seemed that for those few years from 1985 to 1990, the whole family was engulfed in a vicious cycle of bad luck as we all lurched from one major problem to another. My father’s health and mental well-being took a knock with Anupama’s illness and simultaneously with the drama in the wake of the break-up of my brother’s marriage. He was never the same man again. He was in his early sixties but began to look much older. Part of the trouble lay in his over medication and eating the wrong kinds of food.
No one is ever ready for a death in the family: in the case of my father he was super careful about getting his checkups done and so we were not worried on that account. In the summer of 1988, he and my mother spent July and August with us in our home in Hampstead. He had got all his routine medical checkups done and consulted his regular doctors. I found that he was definitely more preoccupied that year. He was surrounded by family problems on one side and staff related problems on the other. The burden of taxes was immense and he was struggling to keep his head above water with all the demands that were made on his purse, with old and ageing buildings that constantly demanded upkeep and maintenance which cost substantial sums of money.
I noticed on our last summer together that when we went to the Brent Cross shopping mall, he was getting out of breath very quickly but thought no more about it. Days before my parents were due to leave for India, my father asked me to accompany him to a trip to see the art galleries on Bond Street. Little did I realise that it was the last time that we were going to spend some quality time with each other.
It was a beautiful sunny day and I parked the car in the Selfridges car park and we walked down to New Bond Street, visiting the art galleries as we went along. He chatted to the owners about the paintings and bronzes that we had back home at the palace. We stopped on Half Moon Street for a mandatory Coca Cola break. He said to me, ‘You take life too seriously, you should take things easier’. He then told me that a patient had gone to see his doctor and the doctor after checking him up prescribed half an hour of laughter spread across the day. ‘You should laugh more’ he said. We walked on to Regent Street and then we stopped at a shop selling material and he brought a length of material to make some new trousers for himself. My father loved window shopping specially for watches, cameras and other electronic equipment, but usually did very little actual shopping for himself, though he was extremely generous with gifts for all the family members.
A few days later, my parents were leaving for India, and as my mother’s shopping was always on the generous side, invariably my father had to take several suitcases and book them ahead as unaccompanied baggage. They normally travelled by Air India and the staff knew him very well. Douglas Singh of Air India was a good friend and took excellent care of them, and in fact of us all for that matter, whenever we travelled. Earlier I had told my parents that when I would come to India next for the Christmas break that winter, I was going to speak to them seriously about the state of my marriage, as we were simply not getting on and there were too many fights and too much unpleasantness in our lives and it simply could not be ignored. ‘What will you do?’ asked my father, ‘You cannot even turn on the alarm yourself.’ Needless to say that was a hilarious remark on a serious subject, but then again that was Daddy, always practical to the last. On the day of departure my father was taking some of the suitcases in a taxi and MJ was to drive my mother to the airport later. ‘Come and spend Christmas holidays with us, but if you have any problem then call me and I will come over,’ he said as he was about to leave. I thought nothing of it at the time; we would soon be seeing them again in a couple of month’s time. As they left, he was waving to us from the back of the taxi. That was the last time I saw him.
My parents settled back into life in Delhi. At that point, they were living in my apartment at Amrita SherGill Marg. The block of flats on Prithviraj Road where our old house had been was still in the process of being completed and my father was looking forward to occupying his new flat with great enthusiasm. It had taken a very long time to get the necessary permissions since the building was in the Lutyen’s Zone and permission for building was virtually impossible. Soon after I got married in 1973, I had bought this small apartment purely for investment purposes, and I never thought for a moment that my parents of all people were actually going to live there, and that too for some considerable time.
My father was very excited about finally moving into the new apartments at Prithviraj Road but the cruel irony was that he was not destined to live in this much awaited flat for even one day. Within nine days of his return to Delhi, he complained of having a bad headache and cancelled his golf engagement that afternoon. Shortly thereafter he was showing signs of a stroke and by the time the doctor had arrived he was barely able to speak. He was rushed to Batra Hospital which was regarded as one of the best at that time, but he slowly sank into a coma and died sometime in the early hours of September 6, 1988. He had had a main stem artery rupture and the doctors explained to me that no matter where in the world this might have occurred, it was impossible to save him; he was only sixty-four years of age.
