THE WAY GAJ SINGH II OF JODHPUR HAS LIVED HIS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE GO ON TO SHOW WHAT IT TAKES TO BE THE REAL KING WHO PROTECTS HIS PEOPLE AND HIS LEGACY
When I first met the Maharaja of Jodhpur, I had read his full title as Maharaja was: His Highness Raj Rajeshwar Saramad-i-Raja-i-Hind Maharajadhiraja Maharaja Shri Gaj Singhji II Sahib Bahadur, Maharaja of Marwar.
During our conversation, I confess I was bound by this weird sense of propriety and kept addressing him as “Your Highness”. Most erstwhile rulers prefer that. But I was intrigued by how people around him addressed him as “Bapji” (father in Marwari). More than a decade, and several meetings in between, convinced me that he is indeed deserving of the affection. India’s royal families may have lost their titles, privy purses and privileges long ago, but this 64-year-old Maharaja of Jodhpur has retained the love and adoration of the people of the blue city.
Maharajas, or great kings, once controlled huge swaths of India. For centuries, their patronage of artworks was only restricted to rivalries with other rulers. After the democratic Indian government ceased to recognise their titles and cut their government subsidies, or privy purses, in 1971, Gaj Singh refused to be a has-been royal. Instead, he chose for himself “a role that was modern enough for me to uphold the ideals that are handed down as legacy in our family”. Not many amongst India's erstwhile royals managed to make contributions to modern times in a way that Gaj Singh has, making him invaluable, if not indispensable.
Gaj Singh’s quality of giving back to the society was amply visible even on the day of his coronation. As Rajmata Krishna Kumari, Gaj Singh’s mother recalls her son’s coronation as the ruler of Marwar-Jodhpur when he was just four years old. Family elders gave the little boy a gold sovereign or two as a mark of respect and blessed him when they came to greet him. The crown prince kept putting these sovereigns in a wooden box. “After some time, someone saw him gifting the coins as a thank you gesture from the very same box — it was as if he already had the quality of distributing his wealth among his people,” she says proudly.
Gaj Singh remembers others things from the day. After his father died, Singh says he has faint memories of being dressed up and placed, barefoot, upon a marble throne at Mehrangarh, surrounded by a horde of unfamiliar men in turbans. One of the chief clansmen pricked his own thumb on a sword and anointed Singh’s forehead with blood. Singh was told he now had “more responsibilities.”
From history books to living heritage Gaj Singh’s passion for heritage is evident in how he established Jodhpur as the cultural capital of Rajasthan. The 38th successive ruler of an ancient Indian clan, Gaj Singh II harbours deep connections to the past, and his innovative approach to protecting his family's historical treasures is providing his country with a model for the future. Heritage hotels, a trend he set rolling by converting his sprawling Umaid Bhawan Palace into a leisure destination that continues to draw global conservation only during his student days in Britain. At the age of eight, Gaj Singh was sent first to Cothill House, a prep school in Oxfordshire, England, and then to Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he obtained a degree in philosophy, politics and economics. “People there have real love for tradition. It was amazing to see how the Europeans protected war-ravaged monuments. It was a big motivation,” he says.
But when Gaj Singh returned to India in the early 1970s, he found everything around him collapsing. It was a turbulent period with the abolition of privy purses and privileges extended to royalty. “But the emotional resonance associated with royals was intact. I was moved by the reception given to me by the people of Jodhpur. I had a deep feeling of attachment and responsibility for them. Their affection gave me the courage and encouragement to start afresh and keep my head above water,” he recalls.
Gaj Singh was only 22 when the government cut off celebrities, is his way of engaging the past with the present. “When we founded the Heritage Hotels Association of India in the early 1990s, there were only 14 members. Now we have 170 members, with six from Tamil Nadu. Rajasthan leads the pack with 90. Palaces, forts, houses or havelis built before 1950 with a distinct architectural style encourage heritage tourism and make people aware of our rich past. Heritage hotels enrich the ethnic experience in a special way,” says Singh.
After inheriting vast properties from his father at the age of four, Gaj Singh became interested in heritage conservation only during his student days in Britain. At the age of eight, Gaj Singh was sent first to Cothill House, a prep school in Oxfordshire, England, and then to Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he obtained a degree in philosophy, politics and economics. “People there have real love for tradition. It was amazing to see how the Europeans protected war-ravaged monuments. It was a big motivation,” he says. But when Gaj Singh returned to India in the early 1970s, he found everything around him collapsing. It was a turbulent period with the abolition of privy purses and privileges extended to royalty. “But the emotional resonance associated with royals was intact. I was moved by the reception given to me by the people of Jodhpur. I had a deep feeling of attachment and responsibility for them. Their affection gave me the courage and encouragement to start afresh and keep my head above water,” he recalls. Gaj Singh was only 22 when the government cut off his subsidies. He could have chosen the easy way and done what the other maharajas were doing — profiting from the sale of their properties — or letting them crumble to dust. Instead, he launched a conservation programme in 1972, which has since become a national model. Singh started humbly by hiring workers to muck out the bat droppings piling up in Mehrangarh, which had been closed since his family moved out in the 1930s. Then he added an entrepreneurial twist by selling that guano to local farmers as fertiliser and adapting the fort into a museum. After a brief ambassadorial assignment in the West Indies in the late 1970s, Singh returned home determined to build his reputation on conservation causes, not political ones. Since then, his projects have only grown to become self-reliant models.
