Grandpa’s Story – Part IX

Last week:  Grandpa told us about the Criminal Tribes of India, and the troubles with the derailment of trains during Gandhi’s time in India.  

Me     There was one occasion when you met a Maharajah.  Can you tell us about that? 

G        That was in Delhi.  After Independence all the Maharajahs’ railways, in fact, all the railways in India were going to become part of the Indian Railway system.  All the small railways that were privately run or had been run by Maharajahs had to be amalgamated into the system.  On one occasion I had to visit the railway in Jodhpur (pronounced Joad poor) and Bikaner, which were adjoining states.  They were quite small and each had their own railway and workshops.   I had to make recommendations as to how we could most economically amalgamate them.  I decided that they should close one works.  I dictated my recommendations to my secretary but before this went to the Railway Board, I had called in to see one of the senior men who said he’d heard that the Maharajah had heard these recommendations and he did not wish to lose his carriage works, so it showed how the news spread.  But I said that my business was simply to make the recommendations.

Me     You were entertained by a Maharajah once, weren’t you? 

G       This was the Maharajah of Bikaner who had a private saloon which he wanted the railway to buy; so I was asked to go an inspect it to decide whether it would be an economic proposition.  I think it was over 20 years old and I decided that the cost of converting it into an ordinary carriage would exceed the cost of building a new one.  Betty and I were invited to his palace and we had tea with the Maharajah and his wife. 

Me    Describe what it was like there.  What did the palace look like?  What did the Maharajah look like? What was he wearing as far as you remember?

• The Maharajah of Bikaner in active service uniform

 G       They were both very well-spoken.  They were highly educated people who behaved in quite a European way. 

Me     Were they dressed in Indian clothes? 

G       His wife wore a sari, which everyone did, but he was in European clothes.  They were very pleasant to us.

Me     Was their palace sumptuous?  

• Laxmi Niwas Palace

G       The whole of the palace was very grand.There was another occasion when I had to go to the neighbouring state of Jodhpur.  Now there, I didn’t see the Maharajah on that occasion, but the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Railway arranged for me to visit.  He had about three palaces in Jodhpur.  He had his own palace where he lived.  He had been entertained by the royals in this country. and he had photographs of the King, the Queen and all the children.  The palace was beautifully laid out – obviously plenty of money.He had one palace which I would describe as an American film producer’s idea of an Indian palace.  It had a swimming bath in the basement around which there were things like portholes which didn’t look out into the air, but you could see fish swimming about.  There must have been a tank behind the porthole.  He had a room laid out – no chairs – just cushions which you lay about on.  I forget the details now but it was really most interesting. On another occasion I went to the Bikaner state to inspect a factory they had built for manufacturing roller bearings which they wanted to sell to the Railways.  I was met by the Maharajah and taken round the factory after which we were taken to one of the palaces which had been converted into a hotel.  A flight had just brought in some American tourists.  They’d got Indian women dancing for the amusement of the tourists and the man who took me round said they were not really dancers, they were prostitutes.  Today, this palace is one of the top tourist sites.  In fact, in those days, tourists were taken up to the palace by elephants.  I saw a film about India where I saw one of the rooms in the palace that we had visited that had been used to take this scene. 

This Maharajah was very keen on tennis.  After Wimbledon, he always invited over about half a dozen of the younger players as his guests for a fortnight.  They were top players, girls and boys, but not necessarily finalists.  He liked to play with them and they treated him with due respect and let him wallop them.

Me  How many Maharajahs are there in India? 

G       A vast number.  Some had very small palaces, others had large ones.  The Maharajah of Hydarabad was one of the richest men in the world.  He ran his own railway, quite a big one.  He was a Muslim.  Betty and I stayed with him in Hydarabad.  He took me round the workshops and showed me a Maharajah’s special train, which comprised six coaches for his wives, a coach for himself and a coach for his special attendants.  Each of the coaches for his wives had horse hair sofas along the side, frosted glass windows so they couldn’t be seen, and a little verandah at each end where the eunuch sat in charge.  I was told this train had only been used six times in his lifetime.

