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Once a Prince of Sarila—of Palaces and Elephant Rides, of Nehrus and Mountbattens
As a boy, his pram was an elephant. As he rode on the elephants’ back with his guardian and strolled through the streets, the people bent low to salute their future raja, those without headgear covering their heads with the left hand as a mark of further respect. Sarila’s formal education began at five with the appointment of a graduate teacher from Agra University. When the prince was nine-and-a-half years old, he was sent to the Mayo Chief’s College, Ajmer, in Rajputana (now called Rajasthan). The aim of the school was "to guide the son’s of the aristocracy in India in liberal and enlightened education, to keep pace with the ever advancing spirit of the age". It was here that the fledging maharajas—both Hindu and Muslim—spent their time reciting Shakespeare and Wordsworth and playing cricket and polo. It was also where Sarila learnt important lessons on moderation, tolerance, discipline, team spirit and the value of physical fitness. Even as he was growing up, Sarila fulfilled his royal duties, one of which was to perform a sacrificial rite at Dussehra. This was the beheading of a goat by a single stroke of the sword as an offering to Kali, the goddess of war. Originally, a buffalo was slain but his father modified the proceeding by introducing the slaying of a goat instead. The description of Princely India seems several centuries away. These were halcyon days of autocratic maharajas, life in marble palaces mirrored in lakes or in mighty stone fortresses on craggy hills, tiger hunts on elephant back and elephant hunts on shank’s mare, beautiful princesses hurtling on horseback or awaiting their lovers in projecting balconies trellised in stone, special trains loaded with guests shuttling to each other’s domains, armies of retainers and polo and music. In the 20th century, the British wanted the princes to be a buffer between the Raj and the rising middle class professionals who were demanding independence and who promised a golden age once democracy was introduced. The Indian princes basked in the glory of being allies (however, unequal) of the greatest power and learnt to entertain the scions of British royalty in their homes ‘the English way’, organised memorable hunts, vied with each other to buy the latest Rolls-Royce and get Cartier and Henry Wilson to reset their old jewellery. They began to frequent the Riviera and mingle with the ‘fast set’ to be entertained by European royalty and to race at Ascot. The princes hesitated to join the 1935 federal constitution of India. They feared that to do so might prove to be the thin end of the wedge for the introduction of democracy in their states and therefore, the end of their absolute rule. They took shelter in the belief that the British were never going to leave and continued dining, hunting and racing sports cars along the pitted roads. Sarila and his family did not abandon a sense of the obligations of nobility. In recoginition of the young prince’s accomplishments and sobriety, he was invited to become Aide-de-Camp to Lord Mountbatten after Independence. Once a Prince in Sarila draws on his experience and his detailed diaries from the period includes intimate and revealing portraits of Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina, as well as the many important visitors they received, including Nehru and Patel among other top civil and military leaders both British and Indian. Sarila’s book ends in August 1948 when he joined the Indian Foreign Service. This unique memoir reveals how despite their position, Narendra Singh and his family embraced the changes occasioned by Independence and adapted rapidly to its new demands. It is a history of a forgotten world and evokes life at the end of the British Raj in vivid and colourful detail. Only a Raja could have written about his experience of growing up as a prince.
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THE
erstwhile Raja of Sarila, Narendra Singh Sarila’s book is an
autobiography about life in princely India in the 1930s and 40s. He was
born as heir apparent to the central Indian kingdom of Sarila and
enjoyed a wonderfully privileged childhood in what remained a
traditional, feudal state even as the call for democratic change was
being heard elsewhere on the subcontinent.