The author, Bel Mooney in her book mentions, ‘You get up one morning with no inkling that the day will bring a life changing moment.’ Well it was pretty much the same for me that day, from the minute that I got the news that he was seriously unwell and a few hours later to learn that he was dead- not only my own life but that of our entire family turned upside down in an instant. It shattered a certain normal pattern that our larger family had developed over a period of time and none of us were ever going to be the same again.
It was a perfectly normal day—the children were still on their summer vacation and I had taken them both to Brent Cross shopping centre for some shopping and we had stopped off at one of the cafes so that they could have some ice cream. I was about to sit down to dinner at about 8P.M. that evening when the phone rang. It was my Suket cousin Hari Sen, who told me that uncle was unwell and had had a stroke, and as our Danta uncle was also very unwell at the time with kidney problems and was regularly undergoing dialysis, I naturally assumed that he was referring to him. However, his next words sent a chill down my spine: ‘You had better come to India as quickly as you can,’ he said, I could not believe my ears. ‘Do you mean it’s my father?’ I asked with great trepidation and he confirmed that indeed it was. The phone fell from my hand and by then the children and MJ had come into the room when they heard me crying out loudly.
Peter Popham has said about Aung San Suu Ki, ‘When the telephone rang, as a consequence of that call, all the plans and expectations of their lives were turned upside down.’
I think that pretty much sums up what happened in our lives from the time that fateful telephone rang.
There was no time for hysterics, however, and the first thing we had to attend to was getting our visas to India. It was already well past office hours and we had to simply catch the first flight the next morning. MJ phoned my father-in-law who immediately came to our rescue and called the Indian High Commissioner and requested him to organise the staff necessary to grant visas to MJ and me. The High Commissioner very kindly complied and phoned certain members of his staff to immediately reach the High Commission and give us our requ
ired visas. It seemed that several members of the Indian High Commission that evening had to make their way to Aldwych and MJ rushed across with our passports. He also phoned our friend Douglas Singh of Air India, to book our flight the next morning. Douglas was an enormous help to us in those moment of great distress: the Air India flights usually went full to India, but somehow he managed to squeeze in two seats.
That night we slept uneasily, hoping against hope that it was not quite as serious as Hari Sen had lead us to believe but around 3 AM in the morning there was another call, this time from Thakur Anand Singh. He was crying over the phone and he gave us the sad news that my father had passed away in the early hours of the morning and informed me that they were going to charter a flight and take the body to Bikaner for cremation and asked us to hurry and reach Bikaner as quickly as possible. My mother-in-law very kindly came to our rescue and assured us that she would look after the children and their school routine during the two weeks or so that we would be away, as school was about to open imminently and they both needed last minute supplies. She said that all would be attended to and that we should leave with a free mind, which was easier said than done. My mind was in absolute turmoil, I somehow managed to throw a few things together and we left for the airport early the next morning; both Champa Nani and my mother-in-law were in tears as we got into the taxi that was to take us to the airport.
The flight reached Delhi in the evening and Rita was waiting for us at the airport. We drove straight on to Bikaner, arriving early in the morning of 7September, and as we approached Bikaner the driver wanted to fill the car with gas but each and every gas station was closed that morning as a mark of respect for my father. Somehow we managed to make it and drove straight to the fort. Normally, according to Hindu custom the funeral should take place on the same day before sunset, but in the case of my father, my mother gave instructions to wait till I had arrived and paid my last and personal respects to him. In addition to our family, thousands of citizens of Bikaner had gathered to pay their last respects to their much loved Maharaja. I was told that people from villages all over Bikaner had taken the trouble to be there that day. The crowds outside the Fort were immense, all dressed in white and respectfully quiet and patiently waiting for the cortege to emerge so that they could accompany it to the cremation grounds at Devi Kund Sagar. I recall Thakur Anand Singh telling me of the huge crowds that had gathered at the cremation grounds, they were even larger than the time of Maharaja Ganga Singhji and he went on to say that when the pyre was lit the crowds surged forward with such force that for a moment he felt that he would be pushed into the fire. Such was the love and affection that the people of Bikaner irrespective of cast creed or religion had for my father.
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