A Brief Stop in Delhi and a Meeting with Royalty

Tom's and my alarm clocks went off simultaneously in Delhi at 3:30AM on Sunday, about the same time that our families might be having dinner Saturday night at home. The plan: Drive to Jaipur and a private audience with His Highness, The Maharajah of Jaipur. A bit of explanation: Our friend and coworker Bhavani Singh Bhati heard that we were going to Jaipur touring. He said, "I'll call my father to make sure you are well taken care of". Ok, that's very nice and all, but we rather thought it mean that we would have dinner with his father at most. Then on Friday morning, our last day in Bangalore, Bhavani tells me quite excitedly that he has it all arranged. We have an audience. Me: what? Audience? Yes, my father works for the Maharajah, you know and we are all relatives. Me: Yes, I think you told me that. What audience? Oh, with the Maharajah. My father arranged a private meeting for you with His Highness. Me: Uh, uh, uh, . Yes, it was true; things slowly emerged. The audience was set for 10:30AM. "Please be punctual. His Highness has a doctor's appointment at 11:30."
Of course the problem is that while we planned to be in Jaipur on Sunday, we had no idea exactly what time we would be there. All we knew is that our tour company was driving us. Given the 'looseness' that our travel agent subscribed to, and the general way things work around here, I did not think we would have an enormous amount of trouble forcing the plans to change to meet our requirements, but it was a worry for about a day. The difficulties of contacting and conversing by phone with our travel agent made me decide not to attempt to contact him, but rather just try to be such forceful, persuasive, but generally nice and lovable guys that the guides and drivers would fall all over themselves to help us, especially when HRH's name was dropped, and indeed that pretty much happened. So let me start with Saturday morning before we get to the Royal Audience.
Saturday morning, I was feeling very frantic. With all the business, cricket, etc, etc, I did not feel organized with my packing. If I had been going home, no big deal. I was sure I *had* everything. I was just not sure where it all was. But I did ensure that my 'audience clothes' were accessible and tried to sort things into "not needed on trip" and "needed before going home" (nice that I have two suitcases). Sadly that did not work out perfectly for all these last minute little details. Anyway, We made a last check of the apartment and checked out of the apartment (oh, wait, we have to go check the mini-bar so we know what to charge you. Answer: 0) had a few final "good morning sir"s and hopped in with Manju and off to the airport. Wow...we let some guys help us with the luggage. They got in line for putting the bags on the conveyer and we realized that this airline does not let us print out boarding passes, and in fact all I had was a hand-written not indicating the ticket serial numbers (e-tickets, not paper). So one of the guys rushed over with my numbers, then rushed back and needed to know my name, then rushed back and needed our personal presence. We finally got it straightened out, but in fact all they gave us was a printed receipt. Get the boarding passes inside. Ok. The conveyer was actually to an X-ray. On the other side, we had to take the bags again to the ticket agent, so took our printed receipt (from outside) and printed boarding passes. This whole thing is not illogical; if you know what the system is, you can do it easily. The Kingfisher Airline agents were unfailingly nice. They even weighted Tom's (overweight) and my (underweight) bags together so that we were not overweight for two passengers. We hung around for a while outside the personal security area, got a coffee, etc. Security was not that difficult except that unknowingly we got in the *women's* line. In the end they were happy to x-ray our bags on the women's x-ray, but we had to run around to another line to wait for the men's metal detector. The reason was soon clear; essentially everyone triggered the metal detector so they were hand screening everyone. Not intrusively really, but maybe waving a hand metal detector around the body in ways that might not be appropriate for a man to do to a woman.
Of course the plane was late, so we got into Delhi late, but there were our guys waiting for us holding a "Mr. Burns Fisher" sign. We were taken to the car...quite a walk, with severaly people carrying our luggage. When we got in the car, we could not see it all, so we insisted on counting it before leaving. We got out and some guy ran up to the trunk and said "1,2,3,4,5...see all there!" And then he wanted a tip for that. Like he knew they were the right bags. Anyway, we were driven to a hotel, The Park Land. The lobby was crowded and the front desk guy had us sit in a waiting area. Pretty soon, someone came running in to tell us we had been upgrade, please to return to car. Hmmmm. Ok. We hopped in the car but as they started to go we hollered that our luggage was still in the ParkLand. Oops. Guys scurry. Bearers bear. Soon the bags are loaded (and counted!) and we are off complete with a guide this time. The guide suggests that we do our "1/2 day city tour" first since the hotel is in a different direction. Questions ensue. It turns out that the driver had taken us to the WRONG hotel. It was supposed to be "The Park" not "The Park Land". Anyway, we agreed to the tour first.
