Woodville Palace, formerly the palace of the Jubbal royal family in the Shimla hills, is a great place to take your own little princes and princesses for a summer break. Located just below Raj Bhavan, the Himachal Pradesh governor’s residence, it is more a large, vibrant manor than a stuffy, daunting palace. A walk through the hallways lined with rare photographs of various royals leads one through an intriguing journey of genealogies – the alliances forged by the Jubbal daughters and daughters-in-law from the Gondal, Khairigarh, Patiala, Kapurthala and other royal families titillates the time immemorial love of fairy tale romances. We trace the bison head marked “Mysore 1941″ in the Dining hall to the photo of Raja Birendra Singh standing over a just killed bison, also marked “Mysore 1941″. And when, two days later we stumble upon another portrait of the same king, now become as familiar as a distant ancestor, we mourn the second date next to that of his birth. 1961. The dashing young huntsman, the young groom with his bride, the holiday-maker with his family, heir in princely attire….is no more. We search for royals in the Bishop Cotton class photographs of 1961 and 1963 on the second floor hall leading to a locked room marked “Private” and wonder who amongst these children stood as the cortege passed in 1961. We imagine the younger royals behind those doors taking their place in the corporate world of Heritage Hotels, wealth management, and capitalizing on a heritage people like me voyeuristically flock to experience. Woodville is not a hotel…or at least not just a hotel. It is a flight into a sense of national pride that along with the tsars of Russia and the kings and queens of England, whose portraits also pepper Woodville’s walls, we too had our pageantry.
We are of course a privileged few who will actually live in the halls history has roamed. Even fewer will rub shoulders with those of name and fame. Most of our past is fossilized in museums and mausoleums children reluctantly visit and if they do, it is amongst hoards of chattering classmates led by often jaded, reluctant teachers torn between their own shopping and restoration of order. Two rusting daggers hanging under portraits of Jubbal royals elicit a gasp from my son as all the cache of armaments in the National Museum in Delhi have failed to do. Living history is certainly a sight more scintillating than reading it but I worry that money, the means to such experience, is making a new elite-a new royalty, even-of those who can afford it.
My own young princes search here and there for a glimpse of the youngest royal, Kanwar Divraj Singh, just out of Hotel Management, and no amount of staid history evidencing the formation of the Indian Republic and the absorption of the princely states, will deter them from the magic of recognizing him in person from the grand portrait in the main reception hall. They wonder if he will join them in a table tennis match in the third floor attic converted into a large, spacious recreational area with billiards, carom board and an outdoor badminton area on a steppe leading into steep pine woods. Will he join them for the buffet dinner, not extravagant but royally mughlai with a dash of continental and Himachal spice? Will he glance into the Garden Restaurant inaugurated by Amitabh Bacchan, no less? Will he tell us how autographed photographs of Hollywood stars-Tom Cruise, Anna Nicole Smith, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable and many many more both current and of bygone eras– come to be on the walls of the common lounge? And my children and I discover another pleasure-that of guessing at answers that will never be lectured about nor treatised, that may figure here and there in privileged conversation if they ever rise to such fraternity. A photograph of Rani Ourmila Devi, formerly of Kapurthala, at a masquerade ball in Paris with her mother and sister, prior to her marriage gives answers to our guessing game and hints at how global our royals were.
For two days Woodville has embraced us as her royals. She has woven our history with hers. 1890s-in this decade of Queen Victoria and Edward VII, a great great grandfather is born, who will go on to win the Gyan Pith Award. 1920s-this is the decade of Raja Bhagat Chand and his wife Rani Leila Ba when one of our own great grandfathers loses his ships to a sea storm. 1940s-in this decade of Raja Birender Singh and his wife Ourmila Devi, our grandfather will encounter Gandhiji in a small southern coastal railway station. 1960s-this is the decade one of our own grandfathers will fight in the Chinese aggression… 1990s-in this decade of Raja Uday Singh and Rani Vibhuti Devi our grandfather will have a hand in the most democratic of all processes, Indian elections.
