Prince Ricardo De La Cerda
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh led British High Society to celebrate the Silver Anniversary of the Maharaja and Maharani of Jaipur at Sunninghill in Berkshire on this day in 1965, 60 years ago, 25 years after their lavish wartime Wedding at the Cooch Behar Palace.
The Maharaja and Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur (wearing her Cartier Ruby Suite) celebrated their Silver Anniversary at King’s Beeches, Sunninghill, Berkshire
Their Highnesses The Maharaja and Maharani of Jaipur celebrated their silver anniversary at King’s Beeches, Sunninghill, Berkshire, England. The event, attended by 200 guests, included Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip; the Marchioness of Milford Haven; Luciana Pignatelli; Gianni Agnelli; Margaret, Duchess d’Uzès; Marella Agnelli; Lee Radziwill; and various European royals.
Vogue wrote of it: “The Jaipurs’ party was charming… very small—only intimate friends like the Queen!… The Maharani, a dream in sari and jewels, with her hair up.” … His Highness the Maharajah, crack polo man, big game hunter, scholar, and world traveller… the party, the silver anniversary of the Jaipurs at King’s Beeches, Sunninghill… English-pretty, it began with dinner for twenty-four in the dining room… moved to floodlit, sloping swards where, in an Indian shamiyana tent, flamed the barbecue … turbaned footmen in pale jackets… supper, delicious, under cosy canvas white with flowers, chandeliered in silver, two hundred guests of international cast… just about the most beautifully dressed collection of women at any party in the English season…
in the drawing room, dancing, opened by H.M. Queen Elizabeth in gold and white lace with the Maharajah; H.R.H. Prince Philip with the Maharani… then everybody, from everywhere, danced, danced, danced.”
Royalty from around India gathered to celebrate the wartime Wedding of Maharaja Man Singh II of Jaipur and Princess Gayatri Devi of Cooch Behar at the Cooch Behar Palace on this day in 1940, 85 years ago, after a long secret courtship.
Maharaja Man Singh II of Jaipur married Princess Gayatri Devi of Cooch Behar, the daughter of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar and Princess Indira Raje of Baroda, in a series of lavish ceremonies at the Cooch Behar Palace. The Maharani described the Wedding:
Preparations for my wedding went on in Cooch Behar. We were able to invite fewer relatives and friends than we would have liked, because many of the trains had been requisitioned for war- time purposes: it was difficult for guests to travel in the crowded conditions of those that remained for civilians. We expected about two hundred — a small number of princely standards — who would be arriving with their servants. All of them had to be housed and fed for at least a week. Since the palace and the three state guest- houses could not accommodate so many elaborate tents were pitched and schools and public buildings in the town were converted into dormitories for the members of the various staffs.
Jai was to travel to Cooch Behar with a retinue of about forty nobles, each of whom would be bringing his own servants. Catering preparations had to be made on a huge scale. Besides the wedding party, all the dignitaries in the town had to be invited to meals, and special food had to be sent out to the Brahmins, the poor and the prisoners, as well as the household guards and our staff.
The preparations were complete, and the party of my relatives from Baroda arrived before the rest of the guests. We met them in’ Calcutta. We were due to travel back to Cooch Behar when a frightful accident happened. Ma’s favourite brother, my Uncle Dhairyashil, fell on the stairs and cracked his skull. That night he died in the hospital. All of us, but Ma especially, were shattered. He had been so dearly loved by everyone that his death cast a terrible gloom over the whole household, and we scarcely had the spirit to go on pre- paring for my wedding. The Baroda party returned home for the cremation and the mourning period. Ma did not accompany them. The wedding ceremony and all the arrangements were postponed, and the pundits were called in to name the next auspicious day for our marriage. It turned out to be the ninth of May.