I have to say that from 20+ years ago, I have the impression of Delhi as an ugly, dirty city filled with hawkers and beggars. Well the hawkers and beggars are there to a certain extent, but ugly dirty is NOT right. The part of Delhi that we saw at least was very different from either Bangalore or the Delhi of my memory. The city is very green...trees everywhere (they must have a heckuvan irrigation system), reasonably clean, and the driving is considerably less chaotic-seeming than B'lore. Not that there is no weaving and no horns but people seem to stay more-or-less in their lanes (practice lane discipline as the ignored B'lore signs say). Our hotel is near Connaught Circle, which is actually where we stayed when Ellen and I were here in 1985. I have no idea if it is the same hotel; it was certainly upgraded if so. I wanted to walk out to Connaught Circle to try to get an impression of the place I remembered had changed. As I walked off the hotel grounds, I was immediately surrounded by TukTuk drivers wanting to take me shopping, kids wanted to "practice English" etc etc. That hasn't changed. But I could not really see anything that I recognized.
BTW, things ARE as I remember in that the Sikh population is much higher in Delhi than in B'lore. And many drivers are Sikhs. That was a strong memory that I had from 1985 which was not borne out in B'lore. Now I know that that part is regional, not a change over time.
Anyway, we were taken to the Qutob Minar. I only remember this from before by the "Iron Pillar which has not rusted." We have a picture of Ellen being aided in putting her arms backward around the piller. That is supposed to be for good luck somehow. You can't do that anymore. There is a fence around it. But the thing to me about Qutab Minar is that I did not remember what lovely garden it is. The whole scene is gorgeous. And there is an enormous tower built by one of the first Moguls. I thought maybe it was a mineret, but the guide says no. Carrie take note: The story our guide told us is that there is a similar tower at the Al Ambra in Grenada, and the two towers were supposed to represent the bounds of Muslim rule. They were built so that Allah could look down, seen them, and realized what a great job the Muslims had done in spreading His word. But in any case, I thought the tower and the mosque near it and especially the garden was spectacularly beautiful. I must still have been half asleep from travelling when I saw it before. (I have a picture of myself in front of the tower, so I know I was there :-)
We also went to Hunnaman's Tomb. This was claimed to be the inspiration for the Taj Mahal. Again a gorgeous sight. I think both Qutab Minar and Hunnaman's Tomb are UN World Heritage Sites. So is the Taj.
We finally got back to the hotel (5 stars! We upgraded you sir!) and once again rummaged through our luggage and crashed. We had dinner in the hotel's buffet (I thought it was good but uninspired; should probably have ordered from the menu, but that looked similar). The funny thing is that we expected there was no way we would get our promised free breakfast, since we were leaving at 5AM. Ha. That place was HOPPING at 5AM. In fact I think there was still a disco-type bar open from the night before, plus flight attendents and all kind of tourist-looking people meandering around. And the restaurant was open. But no time...
We left Delhi at about 5AM (not without travails: The checkout required a reservation on my credit card since the travel agent had not paid them yet). The road out of Delhi toward Jaipur (and incidentally toward the Delhi airport and Mumbai) was simply amazing. I've not seen anything of the sort before in India. 5 lanes in each direction, slow vehicles (i.e. oxcarts, rickshaws, bicycles etc) excluded. We started out moving pretty fast and figured there would be plenty of time to make our appointment. We quickly discovered that lorries (trucks) are also slow moving vehicles and are NOT excluded. There was some swerving around from one lane to another to get around trucks but for the most part the start of the drive seemed like 'normal' by our standards expressway driving. After the airport (I think) the road narrowed to two lanes each (still a divided highway), but the "limited access" part was not 100% strictly true. We started to go through more towns where the highway was "main street" and cars parked, animals, people, etc impeded the way. At one point we came inches from killing a dog which had the misfortune to be trying to cross the road as we passed. Lucky we had seatbelts on. Unlucky that I was half asleep and got a rude awakening.
