Remembering the Princess...

So many of us grow up on stories about princesses, only to be told later on that real-life princesses don't have picture-perfect lives. There are no fairytales, and there are certainly no happy endings. While no one can come close to our idea of a princess from when we were 10, Maharani Gayatri Devi, the Rajmata of Jaipur, was every bit as glamorous, graceful and intrepid. 

Gayatri Devi was born as Ayesha in 1919 in London and grew up fiercely independent under the influence of two strong women- her mother Indira, the Maharani of Cooch Behar, and her maternal grandmother Chimnabai, the Maharani of Baroda. It was perhaps because of her strong feminist upbringing she later became instrumental in the women's empowerment movement. So much is written about her grace and on her impeccable sense of style that other equally remarkable aspects of her fascinating life got lost.

She had a fairytale marriage, as we can say. On an interview to the "Outlook" magazine, she said "It was the year I had a huge crush on Jai (Maharaj Sawai Man Singh). I'd first met him when I was 12; he came to Calcutta to play polo and stayed with us. He was eight years older, I felt an instant connection with him. For one thing, he loved sports as much as I did. By 13, we started dating, going on long drives, mostly when we went to stay in England. I was too young to think of marriage but, I spent hours daydreaming about my Prince Charming." 

Of course, their courtship led to a lot of gossip, primarily because the Maharaja already had two wives. In an interview with “The Times of India”, she'd said, “Looking back, I see that those times were much more ahead than an ordinary approved courtship would have been. There was the challenge of outwitting our elders, of arranging secret meetings... And every now and again, there was a marvelous, unheard of liberty of going for a drive in the country with Jai, of a stolen dinner at Bray, or of an outing on the river in a boat. It was a lovely and intoxicating time."

Their love story, however, was the stuff of legends, and changed the course of her life. Once she got married and came to Jaipur, she adjusted to the life of being the Maharani of Jaipur, and started working towards emancipating the women and encouraging them to come out of Burkh. One of the most significant ways she did that was by starting a school for girls. In 1943, the Maharani Gayatri Devi School opened in Jaipur with 24 students, and is now one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

Another major milestone of her life was when, in 1962, she contested her first election and won the Jaipur constituency in the Lok Sabha in the world's largest landslide, securing herself a place in The Guinness Book of Records. She continued to hold this seat in 1967 and 1971, even after her husband passed away in 1970. In the TOI interview, she'd said, “Really, the toughest thing in life is to live without people you love. It was tough when I had to be on my own after I lost my mother, brother and husband, Jai.”

But her troubles were far from over, and in 1975, druing the Emergency, she was arrested. Writing for “The Times of India”, writer Prakash Bhandari recalled an interview where the Rajmata told him, “Both of us (she and her cellmate Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia) at times feared that we would be poisoned to death and when we told the jail superintendent about it, he rubbished it. In jail we used to meet other women prisoners and we celebrated both Hindu festivals and Eid and even prayed together. But I was a prisoner. I wanted to get out of jail and in winter I wanted to go to Kolkata to spend the Christmas there and see a lot of polo and meet friends. Then came the orders of my release in January 1976.”

Apart from being a role model for women, she's also a style icon. Vogue listed her as one of the most beautiful women in the world. In the Times of India interview, she had said, "Style comes naturally to me. I guess, you're just born with it. My mother has been my role model and icon. When I was young, I watched her dress. Ma was very fussy about her clothes. Did you know, she was the first person to start wearing saris made of chiffons. But her greatest passion was for shoes. She had hundreds of pairs and still went on ordering them from Ferragamo in Florence. She always knew the best place to buy anything and she shopped all over the world. I guess, I learnt about style from her. She taught me all about style. Life was more glamorous in the olden days, a lot has changed now."

In an interview just before her death, she told “The Times of India”, “I've had a very happy life. I have no regrets. I'm not a nostalgic person. I live in the present. I just try to do what I can, when I see unhappiness around me. Why grumble about things that don't go your way? Make the most of life.”

We often interpret the life of a princess as a cake walk but it is time we start to see women like Gayatri Devi on a kaleidoscopic view. To have walked her life like she did, it takes lot of gut. She broke her cocoon and came out in flying colors as beautiful as a butterfly. I feel so glad for getting to know this legendary woman, she is indeed an inspiration.