"أيام ثيم ولَّت" [و‎‎٣‎٧] (٢٤٨/٧٣)

38
Another memorable visit was that to Jaipur. The day started soon
after dawn with a jackal-hunt with the Maharajah’s private pack.
Interesting enough, but not to be compared to fox-hunting at home
owing to the lack of fences to jump. The rising sun soon sucked
up any scent so, after breakfast, an A.D.C. and I went
duck-shoot i ng. The Jhee1 had a large population of crocodiles
which one could see sTi ding off into the water ahead of one, but
I had been led to believe that they are timid brutes which take
to the bottom at the sound of shots. I was shooting very badly,
so when I eventually downed a duck which fell into the water
about 40 yards from shore, I felt I had to retrieve it to have
something to show. I put down my gun and swam out and fetched
it, but, on the way back, began to doubt whether what I had heard
about the timidity of crocodiles was really all that accurate. I
never swam so fast in my life! After lunch we watched a game of
really superb polo (the Jaipur team were then champions of the
world); and while we were watching, word was brought that a tiger
had been tracked to a nearby hill. A party went out and, by the
time the game had finished, a magnificent 10 foot tiger was laid
out on the lawn. In the evening there was a ball. No Indian
ladies attended of course, but there were a number of English
ones staying at the palace, and it was a very splendid occasion.
Poor Sir George had the intensely embarassing duty of taking his
host, the Maharajah, to task about his association with an
English girl. The trouble was that she came of a family so
illustrious that his only possible reaction, if he had been
privileged to meet them in England, would have been to kow-tow.
However he did his duty, fortified, no doubt, by the thought that
such a liaison struck at the very roots of the relationship
between the Rulers and the Ruled. This was, of course, well
understood. The Rajputs themselves would never marry their
daughters to anyone - even another Raj put - whom they considered
the least bit inferior incaste, although they might not
object to one of their males taking a female of a - slightly
- inferior caste. The Maharajah's liason, if allowed to
continue, would have implied superiority to the Rajputs
and inferiority to the British. Not on! The nuances of caste
were, although uncodified, familiar to all. The prince accepted
as the purest and most blue-blooded of the Rajputs was the
Maharaj-Rana of Udaipur - who happened to be a miserable cripple,
but whose house had never given a daughter to the Moghul
Emperors - unlike most of the other Rajput princes. Other
rulers went by different titles : there were Maharajahs,
Maharanas, (the females were Maharanis), Rajahs and Thakurs.
Nawabs were Muslim and outside the caste system, not that
they didn't have their problems.
The Nawab of Tonk , for instance, was in trouble because he had
fallen deeply in love with his younqest
nothing he could do about it. He was
succeeding his elderly father, had had the
nil or f n h? eC V- 0 /Vi and found that his youngest motner was a
deectable little creature in her teens, to whom he lost his
nroMo Unfortunately I left Rajputana before I heard how
problem was solved.
h areem
mother, and there was
a young man who , on
trotted out for
mother
os t
the