The second millennium-this is the beginning. This is the beginning of a new India, of a new fusion of royal offerings and the common man’s purchasing power. While history roams less and is confined more and more into musty rooms of a forgotten past, we, the upwardly mobile middle class certainly roam more freely amongst India’s palaces. We give free rein and reign to our young that they too may rule economically, academically, athletically-whatever they choose to do-always hoping that that they become global and yet remain Indian much as our royalty, having embraced the republic, have remained ever royal.
Padmamalini G Rao is a freelance writer based in Delhi.
BLACK – Part 1 HD – (Eng Subtitles) – Amitabh Bachchan Rani Mukherji
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Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani - $14.99 Includes:Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani, Episode 1 (1985) Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani, Episode 2 (1985) Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani, Episode 1 Kate O’Mara guest-stars as the Rani, an exiled Time Lady. Encamped in 19th century England, the Rani — now the dictator of the planet Miasimia Gora — is draining the brains of the men behind the Industrial Revolution. The Doctor (Colin Baker) must not only stop the Rani, but also a more familiar and even deadlier adversary. Written by Pip and Jane Baker, and largely filmed at Blists Hill, an open-air museum in Britain’s Ironbridge Gorge, “The Mark of the Rani” was originally shown in two parts, the first of which aired on February 2, 1985; for American television, the two 45-minute episodes were subdivided into four 22-minute chapters. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani, Episode 2 In the conclusion of the Doctor Who adventure “The Mark of the Rani,” the title character, a despotic exiled Time Lady (played by Kate O’Mara), has materialized in 19th century England, where she is systematically draining the intelligences of the men behind the Industrial Revolution. In attempting to thwart the Rani, the Doctor (Colin Baker) must also contend with his old enemy the Master (Anthony Ainley), who is pursuing an agenda which could (as usual) spell the end of Civilization As We Know It. Written by Pip and Jane Baker, and largely filmed at Blists Hill, an open-air museum in Britain’s Ironbridge Gorge, “The Mark of the Rani” was originally shown in two parts, the second of which aired on February 9, 1985; for American television, the two 45-minute episodes were subdivided into four 22-minute chapters. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi |
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Doctor Who: Time and the Rani – Fullscreen $19.99 Includes:Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, Episode 1 (1987) Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, Episode 4 (1987) Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, Episode 2 (1987) Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, Episode 3 (1987) Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, Episode 1 With the beginning of Doctor Who’s 24th season on September 7, 1987, Sylvester McCoy joined the cast as the seventh regeneration of the indomitable doctor. This metamorphosis occurs when the TARDIS is knocked out of commission by a blast from the ship commandeered by the Rani (Kate O’Mara), a renegade Time Lady. At the same time, the long-standing peace on Lakertya, a planet inhabited by serpentine humanoids, is violently broken. Could these two events have something in common? Need one ask? Episode one of the season-opening “Time and the Rani” was written by Pip and Janet Baker. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, Episode 4 In the conclusion of the four-part story “Time and the Rani,” the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) frees the reptilian residents of the planet Lakertya, then prepares himself for a final showdown with the Rani (Kate O’Mara), whose time-manipulating device could result in the end of the planet, if not the entire universe. The explosive climax takes place on an asteroid hovering high over Lakertya, a triumph of “making a lot out of a little” for the series’ artistic designer Geoff Powell. Originally shown on September 28, 1987, “Time and the Rani, Episode 4″ was written by Pip and Jane Baker. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, Episode 2 In the second episode of the four-part story “Time and the Rani,” the newly regenerated Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) must deal with the renegade Time Lady known as the Rani (Kate O’Mara). Hoping to create her own time manipulator by brain-draining the Doctor and other intergalactic geniuses, the Rani has chosen as her headquarters the peaceful planet Lakertya — thereby breaking the peace in the process. Originally shown on September 14, 1987, “Time and the Rani, Episode 2″ was written by Pip and Jane Baker. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi Doctor Who: Time and the Rani, Episode 3 In the third episode of the four-part story “Time and the Rani,” the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), still trapped on the planet Lakertya, may be forced to help the Rani (Kate O’Mara) carry out her plan to create a time-manipulator. A species of sinister-looking winged creatures and a savage, voracious extraterrestrial known as the Tetrap are essential to the action of this episode. Originally shown on September 21, 1987, “Time and the Rani, Episode 3″ was written by Pip and Jane Baker. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi |
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