Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

The duchess was just behind him, looking untidy, older and somewhat motherly in the faintly bawdy way of some doting mothers with big awkward sons: friendly, frumpy, a bit hunched, smallish and compact, potbellied in her tight combination of dark jacket and skirt—much too formal for this desert heat, more appropriate for a garden party in England, which she perhaps believed a maharajah's banquet to be the nearest equivalent. That was forgivable in someone who had never been to India before.

She touched the prince's arm and said in a vague and likable way, "Bother, I've forgotten my dark glasses."

Someone overheard her and quick-marched to deliver the order that the glasses must be found.

Prince Charles said to me, "What are you doing here?"

"Just traveling, sir. Heading south."

"Are you writing something?"

"Trying, Your Highness. Scribble, scribble."

This made him laugh. "I'm scribbling too. But not books. And not for publication, though I sometimes wish..." And instead of finishing the sentence, he laughed again.

The previous month, portions of the prince's Hong Kong diary had become public. He had printed it privately and circulated it among his friends. It was full of colorful observations and a few pointed ones, and the unexpected sharpness of these had made headlines in London newspapers. He had mocked the hand-over ceremony, called some of the Chinese notables "waxworks," spoken of the Chinese president's "propaganda speech," and scorned the goose-stepping Chinese soldiers. He also complained of being stuck in club class, rather than first, on his way out: "Such is the end of empire, I sighed to myself." What this proved was that though he may never be crowned king of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, he could still make a decent living as a travel writer with such breezy generalizations.

"Travel safely," he said. Then a photographer caught up with him, and he was posed with the staff for a group photo. As the picture was taken he said into the dazzling flash of the camera, "Are you absolutely sure you want me to do this?"

Then the duchess's dark glasses were found, and off the royals went to their private plane. They had an entourage of twenty-six people, including the prince's private chef.

"The prince apparently doesn't like your food," I said, teasing a man who told me he had helped organize the royal visit.

"Oh, his highness is very particular about his meals," the man said, suddenly fussed and stern, as though remembering. "There was quite a hullabaloo here to find the ingredients for a certain kind of brown bread that the prince likes to eat. Certain herbs. They finally found them somewhere in the market."

***

ANOTHER DAY, I HAD TEA with Maharajah Gai Singh II. The thirty-eighth Rathore Chief of Marwar and Maharajah of Jodhpur was fifty-eight but seemed older, with the weather-beaten air of an aged warrior. He had assumed the throne and had taken on the title of maharajah at the age of four, on the death of his father. He was well known for having no pretensions. He may have been descended from Surya, the sun god, but he urged everyone to call him Bapji—Daddy Dearest. Just as well. The English had never allowed themselves to be impressed with semi-divine claims of ancestry. In Victorian times, the College of Heralds stated: "The Aga Khan is held by his followers to be a direct descendant of God. English Dukes take precedence."

Bapji had allowed part of the Umaid Bhawan Palace to be converted to a hotel, in much the same spirit as some of the hard-up English aristocracy with their castles and stately homes, turning them into museums and teahouses, fitting them for rose garden tours and game parks and croquet lawns, so that they could go on living in one wing and paying the bills. In the most heavy-handed way, by amending the Indian constitution in 1969, Indira Gandhi had stripped the Indian royals of their privy purses. In response, some maharajahs became businessmen, others became landlords, and many sold the family silver. Indian antique dealers were always unwrapping daggers or crystal goblets adorned with crests and saying, "Royal family of Cooch Behar, sir. Deaccessioned, sir. I obtained the whole blooming lot, sir."

Bapji had made himself popular as a member of the Indian parliament and as an ambassador. To raise funds, he had collaborated with the Taj Group in creating a luxury hotel. Over the years, it had fallen into disrepair, but it was restored to its former glory. It was also something of a menagerie of the moribund—toothy tiger heads on most walls, stuffed leopards in feline attitudes on plinths and above staircases, buffalo, antlered bucks, pairs of enormous elephant tusks in the game room and even in the private apartments—trophies of alpha males gathering dust, and photos of memorable days: upright hunters cradling rifles, with their boots resting on dead tigers and dead leopards.