Victoria & Abdul by Shrabani Basu Read Free Book Online

westernised Cooch Behars, most of the Hindu kings were reluctant to eat food prepared by English cooks. Sunity had started eating meat to practise for her trip to England, initially hating it. She spent several unhappy weeks in her London flat, unable to appreciate European food, but soon cheered up as the social whirl began in earnest.
    Queen Victoria requested Sunity to call on her privately before she was formally presented to the Court. She sent instructions that the Maharani must wear her native clothes on all state occasions. For the first meeting at Buckingham Palace, Nripendra chose her gown: a pale-grey satin dress with stylish but minimal jewellery. So nervous was Sunity before the meeting that she accepted a glass of port from her maid to steady her nerves, but ended up spilling it over her gown. The Queen took an instant liking to the young Indian Maharani and immediately made her feel comfortable. Sunity was delighted with the Queen and was impressed by her ‘simple and kindly’ conversation and the way she had put her at her ease. ‘I felt eager to go back to India so that I might tell my country-women about our wonderful Empress,’ 4 she wrote.
    Soon Sunity was being chaperoned by Princess May, the Duchess of Teck, and being invited to dinner by the Prince of Wales. She bought her son, Rajey, a toy yacht to sail on the Serpentine and took her second son, Jit, for tea to Marlborough House with the Princess of Wales. It was the start of a long friendship between Sunity and Princess Alexandra. Sunity and her husband went to the opera, saw a production of The Winter’s Tale , spent a night at Windsor Castle where they were given a luxury gilt-edged bedroom, toured Edinburgh and Brighton and visited Hatfield House, where she got lost in the maze.

    This Indian summer was well under way when Abdul Karim and Mohammed Buksh arrived at Windsor Castle, three days before the start of the Jubilee celebrations. On 18 June Dr Tyler had received a telegram saying that the Queen wished Karim and Buksh to be present at Windsor. As their carriage turned into Castle Hill they felt a sense of apprehension and excitement, looking up at the towering ramparts of their new home, so different from the familiar red sandstone forts of Agra, Delhi and Rajasthan. The Queen’s standard was fluttering in the lightbreeze from the Round Tower. In the quadrangle of the castle, usually guarded by the Queen’s troops in their livery of red coats and furry bearskin hats, was a group of Indian soldiers with long, wild beards and fiercely curled moustaches, impressive turbans and gilt-edged swords, their bronzed faces reflecting the rugged climes in which they had served. Their presence made Windsor Castle look more like an Indian bazaar than a slice of Berkshire.
    The twelve Indian soldiers were the Queen’s newly arrived Escort for the Jubilee celebrations. The Queen had requested an Indian Escort earlier that year to demonstrate to the attendant ranks of European Royalty her position as Empress of India. She treasured this much-coveted title, given to her in 1876, more than any other, feeling it gave her and her family a rank now equal to the Emperors of Russia and Prussia. The Jubilee was the perfect occasion to put her Empire on display and the Indian guard made an impressive sight standing behind the Queen at all significant state functions, her black mourning clothes set against their splash of colour. But their effect was more than decorative. By choosing them as her Escort – the Queen’s closest source of protection – she had placed enormous trust in her Indian subjects and elevated them before the world’s eyes.
    The Escort had been selected to represent Her Majesty’s Indian Empire in its entirety. Officers were chosen from all corners of the Indian army and comprised eight from the Bengal Cavalry, two from the Bombay Cavalry and one each from Hyderabad, Madras and the Central Indian Horse. At her Jubilee, the Queen’s