Today, his second fort in nearby Nagaur, called the Fort of the Hooded Cobra, is a timewarp marvel, a sprawling complex of 18thcentury palaces, temples and pools that look cared for, but not overly polished. The 12thcentury wall encircling it has been repaired with a traditional paste made from sand and sheep’s hair. Its gardens are lush with plants Singh’s conservators have identified in Mughalera miniature paintings. In the Sheesh Mahal, or mirror palace, murals of girls dancing in the rain look cleaned, but not repainted, although their original vegetable dye has faded. “There is so much history to remember and protect luxury hotels. He lives with his family in the southern wing of the Indo-deco palace behind a door draped with an auspicious garland of ashoka leaves.
For him, his efforts are also a way of propagating traditions so they don’t die ignominious deaths. “There's a lot of intangible heritage that we are letting go in the name of modernisation. Our spoken word, our music, poetry are all vanishing rapidly. We launched the Rajasthan International Folk Festival (RIFF) to put local artists on a global platform and give them an opportunity to perform alongside topnotch musicians. Our Sufi Music Festival too has become a major draw.”
So when you attend a langa performance at Mehrangarh, rest assured that Gaj Singh has seen it before you have and has okayed the artistes. Maintained by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust here,” sighs Singh.
In addition to Mehrangarh and Nagaur, Singh also oversees several other palaces, 5,000 paintings and a museum’s worth of eclectic heirlooms — from his great-great grandfather’s elephant-riding chaise, to his grandmother's Rolls-Royce Phantom II. Singh also found creative ways to fund the refurbishment of his properties. He also turned a portion of the second fort in Nagaur and the 347-room Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur — both ancestral sites — into that is managed by Maharaja Gaj Singh II, this 1459 AD structure also houses a museum exhibiting the heritage of the Rathores and Marwars. There’s a display of arms, costumes, paintings, palanquins and furniture. At the Culture Gully at Mehrangarh, craftspeople are allowed to exhibit and sell their wares without any fee. And Mehrangarh, the monumental sandstone fortress, looms over the city's chalky blue buildings, evoking the country's ancient and otherworldly history.
Nawab Khan, one of the performers, whose family has seen world fame, thanks to the encouragement from Gaj Singh, narrates an incident that goes on to establish what Bapji, as Gaj Singh is referred to, means to them. “I once told my grandfather that we should go to Sonia Gandhi for opportunities. The name drew a blank. Whenever we need anything, we always go to our king,” says Khan. People arrive in throngs from all over the globe because the RIFF — and the maharaja who hosts it — blends old India so deftly with new.
By first rescuing his properties and then catering smartly to the tourists that have followed, Singh is offering India a new way to think about its historic spaces, his success stories gradually becoming case studies.
Finding healing in his pain
Polo is another cause close to Gaj Singh’s heart. And this despite the near-death experience that his son, Yuvraj Shivraj Singh, had in 2005, after being crushed under a horse — an accident from which he hasn’t yet fully recovered.“It was near critical,” Singh remembers with a shudder. “In Jaipur, where the accident happened, he was in hospital for a few days; then in a Bombay hospital for two months, after which we took him for rehab to Mount Sinai (Medical Center) in New York.” Singh reveals that while the doctors in Jaipur did stabilise him, the pressure (in Shivraj’s brain) continued to grow and they had to put in a stent by drilling a hole. In Bombay they removed part of his scalp to allow the brain to expand, so that the pressure did not damage the brain cells. “Since then it has been a slow uphill process. If you don’t take the right steps at the right time, the result could be very different.” Gaj Singh is using the experience of that harrowing time in an international effort to build a comprehensive system for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury and to provide neuro-rehabilitation to such patients.
He holds numerous fundraisers to support the foundation that he set up in 2007. Gaj Singh wants trauma centres to be set up in hospitals all over India and some on highways as well, so that the brain-damaged can receive the correct initial treatment within the “golden hour” after the accident.