I was really groggy after a late night of Cricket, an early-ish morning of getting out of Bangalore, a not-especially-early night in Delhi (plus repacking etc) and a VERY early wakeup Sunday, all overlayed with varying types of stress and worry about how everything was going to work (and see above re the cricket match) and no breakfast except a granola bar. I was falling in and out of sleep in the car, and had a bit of a headache etc. After a couple hours, we stopped at a Cafe Coffee Day (yes they have them here too). I got a cappuchino and a muffin, looked at the Rajasthan scenery all around, and for the first time in the day, I started feeling good and was excited to be here.
I had told the driver we needed to be at the palace at 10. We got in the general vicinity at more like 9:15 but he did not want to go to the hotel (20 minutes there, 20 minutes back...too close). My strategy backfired. Plus I really did not know how to get into the palace or how it would all work. (You may have an audience, but will the guards at the gate know that? 'Looks like some stupid American tourist to me!') Anyway, we phoned Bhavani in B'lore and handed the phone to the driver. They got it all straightened out. I should be there by 10:30 and he was told the place. Ok, so now we have time to go to the hotel, check in, leave suitcases, do an extra shave, etc.
All that was done. The hotel checkin was EASY (I was imagining that it is too early to checkin, but no, it was "Oh, Mr. Fisher, we are holding a room for you"). We washed and spiffed and presented ourselves for pickup at 10 and were conveyed to the palace by our driver. We were outside the palace gate at about 10:25 waiting for a stream of traffic when my phone rang. It was the palace calling wanting to be sure we were there and to complete the directions. We went in and parked, and were met by a military guy who escorted us in through various doors to an office and baid us wait on a sofa while some other military-uniformed guys did things with papers and keyboards. At last one of them motions us to his desk and kind of looks at us. "Uh, we have an audience with the Maharajah," we squeaked. More phoning and typing. At last a young man (30?) in a suit strode in and introduced himself as the General Manager of the palace and said that he was to guide us. We walked around through various places in the palace for a little while and he looked at his watch and said that we still had a few minutes. Apparently they did the same thing to us as we did to the driver. The actual appointment was 11:00 :-) He took us to a door marked private and guarded by a couple soldiers. The door was actually pretty large, but had a small door cut into it. The small door was open, but as they saw us approach they shut the small door and opened the large one for us to go through. We still had a few minutes so were were taken to what appeared to be a parlour. It had been built in the 1700s and never refurbished, but it still was beautiful. Jewels, mirrors, tapestries, you name it. We got to sit on the pillows and be photographed.
Finally the time came. We were escorted to a nice parlour (nice, larger than the previous one but a bit less ornate) and we walked into the Royal Presence. HRH is in his 80s. He had a stroke maybe 10 years ago, so his right side is week and he has trouble with some words. But nonetheless he was warm and gracious. He was not wearning anything "royal". He was a man who was proud of his past, and proud of his family. He asked us about our business in India, where we were staying, where we came from etc. We asked him about his family (he has a single child, a daughter, and a grandson whom he has adopted...I assume so that he will have an heir, but we did not go into that.) We talked about his travels, polo, and what he recommended that we should see. We were served coffee, a sandwich of some sort, a puff-pastry with some sort of spicy contents, and cake. All the time, the general manager was with us and helped HRH out with occasional words that he could not remember or help translate our words. Absolutely everything was in English. It was just that sometimes HRH did not understand our references and the GM helped out. We asked ahead of time about photos and the GM told us that there would be a chance after our conversation. True to his word, after we talked for a while, the GM suggested pictures. He took a picture on each of our cameras of us with HRH. Then HRH escorted us toward the door, showing us on the way an enormous crystal table (made by a famous French company with peacocks as part of the motif). Then he thanks us for coming, we made our thanks and exited.
I've got to say that while there was little pomp and circumstance, the whole thing was impressive. The combination of the trappings of power, the actual accomplishment of HRH during his life, and the quiet dignity of this man all combined into a very impressive, maybe even awe-inspiring, package.
