Meet the Maharaja
Simply uttering the word "Maharaja" evokes a timeless elegance, a sensation of radiance and power. For centuries in India’s rich history, maharajas were the rulers of India’s many kingdoms, the purveyors of the grand and luxurious forts and palaces that still grace the country’s landscape today. All the sculptures, paintings and wall murals that collectively exude an air of “Classic India” were made for and by the order of maharajas, the ruling class believed to be descendent of heavenly incarnations. Back then, when the maharaja spoke, people listened. It was definitely good to be the maharaja.
Nowadays the heyday of Indian royalty is over, but the maharajas survive, scrapped of any real authority, clinging onto their royal lineage like the Queen of England. Despite lacking any real power since 1971, the prospect of an encounter with a living maharaja still evoked a thrill for me, which explained my enthusiasm when I scheduled a meeting with the Maharaja of Jaipur, His Highness Maharaja Sawai Bhawani Singh, during my travels through the Indian state of Rajasthan. Although I liked to believe my press credentials as a freelance travel journalist helped me get my foot in the door, my guidebook said that anyone could land a meeting with His Highness as long as the request was made in a formal manner and followed-up with persistent phone calls.
It took three days of phone calls and meetings with the City Palace secretaries before I was finally granted a one-on-one with the maharaja; the principal private secretary told me that the maharaja sometimes allowed civilians to meet His Highness in person as a courtesy for casual conversation and/or, at the very least, a photo op. I was hoping that I might parlay my time with the pseudo-monarch into a one-on-one interview, so that I might come out of there with an article giving an inside look at a day in the life of a maharaja struggling to exist in present-day India.
I arrived at the City Palace twenty minutes early for my 10:30 morning meeting and was met at the front gates by the royal guards, just as I had many times before during the past few days. However, this time I had a different statement for “reason of business”:
“Hi, I’m Erik Trinidad. I have a 10:30 appointment with His Highness.”
His Highness. Just the sound of it rolling off my tongue made me feel like a celebrity journalist, like Dan Rather going to Saddam Hussein before the American invasion of Iraq, and I felt like gloating to the other tourists wandering around the palace grounds; but I kept a professional head on. I signed in at the front guard station as I had done before—this time writing “His Highness” under “name of person to be met”—and walked over to the Aide De Camp office, where I sat and waited for a royal guard to give me my cue. To pass the remaining minutes constructively, I crammed with research notes about the maharaja and the royal family that I had printed from their Web site. I really wanted to impress His Highness with some competence; I didn’t want to be brushed-off as a just another tourist taking up the guidebook’s suggestion to meet him.
The Maharaja of Jaipur was not one to be brushed-off as just another non-authoritative figure either, unlike other royal families whose reverence crumbled after their reign was revoked. According to the royal Web site, Maharaja Sawai Bhawani Singh actually earned his respect in Jaipur, having served in the Indian Army as a paratrooper and eventually a commanding officer in the Indian-Pakistan and Bangladesh Wars. He eventually made the rank of Brigadier for life and served as the first Resident High Commissioner to the State of Brunei in the 1990s. However, in his twilight years he was old and retired and, after surviving a stroke, was rumored to be keen on playing around with computers when he wasn’t entertaining guests.
“Does His Highness always get visitors like this?” I asked the ADC officer waiting in the room with me.
“Yeah, he’s always having people come by or going out to visit people. He gets bored.”
Soon, one of the royal guards, a stout but distinguished-looking officer with a royal red turban and a bushy and curvaceous royal moustache, signaled to us that it was time. The guard and the ADC officer escorted me towards the Chandra Mahal, the royal residence of the maharaja, and instructed me to wait outside while they briefed the maharaja about my arrival. I waited patiently, psyching myself up to interview the prestigious figurehead, an actual living member of the royal Singh dynasty that had built up the city over the past four centuries. As great as that was, I kept in mind that underneath the royal robes and royal red turban, there was a human being, one that I might really get to know, who could give me an exclusive.
The royal guard came back, and I quickly gathered my composure. Show time. He opened the door, extended his hand out for me to pass through, and closed it behind me. The room I had entered was another office, very similar to the Aide De Camp office with rich hardwood furniture and many royal tchotchkes. Attending the desk was an old man in a casual gray outfit. I almost mistook him for another secretary, until I realized it was the maharaja himself—his lack of royal robes and turban caught me off guard. In my confusion, I almost didn’t notice his hand extended out to greet me.
“Please,” he said, gesturing towards his royal couch and royal armchair. In his stance, I realized that, authoritative power or not, this maharaja still emitted a regal presence, an aura passed down to him from his ancestors.
“It’s great to meet you,” I said, accepting his invitation to sit. His presence was overpowering, and I suddenly felt as uneasy as a man visiting the Godfather on the day of his daughter’s wedding.
“What do you want to do?” he said with an assertive nonchalance.
With my pen and notepad in hand, I got right down to it. “Well I’ve been touring around the City of Jaipur and learning about the maharajas of the past, but I haven’t really seen the correlation with modern-day society,” I said, feeling awkward. “And I guess that’s something that only a man of your status could answer.”
Dan Rather, eat your heart out.
“I don’t understand,” said His Highness, in an ambiguous state between bewilderment and apathy. Perhaps he was bored with me already.
“Well, what I guess I’m trying to ask is what it’s like to be the maharaja in a modern world.”
He looked at me with arresting eyes and simply answered, “I have been in the army.”
“Yes, I know you’ve been in the army...” I started, thinking that my little cram session had paid off. We were finally making some progress. But then His Highness cut to the chase:
“Did you want to take a photo?”
“Yes,” I said without even thinking, hypnotized, frozen like a deer in headlights.
Like the Fonz, he snapped his royal finger, summoning the royal guard to be the royal photographer with my not-so-royal digital camera. I stood next to the maharaja as the flash went off once, and then again for good measure. The maharaja extended his hand again in farewell and this time I found it right away.
“Thank you for meeting me,” I said shaking his hand a second time, completely awe-struck. And with that said, the meeting was adjourned. The maharaja went on with his own business—probably to play computer games or go back to sleep—while I went back to my hotel with nothing but two extra files on my camera’s memory card.
The Indian government may have taken away the authority of Indian royalty, but as far as I’m concerned, the maharajas still retain their royal charisma—and charisma goes a long way. Sadly, I have nothing to report about what it’s really like to be a living maharaja existing in present-day India, but I’m pretty sure that, at least in Jaipur, it’s still good to be one.
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