Even such a tragedy, so close to home couldn’t entirely dampen my excitement about, at least, being married to Jai. As the date of the wedding drew nearer I started to receive magnificent presents. My favourite was a beautiful black Bentley from the Nawab ofBhopal. When I first saw it being driven through the town, I assumed that it was for the Nawab’s personal use during his stay in Cooch Behar. When he formally presented it to me, he asked very tentatively whether I really liked it or whether, perhaps, I might prefer a piece of jewellery. I told him in no uncertain terms that there was not a fraction of doubt in my mind. I had the added pleasure of being able to gloat over Indrajit, who thought that it was simply too much that a “mere girl” should own a Bentley. Even Jai took an unseemly interest in my Bentley, and weakly I agreed to exchange it for an older blue Bentley that he had in Jaipur. Two other exciting presents were a two-seater Packard from one of the nobles inJaipur and a house in Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, from my Baroda grandmother.
Against these, the rest of the presents marvellous as they were, seemed less impressive — mostly jewellery. My own family gave me a set of rubies, both specially ordered from Chimanlal Manchand a famous Bombay jeweller. The jewellery included a clip-on nose-ring, an ingenious compromise because girls were expected to wear a nosering after they were married, but my nose wasn’t pierced to accommodate an ordinary one. Jai saved his present of a diamond necklace until after we were married.
Three days before the marriage ceremony, I had to make the correct preparations. I had to bathe in perfumed oils and rub my skin with turmeric paste to make it more beautiful. I had to per- form the prescribed devotions and prayers, and after that to fast for the last twenty-four hours. Bhaiya was giving me away and he too had to fast. The night before the wedding I spent the time talking to Menaka and Baby.
Jai was due to arrive in the morning and was to be installed at a guest-house with his party. The first indication that I had of his arrival was when I heard the firing of the nineteen-gun salute. Only then did I believe with total conviction that after all the years of waiting I would actually marry my beloved. Soon after Jai’s arrival the customary presents from the groom to the bride were brought in procession to the palace where they were ceremoniously laid out in the durbar hall. They consisted of the traditional Rajputana jewellery and ornaments for a bride and added to that, ten or twelve sets of clothes, also dictated by custom, and trays and trays of dried fruits, nuts, raisins, and other auspicious food.
Then a number of things were placed in my lap, a peculiarly Cooch Behar tradition (I was supposed to hold them all day until after the marriage ceremony) — a conch shell bound with silver, a small silver mirror with a package of betel and areca nut tied to its handle, a handful of rice mixed with the auspicious red powder that we call kum kum, folded in a banana leaf— all symbols of good fortune, all auguring longevity for my husband and many children for myself. Still carrying these, I went to say the special bride’s prayers and make offerings to that god of universal beneficence, the elephant-headed Ganesha, and then sat down to what seemed like an interminable wait.
Later I learned that Jai had phoned Ma asking if he could come over and have a drink before lunch, and she had replied, “Certainly not. Have you forgotten this is your wedding day? None of us may see you until the ceremony!”
For days the palace had been buzzing with activity as all the traditional wedding finery was brought out and all the proper things assembled. Under Ma’s exacting eye, rehearsals had been held, and I had watched them, so I knew exactly how the slow unfolding of my wedding day would take place. There was music everywhere starting at daybreak, continuing on into the afternoon, coming to a climax in the evening when the actual marriage was consecrated. The low, penetrating sound of conch shells, the lighter, happier music of the reed instruments we call shehnai punctuated by the rhythm of drums filed the air.
I went through the business of being dressed and decorated with jewels. I hate being fussed over, but I forced myself to stand still while this essential part of the ritual was accomplished. The adornment of a bride is in India a ceremony in itself and I was prepared for my wedding by a shoal of chattering married ladies while my own friends looked on giving me smiles of encouragement. In the bustle and confusion, somehow my insteps got painted with henna, my sari and my jewels were put on and one by one the ivory bangles of a Rajputana bride were slipped onto my wrists. Finally, my fore- head was decorated with sandalwood paste and I was ready.
Suddenly the cannons boomed out and the band started to play in welcome to Jai. This meant that the bridegroom’s procession was at the gates of the palace and in a flash all my companions dashed off to see his arrival. With my memories of the rehearsals I could imagine the magnificence of the scene outside. First some ‘messengers’ would be walking down the long drive, next a troupe of dancing girls, then a procession of forty elephants and many horses, behind them the bands and finally the bridegroom followed by his guests, the Jaipur nobles and the rest of his retinue.