In any case, it was not over. The GM presented us took us back to the room with soldiers and had them write out a pass to the palace museum and then took his leave. Tom and I thought we would go to the Ram Bagh where HRH had told us he had been born, and which he suggested as a good place for a meal. So we decided to tour the museums fairly quickly and then leave. Well, they were pretty interesting; we were delayed both for our own interest and also by the usual guide who attached himself to us and started explaining stuff in the armaments museum. It was actually pretty interesting, so it was a bit later than we expected when we tried to make our way back to the car. I say 'tried' because it was not as easy as expected. We found an exit and actually got outside, but it was the wrong exit and did not even look slightly familiar.
We had come out through a guarded gate, but there seemed to be another entrace through a restaurant. We started going in through there and whom should we see buy the General Manager, who motioned to us to come over. He was on the cell phone and when he put it down, *strongly* suggested that we eat lunch in the palace cafe where we were. It's lunch time now, and Ram Bagh is to far, etc etc. Ok fine. We had a nice lunch with some pretty cool entertainment: A guy playing a stringed instrument and another young guy dancing. They were very good (and got an appropriate tip). See the movie and pictures I took! Come to find out (actually we had an idea) the meal was 'on the house'. We left a great tip and our waiter escorted us to our car...the right place this time.
Another surprise awaited us there (and by the way, this has been pretty typical...as I keep saying about travel anywhere, be relaxed about plans and expectations since you often can't control things. This is what stressed me so much about the audience with the Maharajah: That plan did not seem flexible. How does one fit in an inflexible plan among many controlled variables?). Anyway, we found that our guide (whom we had expected to meet back at the hotel at 2) was at the car, and wanted to take us to the Jaipur observatory before taking us back to the hotel to rest. Well that would have been fine, except that based on the expectation of going back to the hotel, and the uncertainty of what totables would be allowed into the Royal Presence (answer: Anything. There was no formal check. If we were on the guest list, we were trusted, at least to an extent) we had left most of our equipment (hats, sunscreen, Tom's spare camera memory card, etc) at the hotel. Well, ok. Tom bought us both hats from a pushy street vendor and we made due in our dress clothes. The observatory is actually quite fascinating. There is an enormous 'sundial'. Actually it's more like a building that casts a precise shadow on an enormous series of marble plates placed in a circle around it. The reason it needs to be so large is for precision. YOu can measure something like 2 seconds on this dial. Yes, we could noticably see the shadow move as the earth turned.
Finally, we got back to the hotel where a surprise awaited us (should we be surprised). A nice gentleman was there from the local guide agency. He wanted the guide voucher that the travel agent had given us. I brought down the vouchers. I explained to him that our agent had expected a single guide that would be going to all three cities with us, and thus there was only one voucher. I could not give it to him, since I needed to show it for Agra. Ok, he'll deal with it, if we will only fill out this feedback form. One wonders, if it was that easy, why he did not just let us do the feedback form in the first place. (See my rule of expectations...)
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To finish off the story of our meeting with HRH, we were rushing around so fast and were worried about security etc etc that we left everything in the hotel, but that included the gift I was going to give him. (A small set of note cards with local New England birds...hey, what do you give to royalty?) So I asked the General Manager if we could return later and give the gift to him to convey. He said, how about tomorrow and you can give them to HM's personal secretary Ronald. Ok. This morning Our guide was EXTREMELY accomodating if slighly skeptical. He helped us find our way in to the right place. I expected to have Ronald come out, take the cards with thanks, and disappear. Instead we were ushered to Ronald's office. He asked our names, made a call, and gestured to us to follow. He waked 15 meters along a public colonade and suddenly turned, pulled aside a curtain, and gestured us inside. And ONCE AGAIN we were in the Royal Presence! I was in first this time and exclaimed, "Your highness!" and gave the Namaste greeting (hand together in front, like prayer.) He gently shook hands again. I explained that we wanted to leave a small gift and that the cards were birds from our home. He was gracious and thanked us. We then said "Thank you again for your time. We do not wish to take up any more of it". And then Namaste-ing again, we left. (Are you really supposed to back out? We did not quite, but kept turning around :-)
And that is the end of our touch with Royalty...