Emma Soames It truly is the most fascinating country, where deep poverty is swathed in bright sari colours. Much of the past survives intact, as does the traditional class system, even if some of its more cruel incarnations have been done away with.
In Rajasthan I met a real, live maharajah – HH Gaj Singh II, whose first name, Bapji, conveniently means “god”. He is a 61-year-old Oxford-educated man of great charm and no little talent and intelligence, who, after an English education, returned to India to fulfil his destiny.
In the Seventies Indira Gandhi swept away the privy purses and many other privileges of the maharajahs, but the present Maharajah of Jodhpur is still greatly revered by the people of his native state. There he isindeed treated like a living god, but, since Mrs Gandhi’s edict, outside his state he becomes ordinary Mr Singh.
Bapji has transformed himself from a traditional ruler to a successful businessman and ambassador for his state. In May, for instance, he will be in London for the opening of a British Museum exhibition, Royal Pictures of Jodhpur, a family collection of miniature paintings never before seen in Europe.
The way he is treated by his staff is extraordinary. There is a wallah for his every need and the word deference does not have enough syllables to describe how they attend him. He has men hovering around him constantly and when they want to get his attention they bend to touch the hem of his trousers. They anticipate his every wish and, from their dedication and enthusiasm, I imagine that he has difficulty persuading them not to sleep on the floor next to his bed.
Apparently when he attends a wedding – a maharajah is a vital presence at smart Indian weddings – he wears the most exquisite turbans, carried for him in a large metal box by, you guessed it, the turban wallah.
Size matters in India and the Maharajah’s home is a vast palace, completed only in 1943 but built along the same lines as those inhabited by his Moghul ancestors. Tellingly, he now lives in just one wing: the rest is a hotel where guests such as Bill Gates and Madonna stay in huge Art Deco suites.
We stayed in another of his family properties, the Balsamand Lake Palace, also now a hotel.
This 17-bedroom palace with its acres of fabulous gardens was originally built as a picnic place for the royal family. Most of my house would have fitted inside the rooms I stayed in, while the terrace is nearly the size of a football pitch. As we breakfasted there, we watched a monkey wallah trying to contain the activities of the animals in the surrounding gardens. Yes, even the monkeys have an attendant.
One of the most charming aspects of India is the reverence with which older people are treated. The Maharajah’s mother is a stately lady in her eighties and her family treat her with a deference bordering on worship. Since Bapji was only eight when his father died, she effectively held things together for some 20 years while he was a child and then away being educated. Yet, equally, among families in local villages, the old relatives, particularly grandmothers, were all greatly respected, given the best food and generally pampered. When my daughter and I went riding, our guide misunderstood our laughter at a joke and told my daughter off for being disrespectful to her mother. Oh yes, I could do with more of that.
While I was travelling I re-read Paul Scott’s novel, Staying On, about a British couple who decided not to return to Britain after the dawn of independent India. It is a funny but heartbreakingly poignant story – and one that defines a phenomenon of today, when more than a million retirees live abroad on British pensions.
It is a tough decision to take: to stay on where you have been happy and warm but at the risk of becoming isolated and washed-up – or to return to the UK, which may be cold and expensive but nonetheless is home. I am relieved to read that our Government is to repatriate and house some of the British pensioners who stayed on in Zimbabwe and are now destitute. One can only imagine the horror of their lives in a country where the currency is worthless, food is scarce and their funds no longer permit them to make the journey back to England.
Meanwhile, thousands of British retirees in Spain are finding life difficult with pensions in sterling, Spain in recession and their houses worth possibly only half what they hoped. I know many older people here are living through a difficult time.
But truly, when the cruel winds blow, home is best.