He has mobilised several big names for the cause. Sir Bob Geldof has pledged his support as a patron. Sting held a concert in Umaid Bhawan Palace, where touchingly, Shivraj Singh gently swayed to the rhythm, causing his father to get teary-eyed. The Vienna Philharmonic has also played at Mehrangarh. Singh, 65, actively participates in all the events pertaining to his causes, although post-event, his line of well-wishers and admirers is longer. The foreigners slap Singh on the shoulder and shake his hand but the locals, who know the lineage better, choose to genuflect, stooping to touch his shoes.
The polo weekend, which Gaj Singh hosts with UK-based British Polo Day, every December, is a much-sought-after, by-invitation-only event. On the first evening, a cocktail and sit-down dinner was arranged in the fort, after which we walked up to the ramparts in a procession. Lining our route were dancers and fire-eaters, acrobats and musicians from Rajasthan. With the polo games, glittering socialites, and a heady dose of who's who, it would have been easy to be fooled into believing that the polo weekend was all about fun and games, but nothing could be farther from the truth. There is a serious purpose that came out in the talks we listened to on head injuries and in Bapji’s own speech at the dinner in Umaid Bhawan. Through the course of the three-day extravaganza, a reception held at Gaj Singh’s residence, the Umaid Bhawan Palace sees a live auction for the benefit of The Indian Head Injury Foundation and Head Injury through Sport. With lots ranging from seven days on the edge of wildness at exclusive retreat Nihiwatu, Sumba; a week in one of the three Home’s luxurious properties; a Holland & Holland shooting lesson, followed by private dinner at Royal fine wine merchants Justerini & Brooks; bespoke Brompton Bicycle and very special Royal Salute Hundred Cask Whisky Selection, British Polo Day raised significant funds for these worthy causes, and made Edward Olver, one of its founding members, a lifelong friend and admirer of Gaj Singh. In his words: “Our association with Maharaja Gaj Singh has been extremely rewarding and it is always a pleasure to be a part of something like the work he is doing — whether it is in terms of conservation of his rich heritage, or promoting the wonderful game. I personally admire his spirit and love of the game of polo and how he channels it for a good cause. We are proud of this annual event that celebrates the finest minds in culture, music, art, philanthropy and science in aid of the foundation.”
One of the most important strides made in the fight against brain trauma was the establishment of the state of-the-art Yuvraj Shivraj Singh Trauma Rehabilitation Centre at Rajdadisa Hospital in Jodhpur. “The Rehabilitation Centre, funded by The Sainsbury Family’s Monuments Trust was inaugurated by Yuvraj Shivraj Singh in September 2009, with an aim to provide state-ofthe- art comprehensive trauma care services to severely injured patients — from the pre-hospital (ambulance) phase through to acute care at the centre’s emergency room,” says Gaj Singh, adding, “My son’s accident opened my eyes to the lack of facilities available. This mobilisation stemmed from the trauma that my family and I went through.” Expert trauma care at the centre is defined by the immediate availability of specialised surgeons, physicians, anaesthesiologists, nurses, and life support equipment on a 24-hour basis.
Devoted family man
Despite the clout that this modern Maharaja enjoys, Gaj Singh is not keen on taking the plunge into politics. “I've been on the fringes of politics by serving as an MP. But it's not in me to get into active politics because of the special relationship I share with my people. They are family to me. I don’t want to take sides with political parties. I prefer to do social work and be involved with NGOs. It’s more direct and rewarding,” asserts Gaj Singh.
He might have an array of interests and commitments, but he continues to be a family man at heart. The father’s deep-set eyes are filled with emotion at the mention of his son, who, once India’s most roguishly good-looking bachelor, has still not recovered from his polo accident. But Gaj Singh concedes that Shivraj’s recovery is nothing short of miraculous. “My wife, in a particular moment of weakness, asked the American doctors by when would our son recover. They simply said ‘Get him married’. We both were shocked. But now I see the progress he has made. That gives me enough reason to believe all will be well,” says Singh.
Gaj Singh’s daughter, Baiji Lal Sahiba Shivranjani Rajye, educated at the Welham Girls High School, Dehra Dun; Bryanston College, Dorset; and New Hall, Cambridge; helps her father manage the Maharaja’s publishing company, Mehrangarh Publishers.
Maharani Hemlata Rajye, known for her proclivity for fun and laughter, and for her generous hospitality, also shares Gaj Singh’s passion for development. She is often seen counselling young women on family planning or touring a drought stricken district or making the growth of The Rajmata Krishna Kumari Girls Public School in Jodhpur, her focussed aim.
But the special lady in Raj Singh’s life remains his three-year-old granddaughter Vaara. “I see the world in her, I see promise in her, and hope,” gushes the doting grandfather. The sun is not going to set on this monarch anytime soon.