by Jerramy Fine
I’d seen homeless people on the streets of New York and London, huddled in doorways under heaps of filthy blankets, but here there were entire families sleeping on the roadside! Scores and scores of children living like animals and peeking desperately out of cardboard boxes—and the horrors stretched as far as I could see.
And there I was, in the plush, air-conditioned luxury of my chauffeured car, separated from my fellow human beings by this unbearable, mind-boggling gulf of fate. Life’s unfairness cut through me like a dagger. What had I done to deserve my spoiled lifestyle? Why had I been spared such a dreadful existence and not them? The sheer scale and hopelessness of it all pummeled my heart and I was nearly crying by the time we reached Krishna’s apartment.
What on earth was I doing at LSE studying first-world policy? Studying how to help people who already had floors and toilets? It all seemed so de cadent and so useless next to the grinding poverty I’d just witnessed. How could I possibly stay in a palace after this?
As the car drove on, I suddenly remembered the night my dad had told me, “You’re lucky you have feet.”
And for the first time, I actually understood what he meant.
Thirteen
“Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible; Life in a palace is possible; Therefore even in a palace a right life is possible.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS, ROMAN EMPEROR (121 A.D.–180 A.D.)
The astonishingly beautiful sandstone palace, which had been partly converted to a five-star hotel after India claimed in dependence, had 347 rooms and was probably twice as big as the U.S. Capitol building.
Due to the long-haul flight and various stopovers, by the time I arrived at the palace, I hadn’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours.
Jet-lagged and delirious, I allowed myself to be escorted through the private royal wing filled with gilt furniture and elegant artwork and into the lavish suite I was to share with Natalie and Heather. I saw them, we screamed, we hugged, and although we had tons to catch up on since we hadn’t seen each other since graduation, they told me to get dressed immediately because we were going to a party with the princes in five minutes. My hands were shaking so much from nerves and lack of sleep I could barely put my lipstick on straight.
The first prince was short, nothing special. The second prince (the Crown Prince) was strikingly beautiful. Amazing eyes, shiny black hair, perfect white teeth, perfect build, perfect square jaw. Perfect. And he had gone to Eton so you can guess what his accent sounded like. All hope for my behaving coherently for the remainder of the trip was gone as I began to star in my own Indian fairytale.
The cocktail party (mind you, this is only a pre-millennium-party cocktail party) was just as I knew it would be. There were glowing fires, Persian rugs, silk pillows, live music, and dozens of uniformed servants handing us drinks—all under the most amazingly clear stars I’d seen since Colorado. (That’s one thing I missed about living in the middle of nowhere—no light pollution means you can always see the Milky Way.)
Still, I had trouble comprehending how all this modern affluence could exist so close to such mind-numbing poverty. Heather and I were pondering these ethical questions as best we could over our constantly flowing gin-and-tonics, when the Crown Prince appeared and pulled me onto the dance floor.
And as I danced under the dazzling Rajasthan stars with a real-live handsome prince, I had to remind myself that I started my day drinking a mug of instant coffee in the bomb shelter.
We partied until nearly 6 A.M. I saw royals and their guests dance on tables, fall down stairs, and order full-course meals to be served in the formal dining room at 4 A.M. and basically run around the palace like a bunch of crazy little kids. I loved every minute of it. Drunk, sleep-deprived, and jet-lagged beyond all comprehension, when I was finally getting ready for bed, I accidentally brushed my teeth in the tap water and panicked. What if I got malaria? I could already hear my mom saying, “I told you so.”
At 10 A.M., the phone rang. “Your ladies’ presence is requested in the prince’s quarters for brunch. Be there in twenty minutes. Dress smartly.” Just what three hungover girls that require at least one hour of primping minimum—much less primping for a prince—want to hear after close to zero hours of sleep. As you can imagine, it was a crisis of huge proportions.
Brunch was served in the garden, which might as well have been Jasmine’s garden from Disney’s Aladdin—complete with pillars, fountains, and the occasional peacock. I half expected a tiger to come prowling around the corner at any moment! I adore Indian food in general, but this was Indian food literally fit for a king—and compared to the cottage cheese rolls served at the bomb shelter, it was heaven.
I was introduced to the rest of the royal family and they were wonderful. From the Queen Mother to the Princess Royal to the various royal cousins to the Maharaja himself—all of them were genuinely kind, surprisingly open, and incredibly welcoming. Within days, I felt I had known them for years.
To my delight, after brunch we were invited to attend a royal polo match. My first invitation to a polo match had finally arrived!
Remember when I said racquets was the only interesting sport I’d ever seen? Well, I take that back. Polo is the sexiest sport on the planet: gorgeous, strapping players (including the princes) on horse back in hot pursuit of the ball, thundering hooves, bits of grass, clouds of dust, the loud smack of the mallet…the entire event was the epitome of sportsmanship, equestrian skill, and valor. And as I sat with the elegantly dressed spectators and applauded the princes between sips of champagne, I understood completely why polo had been the royal sport of choice for so many centuries.57
Next, the girls and I hit the palace pool. This was the life! And my mom was worried I’d be forced into a harem? Please. I don’t think I’d ever felt safer.
