Authors: Lucinda Riley
Indira and I were virtually joined at the hip by this time, and she noticed my expression immediately.
“What is it?”
I looked up from the letter. “My mother is asking me when I’ll return.”
“To where?” Indira looked confused.
“To Jaipur, of course.”
“But of course you can’t leave,” she replied. “You live here with me now. Perhaps we can arrange for your mother to come for a visit.”
“I doubt she’d be happy to travel the distance.”
“I will speak to Ma and see what she can suggest.”
My heart was in my mouth as Indira dashed off to find her mother. What if the Maharani had been so busy that she simply hadn’t noticed I had not yet gone home? What if—I shuddered with terror—I had to return to the zenana at Jaipur forever?
Indira returned half an hour later and nodded her head in satisfaction. “Don’t worry, Anni. Ma will find a solution. She always does.”
That evening, when we gathered as usual in the Maharani’s boudoir, she beckoned me over to her mirror.
“Indira says your mother is missing you and wishes to see you.”
“Yes, that is what she writes in her letter,” I replied nervously.
“I understand completely. No mother wishes to be deprived of the sight and company of her child. So, we must arrange for her to visit you.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” I bowed to her respectfully. In reality, I wanted to cover her exquisite face in kisses with gratitude.
“I’ll send a letter to your mother immediately. I’ve been meaning to write anyway, as I have another matter I wish to discuss with her.”
My heart leaped with relief. She wasn’t necessarily sending me back.
A few days later, the Maharani appeared in the bedroom Indira and I shared. It was not her daughter she wished to talk to, but me.
“Come and join me, Anni,” she said as she indicated the doors which led to the veranda.
“Can I come too, Ma?” asked Indira plaintively.
“No,” came the firm reply. “I wish to speak to Anni alone.”
I followed the Maharani to a bench which sat outside in the cool shade of the courtyard. Even in her casual day wear of tunic and trousers, which she wore when there were no guests in attendance, the Maharani looked beautiful.
“Anni, there is a reason I wanted to speak to you without my daughter present.”
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Are you enjoying your life here?”
“Oh yes, Your Highness,” I assured her enthusiastically.
“Do you wish to stay with us for longer?”
“Oh, yes please. I love it here!” The eagerness with which I spoke could give her no cause for doubt.
The Maharani turned her eyes away from me and stared into the distance. Eventually, she sighed. “I wanted to hear the words from your own lips. I’m fully aware that Indira is headstrong and has been spoiled by the life she was born into. I also know that, being the youngest and petted by her older siblings, she’s been allowed more freedom than she should have been. I accept responsibility for that fact. I know she misses her brother and sisters and was lonely here before you came. Still, she cannot simply expect her every demand will be granted, especially if her demand includes a person.”
“I love her,” I said. They were the simplest and truest words I knew.
The Maharani turned back to me and smiled. “I know you do, Anni. I can see it on your face. And true friendship, which encompasses love, loyalty and trust, is a very rare and precious thing. I hope for both your own and my daughter’s sake that your friendship will accompany you into the future. However”—the Maharani reached for my hands and encircled them in hers, her face suddenly serious—“you too have your
own set of thoughts and wishes. And you must promise me that you’ll never be afraid to make them felt. Indira is a strong character.” The Maharani paused and smiled again. “I’m sad to say that I see a lot of me in her. Don’t let yourself be ruled by her, will you? That would be bad for you, and bad for my daughter.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” I answered, deeply touched by her considering me worthy of advice. At that moment, I realized why Ayesha, the famous Maharani of Cooch Behar, was adored by almost everyone who had the good fortune to meet her.
She understood human nature.
“Now, your mother is coming here in around a week’s time. I’ll speak to her then.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“I should thank you, Anni.” As she released my hands, she patted them gently with her long, cool fingers before she stood up. “I think my daughter is most fortunate in having you for her friend.”
• • •
A fortnight later, my mother arrived at Cooch Behar Palace.
“Anni, how you have grown!” she exclaimed as I greeted her and then took her on a tour of the palace. I could see she felt overwhelmed by the endless rooms, furnished with priceless treasures collected by the Maharani from all over the world. I had grown accustomed to the sumptuous setting I now lived in.
