THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
Some time in 1950s, as we, mother and me, were staying with middle class relatives in Dharamsala, in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, my portly relative came running down the hill, all breathless and panting. Dharamsala is a hill station and our house was down the hill, the main road being on top of the hill.
I had just returned from the school and I was very hungry. I had hardly dumped my school satchel on the ground and I was looking forward to food that my mother usually kept ready for me after school.
But the relative was in a hurry. He wanted me to accompany him up the hill where somebody important had come to meet me. I said I'll take food first. He said nothing doing.
“Prince Karan Singh is here,” he said, with awe.
“He must have come with my pension. I must go and thank him,” said mother, eagerly.
“No,” said the relative firmly. “He has come to see your son.”
“Son,” she turned to me.”Do remind him of our pension, your father's pension. Tell him we don't have any money now. Everything that we had was left behind in Pakistan.”
“Let him go now,” said the exasperated relative. “The Prince must be getting late.”
He almost dragged me up the hill and there was my Prince. Prince Karan Singh, son of His Highness Sir Hari Singh, Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, and heir apparent to the J&K State throne. He appeared to me just a teenager, with a friendly, smiling, handsome face. His doctorate was still very far off then
He gestured me to sit in his car. My relative also wanted to get in. The Prince refused. My relative had told me while coming up that I should sit with the chauffeur and let the Prince sit in the back seat of the car as a matter of respect. He was, actually, surprised to see the Prince sitting with the chauffeur. He was very much impressed that a Prince sat with the chuffeur. When I tried to do that, the Prince told me curtly to sit behind. Later, I came to know that the Prince is more comfortable in the front seat, because of his leg injury.
He asked the chauffeur to drive on. My Prince had a very important news for me. “I have joined the Congress Sewa Dal (the Congress Party Volunteer Corps) and now I'll have the opportunity to serve the people.”
A Prince serving the people ? I had never heard that before. People serve the Prince. What will he serve and how he will serve ? My childish mind could not fathom that. I was about 10 years old then. Any way, I nodded my head in politeness.
“What do you think of that ?” he shot a question, suddenly.
I looked blankly back at him. So he turned to the chauffeur with the same question, who, nodded his head as a wise man and showered praise on His Majesty.
The Prince was the first – and the last – non-Mahajan VVIP to call on this child refugee after the fall of Skardu in Baltistan, which was annexed by Pakistan on August 14, 1948.
Whatever the democrats might say, my loyalty to the rulers of erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir is intact and continuous. It must be in the family blood. My father, on the day Pakistan attacked Skardu, February 11, 1948, took out his .375 rifle, usually used for hunting small animals, and went out to defend J&K Maharaja's Treasury from World War II veterans of Pakistan army, and equally, if not more, competent British officers, instead of letting the State army do the job.
He had no army or police training. Neither was he young. He was shot dead for his effort by one of our rebel soldiers, who later confided that Pakistan Government had not done him justice for killing the Wazir (official designation of my father). "They should have at least made me a Captain, instead of making me an assistant Sergeant. Had my father stayed home, he might have been alive today.. But loyalty is loyalty. Life or death do not matter.
Same level is my admiration for the British Crown. Their savoir vivre is remarkable. I still remember the anguish of Ms Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister of Britain, when she said :”I delivered the goods, yet I am asked to go.”
There was no reaction from the Buckingham Palace. She was asked to go, she had to go.
Returning to present story, my Prince never abandoned me, so to speak. As both of us were travellers on different paths, his was higher political and mine lower journalistic, and we could not meet often.
But he was again the first – and the last - VVIP to call me to a mutual friend's house to congratulate me on the publication of my first English book Debacle In Baltistan.
Many a time he invited me to visit him. But I was never able to go to his residence, mainly because of my night duties at the newspaper, which, as everybody who has done night duties knows, are so tiring that you just cannot leave bed in the day time to be social.
But, as I said earlier, my loyalty to the J&K throne is intact.
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Joke of the Day :
A journalist suggested that the dissidents of BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) should form another BJP : Bhartiya Jinnah Party.
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