They are a relic from another era. They are like dinosaurs in today’s fast-paced world. They are a hang-up of our inherent feudal conditioning. And yet, seventy-plus years into Independence and a shaky democracy, India and the world continues to be fascinated by erstwhile Royals.
Picture books depict their fabled palaces and fortresses. Films continue to be made on their shenanigans. People come from across the world, pay huge amounts to stay and experience the luxe living that the Royals once did. Books continue to be written about them. As individuals carrying a burden of past legacies on their shoulders they are wined and dined in the best of homes and are invited as honoured guests at any function that wants for a touch of glamour. Or magazine covers that want instant sales. Biographies are written about them. Their marriages are watched avidly on television and the public speculates endlessly about their private lives.
So, what is it about Royals that fascinates us still? I think that the resentment that they were wealthy beyond imagination while the subjects merely eked out a living is now gone…confronted as we are by the uncomfortable reality of power-hungry politicians who even lack the finesse that the Royals may have brought to their brand of exploitation.
Nostalgia gives us a glowing patina of the times under a Maharaja when everything worked and a benign single ruler called the shots. However autocratic. At least decisions were taken, development—however small—could be seen in terms of colleges and hospitals, roads and railways. Musicians and artists were patronized and they flourished. And if the Raja himself lived an amoral dissolute life given to excesses of indulgence… why, it was his due as he was God anointed, wasn’t he?
The small states used to be peaceful microcosms with a benign “Mai Baap” at the helm. Their rich trappings and rituals conditioned their subjects into adoring them from a distance and never questioning their actions. They demanded and commanded respect and fealty. A deep sense of loyalty ran like a current through all the people rich and poor who belonged to the state unifying them.
Take them today. Royals continue to be addressed as Her Highness and His Highness, 50 years after they were cruelly defranchised by Indira Gandhi who pulled the comfortable rug of privy purses from under their feet. Lacking any professional qualifications or even the ability to make money they were drowning under the weight of multiple palaces, fortresses and thousands of servitors still looking to them for survival. Some took to drink. Others started selling assets and artifacts to the rich wannabe’s. The smarter ones converted their palaces and fortresses to seven-star hotels and drew upon their own charisma to attract the clientele. They survived. So did their endless fascination. For the hoi polloi who may acquire the wealth but cannot for love or money acquire the dignity and the grace that being born a Royal can inculcate in a person.
So here we are…having to see the brash, crass behaviour of illiterate, power-crazed politicians and longing for a whiff of the dignity and bearing of an erstwhile Maharaja who carries generations of breeding on his person. Yes, he may be a womaniser. He may have more than one wife and a mistress in every city. He may still have the means to indulge his passions whether it is sex, racing, cars, cards, or politics. We do not begrudge him that. After all it far more tragic to have it all and lose it than never to have had it at all.
My book Mayurkhund is about a small thikkana in Rajasthan with a profligate Maharaja and his two Maharanis and a mistress, all of whom live in an uneasy truce in the palace ground, even while he is out making merry with other mistresses in other cities. He has spawned dozens of illegitimate children and yet in death, he leaves a list of his offspring that he wants looked after by his assorted trusts. And his son falls in love with an orphan, a commoner… But for that you will have to read Mayurkhund. A story of romance, love, life, passion, devotion, and vengeance that could only happen in a place called Mayurkhund in the remote interiors of Rajasthan. But we are talking about the romance of Royalty even in a digital civilisation harrowed by a disastrous pandemic.
They are our escape from the mundane routine of life on the treadmills of earning a livelihood. I think that is where lies our eternal fascination for Royalty even today. They do not behave like desk-bound, umbrella-carrying Babus. Not even the publicity-hungry film stars. Not the feuding politicians of enemy parties. Not for them the penny pinching and corner-cutting that is the straitjacket of circumstances most of us struggle inside. Not for them the middle-class morality that neighbours and relations impose on every youngster wanting to spread his wings or scatter his oats.
They were and still are a different breed. They live life larger. They make their own rules. They amble to their own slow drummers. Monied or not monied, they do not compromise on their standards. And they afford us a rare glimpse into lifestyles that few of us can afford even today. They are the stuff of stories, myths, romance, and legend. Perhaps, a manifestation of our material desires.
Sadiqa Peerbhoy is a seasoned advertising professional who has been the writer and creative director behind the making and sustaining of many Indian and global brands. To keep her sanity in the maddening world of advertising, she took to writing a topical humour column and has been a columnist for three newspapers over a period of two decades and has a large base of readers who still fondly recall her ‘Swalpa Adjust Madi’, ‘Myopic View’ and ‘Sweet n Sour’. Hundreds of her short stories have found their way into magazines and weekend papers and won several awards. She has scripted serials for Doordarshan like Sara Jahan Hamara and the long-running Honee Anhonee.
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