By Madhusree Chatterjee,
New Delhi: The feisty princess Ayesha, daughter of the erstwhile maharaja of Cooch Behar, shot her first panther at the age of 13, stunning everyone. Six years later, the beautiful woman who came to be known as Maharani Gayatri Devi stunned her family again by falling in love with prince Sawai Man Singh of Jaipur.
She called him “Jai” and insisted on marrying him, never mind that he already had two wives and that her own family was against the match.
Just before the wedding, her brother told her: “The maharaja likes girls and just because he is marrying you, one must not expect him to give up all his girls.” Gayatri Devi shot back that since he was marrying her, and not the other way round, “there would be no need for him to have other girls”. All this is now famously recorded in her memoirs for posterity.
Gayatri Devi — the grand queen mother or ‘rajmata’ of the Jaipur royal family in Rajasthan who was listed as one of the most beautiful women in the world by Vogue — remained spirited till the end of her colourful life.
Her death Wednesday — barely two months after her 90th birthday May 23 — came after complications caused by an intestinal endoscopy that she underwent two months ago. She died in a Jaipur hospital.
She had one son of her own, who died a few years ago, and three stepchildren.
Gayatri Devi, who was maharani of Jaipur state from 1939 to 1970, was an excellent marksman, a tennis player and a keen rider, with a deep knowledge of horses. She was attached to all her children, fond of flowers like lilies and gladioli and birds.
She spent the last three decades of her life after her husband’s death in 1970 at the picturesque Lilypool — an elegant sprawling bungalow surrounded by greens and a lily pond that she had built with her husband on the premises of Jaipur’s Rambagh Palace.
A few years ago, a visit to Lilypool in search of the maharani — who it turned out was spending her summer abroad — was a revelation. It was like a simple and warm Bengali home from Cooch Behar peopled by a retinue of servants and staff from her home state, West Bengal. They spoke Bengali and entertained visitors with glasses of chilled water and lemonade even in the mistress’ absence.
“Those are the rajmata’s orders that nobody goes from here without a glass of water in the maharani’s absence. She has done so much for her home state by giving so many of us from Cooch Behar jobs in the palace,” an elderly butler told this correspondent in chaste Bengali.
Her airy home was like a family archive full of family photographs and memorabilia. Rambagh Palace was close to her heart, he said.
It was there that Gayatri Devi was first brought and presented to the local nobility in Jaipur after her wedding in Europe. A discerning fashionista, who chose the best brands of the day, she was often compared to former US first lady and style icon Jacqueline Kennedy, whom she had met.
The maharani, who spent the early years of married life in luxury hunting, partying and holidaying in Europe, forayed into politics in 1962 by contesting and winning Lok Sabha elections from Jaipur. She took interest in social activities, built an exclusive school for girls in Jaipur and promoted the traditional blue pottery of Rajasthan.
She won the Jaipur seat again in 1967 and 1971 on a Swatantra Party ticket against the Congress party. This angered Indira Gandhi, who hit back by accusing the queen of breaking tax laws. Gayatri Devi was arrested and spent five months in Tihar jail.
She subsequently quit politics and wrote her memoirs jointly with Santha Rama Rau in 1976. She was also the central character in a movie, “Memoirs of a Hindu Princess” directed by Francois Levie.
Gayatri Devi was related to a number of erstwhile royal families in India. Her maternal grandparents were maharaja Sayajirao and maharani Chimnabai of Baroda and she was related to the royal families of Jodhpur, Dewas, Tripura and Pithapuram.
Says lifestyle writer Roopa Bakshi: “The maharani was devout. She regularly visited a Shiva temple atop Moti Dungri in Jaipur. Perhaps, she was the first people’s princess who could have easily become the leader of the Swatantra Party that was founded by freedom fighter C. Rajagopalchary in the fifties.”
She chose to give it up. But this was one queen who with her beauty and charm always reigned over the hearts of many Indians.