“Where is the zenana?” she asked me nervously.
“Oh”—I waved airily in its general direction—“somewhere over there.”
“But surely the Maharani lives with the other women in the zenana?”
“No, Maaji, she has her own separate set of rooms.”
I could sense my mother’s feeling of discomfort as I walked with her through the communal areas of the palace. There were a number of aides-de-camp and male servants flitting around who took no notice of us. Even though, compared to many women of her age, my mother’s life as a healer and my father’s belief that women had a right to education had prepared her better for the relaxed way things worked here, I could still tell that she was ill at ease. She had never before appeared unveiled in front of any male other than my father.
“You and Princess Indira are approaching the time when you will
become women. Will you embrace purdah and live in the zenana then?”
“I don’t know, Maaji,” I answered honestly as we sat taking a cup of tea in the small courtyard outside our bedroom. “I’d have to ask. Or maybe you could. I know both the Maharaja and the Maharani are great friends with Rabindranath Tagore, whom you know Father admired so much. He doesn’t approve of purdah,” I said, trying to make it more palatable for her by reminding her of her beloved husband.
I still remember the anxiety on my mother’s face as she struggled between old and new.
“I’d like to take a rest now,” she said eventually. “It was a long journey.”
I knew that later on that evening my mother was to be taken into the Maharani’s boudoir to be presented to her. My heart somersaulted as I thought of what she would see. It was a high altar to the modern ways, and the high priestess of it all, with her French perfume and Western accoutrements, would only increase my mother’s consternation.
What if my mother believed that I was not being brought up in a true Hindu fashion? She would be within her rights to order me straight back with her to Jaipur.
Of course, I needn’t have worried. When Indira and I entered the boudoir with my mother, Ayesha herself rose and cut a swath through a group of women to greet my mother. She was already dressed in a sari of shimmering gold, diamonds adorning her neck and an enormous ruby nose clip catching the light from the Baccarat chandelier above her.
“It’s my honor to meet you, Highness,” said my mother, almost doubled over in awe. As I watched the two women, I realized they could not have been more in contrast to each other. One radiantly beautiful, rich and independent, the other bowed by the hardship of her life since my father had died.
“No,” answered the Maharani softly, “it is my honor to meet you. You’ve given birth to a very special daughter and we are lucky to have her among us. Now, come and see my prayer room and we will offer
puja
to Brahma for blessing us with such offspring.”
With that, she led my mother through the surprised onlookers and disappeared into the next room, closing the door behind her.
Fifteen minutes later, when the two women emerged, they were chatting like old friends. My mother’s nervousness had completely disappeared and I too, gave thanks to the gods that the Maharani had known exactly what to do to put my mother at ease.
That evening my mother, just as everyone else, fell under the Maharani’s gentle spell. She waxed lyrical about her new friend’s taste in furnishings and clothes and her extensive knowledge of philosophy, poetry and the wider world. They had shared their thoughts on Ayurvedic medicine and the Maharani was fascinated to hear about my mother’s special gift of second sight.
“Did you ‘see’ for her, Maaji?” I asked eagerly when she emerged from the Maharani’s rooms one afternoon.
“As you know very well, Anni, that’s a private matter between the Maharani and myself,” my mother replied.
By the end of the first week, she was relaxed enough to take a walk with me around the gardens in full view of the male residents of the palace. She still wouldn’t remove her
ghoonghat
from her face and I respected her for it. But in all other aspects, she’d become as enthralled with Cooch Behar Palace and its denizens as I had.
The day before my mother was to return home, the Maharani called her to her rooms for a private audience. I knew what they would be discussing and Indira and I waited nervously outside.
“What if my mother wishes me to return with her? I think I would die!”
Indira sat calmly next to me, holding my hand. “She won’t ask you to go back, Anni, I promise.”
And of course, Indira was right. My mother emerged smiling and took me into my bedroom to talk alone.
“The Maharani has asked me if I would be prepared to lend you to her family on a permanent basis. She’s also offered to educate you with Indira, which is exactly what your father would have wished for you.”
“Yes, Maaji,” I muttered.
“She also said she understands it might be hard for me without you, so she’s suggested I spend part of my year here with you when the family is in residence at the palace. So, my daughter, do you wish to stay on here when I return to Jaipur?”