Still, I was begging for sleep and we headed back to our room under the impression that we’d have time to nap and prepare for dinner. How wrong we were.
“There’s a cocktail party for the American ambassador to India,” said the voice on the telephone. “Please be on the veranda in fifteen minutes. Dress smartly.”
Another epic primping crisis. But if I know anything, it’s that one can’t say no to royal invitations. Even if your curling iron doesn’t work with Indian electricity and your hair is still dripping wet from the swimming pool.
Cocktails began at six and continued until 11 P.M. Natalie is from an extremely wealthy American family (in fact, she and Krishna used to compare funny stories about their servants). And as I consumed ever more gin and tonics, and bantered with a seemingly endless string of royal cousins, I watched as she charmed everyone with her perfect finishing-school posture and giant sapphire earrings; I observed how gracefully she smiled when she realized the ambassador was a personal friend of her grandmother. She blended into that crowd better than any of us and it was painfully obvious to me. Captivating a room full of British politicians or upper-class Oxford students was one thing, holding my own with real royals was quite another. And with a sharp pang, I realized how much further I still had to go, and how much more I still had to learn.
Dinner was served close to midnight and I was seated next to the Maharaja. After five hours of cocktails, I wondered how I was going to make sparkling conversation with a royal patriarch through an eight-course formal dinner—all while making sure I was sipping my soup in the right direction. Thank God for Debrett’s. And thank God for those cocktails. Still, the Maharaja had held his title since he was four years old and I was sure he’d had far loonier dinner companions than me in his time, so I tried not to worry. As expected, His Highness was amazingly friendly and his superb social skills made it incredibly easy for me. He even knew one of my professors at LSE!
Dinner ended at 1 A.M., after which young and old alike headed straight to another rooftop party. Did anyone ever sleep in this country? We fell into bed at 7 A.M. until three hours later when our presence was requested in the prince’s quarters for b
runch. It was like Groundhog Day. With the help of no sleep and far too much alcohol, I repeated this heavenly schedule for nearly a week. Cocktails weren’t always with the ambassador, and watching the princes play polo sometimes became watching the princes play tennis, but other than that, the days in the palace floated by and I felt like I was living in some kind of hologram-generated dream world.
Still, behind the scenes, my heart and I were locked in a constant moral battle. I was perpetually torn between enjoying the sumptuous luxury around me and feeling incredibly guilty for participating in any of it when I knew what existed outside the palace walls.
New Year’s Eve arrived.
The party was not to be held in the palace, but on the roof of a fifteenth-century royal fortress located at the top of a lofty 125-meter hill. Although we were scheduled to leave for the fortress at 7 P.M., we didn’t get back from polo until after six. A primping crisis ensued like you have never seen. Nightmarish proportions.
Natalie wore a stunning fuchsia ball gown, Heather was in elegant black velvet, and I wore silver satin with a magenta pashmina. All the guys wore black or white single-breasted formal jackets58 with gold or bejeweled buttons. We’re talking real gold and real rubies. No costume jewelry in sight.
There were several hundred guests invited to this party and we all drove caravan-style up the mountain to reach the fortress. The royals, as they do, rode in convertible Rolls-Royces and as we followed behind them in normal cars I saw that the entire village, many dressed in rags, had lined up on the side of the road to wave to us.
When we reached the gates of the towering fortress, the Maharaja promptly got on an elephant and began to lead the twenty-minute procession up the ramparts to the rooftop. Again it was straight out of Disney. Picture a real-life version of Aladdin’s song “Prince Ali, Fabulous He, Ali Ababwa” complete with music, horses, camels, dancers, fireworks, snake charmers, and girls throwing rose petals and wrapping garlands around our necks. (And of course, servants galore handing you drinks.)
I watched in awe as villagers clasped their hands into the prayer position59 and dropped to their knees in the presence of the Crown Prince. They truly respected him and his historical significance and seemed to be genuinely at peace with his privileged position. I suppose that’s the thing about India; the concept of karma is quite powerful there. Perhaps they believed that royal families have earned their position in life through good deeds accumulated in past lives; and likewise, they believe that those cursed with poverty and suffering are enduring it as a result of past-life mistakes. What goes around truly comes around, and while you may be a pauper in this life, you could easily be a prince in the next. Is that why no one was especially disturbed by the massive gap between the rich and the poor?
As we entered the final doorway to the party, a servant holding a giant silver container reached in and handed me a small piece of opium.
“It’s like a party favor!” laughed Natalie.
My poor parents. They were missing all the fun.
Of course I graciously declined and then watched in amusement as the young English diplomat standing behind me carefully broke his opium pellet into two halves.
“Would anyone like to share this with me?” he asked politely.
He turned toward the glamorous English magazine editor who had brought along her eighty-year-old mother.
“What about you?” he asked. “Would your mum like half an opium?”
I know my mum would, I thought to myself.
The roof of the fortress overlooked the sparkling lights of the city and the stars were out in their millions. Servants were everywhere; handing out cocktails and mouth watering appetizers. There were rooms filled with soft cushions and mellow music, a dance floor open to the stars, and another room filled with exactly 1,999 flickering candles—the 2000th to be lit by the Maharaja at the stroke of midnight. Then there was dinner (which was more like a giant medieval Indian feast), which you could help yourself to at any time.