As Jai crossed the threshold, he raised his sword to touch the lintel with it as a sign that he came as a bridegroom. He was then received by the palace ladies, family members and wives of noble- -men, courtiers and visiting friends in the durbar hall. They held silver trays containing the proper offerings: kumkum, turmeric, a coconut, chillies and other spices, and a small oil light to signify the sacred fire. They waved the trays slowly back and forth in front ofJai chanting prayers.
I was left standing in the dressing-room, too nervous to sit down while everyone else milled around the bridegroom. Eventually a few of the women did come back to put the finishing touches to my clothes and appearance and to escort me to the silver palanquin in which I was to be seated when my male relatives carried it into the courtyard,
Against the pervasive background of the music and of the priest chanting, the ceremony of giving the bride away took place. But before that as was the custom in Cooch Behar, Jai and I exchanged garlands. The wedding pavilion or mandap, as it is traditionally called, had been set up in the main courtyard. At the time of its erection, prayers and suitable offerings were made. My elder brother, Bhaiya, performed the ceremony of giving the bride away. The Hindu wedding takes a very long time and the priest went on and on and on and I heard Jai whisper to Bhaiya, “Can’t we ask these jollies when his performance will be over?” He sounded just as tired and impatient as I was.
At last the final responses were made, the last prayers were said, and we left the pavilion in the courtyard to go upstairs where the family was waiting for us. We had to touch everyone’s feet, a peculiar moment for Jai because he had to make his obeisance even to Indrajit, whom he had always treated as an jnsignificant, teasable younger brother. Even as he touched his feet, he muttered, “For the first and last time!”
Then we shared the traditional thal, and I offered him the first mouthful of rice from my fingers, and he did the same of me. We had a bottle of champagne on ice to accompany this ritual meal. After that, Jai went off to join the other men, while my friends and sisters stayed with me, and Indrajit popped in and out to check on how I was feeling.
When I was permitted to change my clothes it seemed incredible that I had been decked out in all my finery only a few hours before. I still didn’t really feel married; I’d seen so little of Jai. However, intensely relieved that it had all gone all right, I could at last relax and wait for the time when Jai would be finished with his part of the ceremonies and we could finally be alone.
The day after our wedding there was a banquet for the men at which Jai, Bhaiya, and Indrajit all had to make speeches and they and their friends were entertained with Indian music and dancing girls. Meanwhile the rest of us had a ladies’ dinner. During the day there had been sports events and special tournaments held for the visitors. The celebrations in Cooch Behar continued for another week, but on the third day Jai and I set off for our honeymoon, a European custom that we had decided to adopt.
Ma, with her remarkable foresight, had already bought a good part of my trousseau in Europe,-knowing it was unlikely that we would return for some time. She had ordered sheets and towels in Florence and Czechoslovakia, shoes and matching bags at Ferragamo in Florence, night- gowns in mousseline de soie from Paris, and a host of other things. Equally typical of Ma, the trousseau had been left behind and neither she nor anyone else could remember where. Finally, it was located at the Ritz Hotel in Paris and was shipped home to arrive a week or so before my wedding.
The rest of my trousseau had to be bought in Calcutta and I was at that obstructive age when I refused to take an interest in anything except my sports clothes. The only places to which I consented to go were a couple of British shops where I could order slacks and tennis shirts. Ma did finally persuade me that I really ought to order some saris, but the whole thing was a disaster. I went to a shop to a sari shop — Glamour— whose proprietor I had known all my life. As I rapidly and carelessly made my purchases, his face grew longer and longer. No sooner had I left than he called up Ma, begging her to come down and see what my selection had been. She arrived in a judicious frame on mind, but when she saw my choices she couldn’t restrain herself. “Rubbish, rubbish!” she exclaimed over each sari I had chosen.
She left the shop imperiously, remarking that the only good thing about my selections was that they might be a success in Rajputana, where the people might find some pleasure in the bright and gaudy colours. For herself and her daughter she couldn’t stand them. She undertook to shop for me herself, and by the time she had finished I had over two hundred saris of various kinds — in plain and patterned chiffon, with and without borders, some hand- embroidered, others appliqued, some embroidered in gold, and others of simple, heavy silks. Each one was superb, and over the next few years I felt deeply relieved that my own choice had been superseded.