“Oh, Maaji, I—” A tear came to my eye. “I think I do, yes. Even though I’ll be away from you for part of the year and will miss you dreadfully. But I do know that Father would be very happy to see me
continuing my education. And I can’t do that in the zenana in Jaipur.”
“The opportunities you have here are far greater, I agree. And you’ve always been special, my
pyari
.” She smiled and touched my cheek with her hand. “You will write every week when we are apart?”
“Of course, Maaji. Every day, if you like.”
“Once a week will be fine, dearest child. And I’ll be returning here after the monsoon, in four months’ time. I promise it will not seem long.”
“I will miss you.”
“And I you.” She opened her arms to me. “Just remember, I will always be with you.”
“I know, Maaji,” I said, hugging her tightly.
Even now, I remember that she looked at me in that moment with such sadness in her eyes that I was prompted to say, “Maybe I should come back to Jaipur with you after all.”
“No, Anni”—she looked up to the heavens—“I know it is your destiny to stay.”
And so, my mother went back to Jaipur, laden with gifts from the Maharani. And although I’d achieved my heart’s desire and could now look upon Cooch Behar Palace as my permanent home, I couldn’t help feeling a slight twinge of discomfort that my mother, spiritually gifted and wise as she was, had been so subtly persuaded into giving me up, her precious daughter.
• • •
That summer, when the monsoon season came and the hot earth beneath our feet stung even our hardened soles like a thousand bees, the royal party moved with the rest of privileged India up to the hill stations to breathe the fresh, cool air. We traveled to Darjeeling, a magnificent, mountainous region, seven thousand feet high and famous for its tea plantations, whose fields tumbled down the verdant hillsides as far as the eye could see.
That summer was the start of my lifelong love affair with Darjeeling; the distant sight of the magnificent Himalayas alone sent my spirits soaring. The British had also learned to escape to Darjeeling long ago and had made the town their own. Lines of white bungalows, named after places in England, lined the hillsides and the town was immaculately ordered and laid out, unlike our own chaotic Indian villages. I dreamed of one day visiting the
real
England for myself.
It was in Darjeeling that I met Indira’s siblings. All three of them were on holiday from boarding school in England. Aged seventeen, sixteen and fifteen, they petted their younger sister, but, being so much more mature than she, I could understand why Indira had felt like an only child. Minty, her fifteen-year-old sister, seemed very grown-up and sophisticated. I listened in fascination as they chatted over dinner about life in England. I learned to play croquet on the immaculate lawns and also became skilled at a myriad of card tricks thanks to Indira’s gregarious middle brother, Abivanth. I was particularly overawed by Raj, Indira’s eldest brother, the Crown Prince, whose good looks and charm rendered me virtually tongue-tied in his presence.
The house we inhabited was tiny compared to Cooch Behar Palace, which meant we lived much more as a family unit. Set way up in the hills, and with only horses or rickshaws able to reach it, it was a place of privacy and tranquillity. Often, the handsome Maharaja—whom I’d seldom seen in Cooch Behar due to his state duties—would join the rest of his family for a simple picnic lunch in the garden. I saw, in the informal setting of Darjeeling, what I wished for in my own future life: an abiding and true love between husband and wife. I saw it in the way they’d sometimes catch each other’s eye over dinner and share a secret smile, in how I’d often see his hand snake surreptitiously to the Maharani’s waist. This was the kind of genuine affection that I recalled from my own parents’ marriage.
Even though they ruled over a kingdom together, and the demands on their time were enormous, I realized that their true strength flowed from the mutual admiration and trust each felt for the other.
That summer, Indira and I liked to rise very early in the morning and ride up the steep tracks to Tiger Hill in order to watch the sun rising over Mount Everest. We both loved visiting the marketplace in the center of Darjeeling where Tibetan and Bhutanese vendors in enormous fur hats would sell their wares. I was, without doubt, happier than I had ever been and felt completely welcomed and accepted by Indira’s family. Even though I’d known hardship, I was too young to fully appreciate that the scales of life can tip in an instant. And that great happiness in one moment does not necessarily guarantee the same in the next.