Kishore Singh: Of royals and remixes

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Udaipur at any time is magical, but on the night the sound and light show is to be launched at its City Palace, the stars are out and amidst the citizenry of the lake city.

Rekha is commiserative about the death of fellow actress Parveen Babi with whom she'd shared the marquee in the days when Babi was still glamorous.

But Babi is now dead and Rekha is still glamorous "" three hours of gym training without a miss "" and almost as reclusive.

She shines briefly on the firmament and dazzles Udaipur's elite, then almost as elusively as her perfume, she vanishes into Shiv Niwas, where she's staked camp.

But Udaipur has other plans that night when even Rekha will not be missed "" a "let your hair down" party in the very Durbar Hall the foundations for which were laid a century ago by Lord Minto, and where hundreds of royal portraits glower at the intrusion as the DJ looms over a psychedelic dance floor and plays Bollywood remixes.

Anjali Mendes, the once-upon-a-time model who dazzled Pierre Cardin, later became his muse and then his business manager, is still nursing a heartbreak from 12 years ago.

"We were to marry," she says of her long-ago love, her voice redolent with both accent and sorrow, "but he died of cancer." "You can look for someone still," her friend from France who has accompanied her on her Indian holiday, tells her.

"I'm not desperate," she says acidly, then to me: "We were truly happy."

But now Mendes wants to dance, and wants the DJ to play English music. He obliges with Boney M and Abba "" "Maybe he's guessed my age," she giggles, and twirls her fingers and shakes a slim hip.

Off the floor, she says, "Parveen Babi was so pretty, and so young ""- though she was older than me." Guests snigger into their glasses of wine, but no one says anything to Mendes who is off to Goa early next morning to be with her brother.

"Thank you, your highness," she almost curtseys to her host, having learnt her formal manners in Paris.

She fishes in her bag and gives me a visiting card the size of an invitation card: "My number," she says, "you won't find it even in the directory in Paris, nor will the Indian Embassy give it to you.

I am very difficult to find." But she will be back in India in April. "To judge some reality TV competition for a fashion designer," she says vaguely, "I don't know the details."

Meanwhile, the music is louder, and even though it's out of place, one can't help wondering how the gallery of ancestors might have reacted were they to walk out of the frames of their portraits.

From his corner in the gloom of the low lights, is Maharana Bhopal Singh smiling his approval at his grandson swinging on the floor, or frowning? What is the code for royals swinging to remixes "" is there a bar on it?

Next morning, I put the visiting card in the book I'm reading as a bookmark before catching the flat to Delhi. The hopping flight is delayed in Jaipur where the singer Hariharan must be miserable in his leather pants while the sun streams outside.

Even so, hopeful wannabes behind keep us entertained with their thankfully soft choral singing, hoping to catch his attention and be hailed into stardom.

Hariharan, in business class, doesn't hear them.

Back home in the evening, I get into bed and open my book. "What's this?" says my wife, latching on to the Mendes card-as-bookmark, "You should be ashamed, hiding women's addresses like this," and tears it up, bringing down the curtains on a perfect trip.