The hours sped by. I could have been at a pretentious London nightclub with other pretentious twentysomethings. Instead, I was on a fifteenth-century dance floor with four-year-olds and eighty-year-olds, students and diplomats, natives and expats, royals and commoners, new friends and old. You could literally feel the love and hope in the air. And as we chanted the countdown to midnight, and a dazzling fireworks display filled the sky, I knew I couldn’t have asked for a better way to embark on a new millennium.
We partied far into the night and didn’t make it back to our bedroom until around eight or nine in the morning. Still, we shouldn’t have been surprised to hear the phone ring before noon.
“What is it?” I asked Heather as soon as she hung up.
“You’re never going to believe this,” she groaned, flopping back onto her bed and covering her throbbing head with a pillow.
“What?”
“We’re going camping today. And we have to be ready in twenty minutes.”
Visions of the dense Colorado forest flashed before my eyes: trying to assemble that stupid tent, digging a hole to go to the bathroom, bug spray, canned soup, no running water, no mirror to do my hair, my mother droning on and on about survival skills and sacred Native American land…Quite frankly, family camping excursions made up some of my worst childhood memories. Was this really how New Year’s Day was going to be spent?
We drove for an hour through the desert before reaching our campsite. Overlooking a shimmering lake and a sprinkling of palm trees stood twenty tents made of spotless cream-colored canvas. Our tent was heated, carpeted, had three single beds, a mosquito net, a working sink, and a flushing toilet. For some reason, I didn’t think my mother’s camping survival skills were going to be needed. Lunch was catered by the palace, served on linen tablecloths beneath the shade of a giant marquee, and let’s just say it had nothing to do with canned soup.
Afterward, all the royal men mounted their horses and all the girls, including me, were given a camel. Mine had the most adorable face in the world—large expressive eyes and big furry lips; I wanted to take him home with me! I climbed between his massive camel humps, and as servants handed us cold bottles of Tiger beer, our hoofed convoy rode through the gorgeous sands of the Rajasthan desert until sunset. It was the perfect cure for my first hangover of the century.
On the long flight back to London, I sat back in my seat and thought about how last New Year’s Eve I was stuck in a Colorado blizzard and forced to watch amateur line-dancing competitions to a song called “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” in a place called the Big Barn.
And this New Year’s Eve, I had literally danced with a prince.
Admittedly, he wasn’t an English prince. But a girl’s got to start somewhere.
Fourteen
“The unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds.”
—CHARLES, NINTH EARL SPENCER
“No meetings are accidental.”
—MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
Springtime arrived and Britain was abloom with daffodils, tulips, delphiniums, and all those other pastel-colored, fairyland-looking flowers. The newspapers were printing recipes for hot cross buns and things at LSE were slowly winding down. It looked like I might actually graduate—with honors no less!
Meanwhile, Princess Diana’s birthday was also approaching,60 as was the third anniversary of her death. Other than occasionally visiting the cluttered and overcrowded gates of Kensington Palace, I had yet to formally pay my final respects to Diana. And now that her resting place was open to the public, I knew the time was right to make my pilgrimage to Althorp.
Needless to say, no one else I knew was interested in spending a Saturday afternoon mourning the lost life of a fallen princess, so I boarded the train to Northampton by myself and braced myself for the sad, soul-cleansing trip that would follow.
When Diana’s father became the eighth Earl Spencer in the mid 1970s
, Diana and her two older sisters became ladies, her younger brother Charles became a viscount, and all of them moved to Althorp—the traditional, ancestral home of the Spencer family. (Diana’s family has lived at Althorp for nearly five centuries, spanning twenty generations.)
Althorp (pronounced “Althrup”) boasts 121 rooms, is surrounded by a 600-acre park, and is set within a 13,000-acre country estate. Although Diana was technically considered a commoner, as you can see, she wasn’t exactly penniless when she married Charles. But that doesn’t make me love her any less. No one can help the life he or she is born into. I, of all people, know that.
To prevent distasteful crowds running rampant through the grounds (as unfortunately happens at so many of my favorite royal sites in England), Althorp strictly limits the number of visitors to the estate each day. Also, unlike Buckingham Palace, there is not a hot dog cart in sight. As a result, the extensive gardens of the stately, historic house were strangely quiet—exuding a calm, peaceful atmosphere of serenity and respect.
How ironic that Diana met Charles on these very grounds. Little did she know that a simple pheasant shoot in 1977 would change the course of her entire life.
I proceeded to slowly make my way through the converted stable block that held the Diana exhibition. The stylish exhibit tastefully depicted the life and times of Diana, but to be honest, I found nothing there that I didn’t already know.
In fact, college friends used to amuse themselves by testing me on my innate Diana knowledge. Late at night, whenever we were bored of studying, they’d Google her biography then quiz me.
“How many diamonds surround the sapphire on Diana’s engagement ring?”
“Fourteen.”
“What was her cat’s name?”