This, ” said the Frenchman, looking underdressed in a tuxedo, “is India at its best.” It was certainly India at its most exotic. A tusker led the procession, complete with the emblem of the royal family of Marwar, the insignia of the Rathore ruler of Jodhpur, followed by a cavalcade of ponies carrying lances and pennants. Behind them, in orderly rows, walked kings and sons of kings. Leading them was Gaj Singh, who had been coronated maharaja as a child, before the abolition of the privy purse, and whose son and heir was now getting married among a gathering of equals at Jaipur’s resplendent Rambagh Palace.
Beside him was the deposed king of Nepal, the head of the royal clan of Bhutan, politicians more familiar in their khadi garb in the corridors of power in Delhi, who had shed them for court attire – the dress code for the evening was “ ceremonial” – splendidly attired in cloths of gold and turban ornaments and carrying jewelled swords, major and minor aristocrats, even, presumably, Scotsmen in kilts, one of whom had to convince my star-struck wife that, upon his honour, he wasn’t Leonardo DiCaprio. She insisted on taking his picture anyway — “just in case” she told me.
The groom, as is the custom, brought up the rearguard in a horse carriage, the mare kicking and rearing at the unaccustomed camera flashlights, causing guests who’d “played polo with Ayesha” – the erstwhile Rajmata Gayatri Devi to you and me – to tut-tut over this show of disrespect on the part of the few hoi polloi. A splendid tea was served, the wedding proceeded to the zananah, and the barat dispensed momentarily — to return to their hotels or homes to change as the dress code switched to “formal”, the turbans and swords mothballed in favour of breaches and bandanas as they returned to gardens illuminated with fairy lights, to overflowing bar and to conversations of international glitterati that included Sting.
“India,” the foreign guests swooned, “has changed so much,” though the truth was that it has not changed at all. Everyone had a story, however — of the palaces they stayed in 30 or 40 years back, just before or after many of them had been converted into hotels. “The champagne was always flat, always warm,” one of them reminisced, so of course she went to the pantry to check, and was guided to the kitchen where she saw the khansamah pouring out the sparkling wine like tea, in glasses, and keeping it warming there, the bubbles fizzling out as they waited for the service to begin. “Look at the change,” she marvelled, holding up her flute of champagne, presumably cooled to the right temperature.
“Do they work?” someone wanted to know — understandable, since the wedding celebrations so far had seem to consist of a great deal of dressing up and partying, a special train had brought guests from Jodhpur to Jaipur, everyone told swashbuckling stories (with more than a nod to shared histories and past) and the Mumbai and Delhi socialites dazzled in their attempt to dress up as grandly as the royals. Dinner included Rajasthan’s famed cuisine, along with fish from Indonesia, sumptuous meat, an array of desserts — but also bajra rotis being made not by the palace hotels’ chef but, country-style, by local village women.
The palace was brilliantly lit up, the gardens ablaze with fireflies of lights, but the vast gardens had proved a challenge to fully illuminate. Not that it made recognising anyone difficult — there were enough diamonds (and emeralds and rubies and sapphires) to light up everyone’s faces. When the Frenchman said, for perhaps the hundredth time, “This is India at its best”, that lit-up glow of the guests’ faces was what he probably meant.