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Photographs Tell A Story
Words Cannot Express

 

I love staring at other people’s photographs. You can ogle, comment and laugh with detachment. You can also marvel and express wonder. Yet it doesn’t mean anything because there’s no cost either way.

It was in this spirit that I recently picked up a rather large glossy coffee-table book. Ratna Sahai had sent me a copy of Sharada Dwivedi’s Maharaja and I started by staring at Arvind Mewar’s daunting photograph on the cover. It’s a perfect picture for it captures the one quality I associate with the man : arrogance. If you look deep into his eyes — sadly, they are not very big — then you can almost sense a second quality : his belief that he’s special.

We’ve only met once and I doubt if he will recall the encounter. I do because of the silly bloomer I made and his rather gloating response. It was late summer in London and we were guests of Tan Mackay, a friend of my mother’s. Tan knows Mewar’s wife, Bootie, very well.

“What do you do?” I politely asked, when I found myself standing beside him. I hadn’t the faintest idea who he was but then that’s not necessarily a sin.

“I’m in hotels.” He replied. If you think about it that’s hardly a full answer so, naturally, I asked for more.

“Where?”

“Udaipur.”

“Ah.” I thought and sadly said so as well. “You must work for the Tatas?”

The only hotel in Udaipur I knew of was The Lake Palace and it’s always been a Taj Hotel.

“They work for me.” came the thundering reply.

The man, I soon realised, was the Maharana of Udaipur, although some of his close relatives would dispute that and he had a rather rigid sense of priorities. Unwittingly, I had transgressed them.

Opening the book, I found myself looking at photographs of Arvind’s father’s marriage. He was the last Maharana and he married a princess from Bikaner. By odd coincidence, her niece, Rajyashree, is a dear friend. So I have a little insight into the marriage and a second source of information on Arvind.

The two page spread of Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner waiting with his thakurs for Arvind’s Dad’s baraat is stunning. I love their surly good looks, the curled moustaches, the thinly disguised pot-bellies hiding behind the chains of jewellery they wear but, best of all, I love their ribboned pumps. It’s a shame we don’t wear such footwear any more.

If you turn the page again, there’s another double spread. This time, it’s not historical but self-created. Arvind, surrounded by his courtiers; an impressive sight but nonetheless a later-day imitation of a splendour that’s long past its prime. His shoes are shiny red. But they’re jooties, not pumps.

I suppose that says it all. In the thirties and forties, we had real Maharajas. Today, we have eager old men who still want to be. The photographs in this book capture both and explain the difference. That’s why I love staring at these photographs and will do so many, many times. They speak volumes without giving away any indiscretions. In that sense, they are better than me.