Every year, each government employee received an invitation to the palace of the Maharajah.  He had to take with him five gold coins called ‘gold mores’ (mohurs). They then had a value of 20 rupees, but they were only available from the Royal Mint where you had to pay 25 rupees each for them.  You took five gold mores and five silver rupees.  As my friend was British, he didn’t have to pay, but he told me that just before Independence when he was leaving the Railway, he decided to accept the invitation.  He said you went into an ante-room where you held a handkerchief in one hand and a handkerchief in the other with five silver and five gold coins in each.  You walked in with your hands out and bowed before the Maharajah who placed the five silver coins in one basket and the five gold coins in another, then you walked out of another door.As a sequel to that, some little time later, I was at a cocktail party in Delhi and was talking about this to an Indian who said (Grandpa goes into his Indian accent, which the British called chee-chee)  “We have a thing like that.  Every year, the Maharajah has a party and we dress up in tails and white ties and we go in with five gold coins which he touches as a token of having received them.  We then walk sedately out through another door.  After that, you run as fast as you can round into the first room and hand your five coins to somebody else because there were only 25 of these coins in existence.”         

You know about the time when Betty and I went to the Maharajah’s palace in Mysore?         

Me     No.

• Maharajah of Mysore’s Palace

• Interior of Maharajah of Mysore’s palace

G       The Maharajah of Mysore was a very religious man but he was very modern in many ways.  When I was Carriage Works Manager we had to build a saloon for him to travel in.  It had to be exactly to his design.  The coach was divided into two halves.  On one half it had a saloon compartment, a bathroom and kitchen. We were told the Maharajah spent time in meditation.  He would sometimes spend three days alone without a all sorts of ideas for the design.  He wanted to be able to be able to lift his bed to window level when it was very hot, and to lower it when he wished, so we designed that with a handle.  The other half of his coach was for his staff and servants.  He had many ideas which we tried to comply with.

One letter said that his Highness has heard that there is some glass which you could have in a coach which you could see out of but people couldn’t see in.  I had to write back and say that I was very sorry but we hadn’t come across that.

• The Maharajah of Mysore

 As a result of this Mummy and I were invited to spend a week in Mysore during the week of Dussehra.   It was an old custom in which the people in his province came to pay their taxes into the cap—–(?) – rather like the Maharajah of Hydarabad.  There was a whole week of entertainment.  We stayed four nights there living in one of the saloons.  Each day there were different celebrations.  One day they were doing pu—–(?), prayers to the animals.  There was incense, and cows, horses and goats were all decorated up, and the priests said prayers.  On another day there was a huge procession through the town with THOUSANDS of electric bulbs especially put in.  One evening was devoted to entertaining the Europeans in the palace.  It was arranged like a huge football stadium.  The masses were all on the —- (gree?).  The Maharajah sat on his throne with his officials around him.  On the right of the Maharajah there were seats for the ladies, and on the right, for the men.  We were all Europeans.  We were dressed up in white ties and dinner jackets.  During the course of this entertainment we had —- and bowed to the Maharajah, were garlanded and went back to our seats.  The ladies were given bunches of flowers.  While this was going on, down below, there was a huge stage with wrestling to entertain the crowds.  In the stadium, there were dwarfs doing tumbling acts and giants waving flags.  We had food there.

 As you went into the palace you walked along the corridors where they had men escorting you down with their back to you.  A big hat covered their heads.  On their backs was painted a face and as they wiggled their shoulders they could make expressions on this face.  This was all for the amusement of the visitors.  They had a large (jew?) there.  He had a large number of motor vehicles going back to the very earliest of them.

These things came at intervals.  They didn’t all come together but they are the things you remember.

• Painting of the Maharajah of Mysore in procession

Me     So you spent 30 years in India altogether. 

G       Yes.  When I was in Delhi after Independence, the Railway board was part of the government.   

Me     This is when you were Director of the Indian Railways? 

G       When I was Director.  Yes.  Parliament was based very much on the same lines as the British Parliament.  Members of Parliament could send a written parliamentary question which the Minister of Transport had to answer.  These questions always had a label “immediate”.  It didn’t matter what you were doing or what time it was, you had to answer these questions without delay.  The whole point of the questions were, and I gather it’s the same in the British Parliament, was that the man who asked the question was allowed to ask a supplementary question.  So his written question might ask, for example, “Why aren’t the locomotives painted a different colour?” but his real question would be his supplementary.  These came to me through my office.  If they had anything to do with mechanical engineering, it was my job to write the answers.  There was a rule which you never broke  - you always told the Minister the truth.  If it didn’t suit him to give that answer, he could alter it.

I addition to that, very often the head clerk, who had been there for 20 years, would come with one of these question papers and say “Here is a question.  He has asked this, but I know this gentleman.  He is not interested in that.  What he wants to know is so and so and so and so.  So we would sit down and talk and would prepare the supplementaries.  Nehru  (Prime Minister) knew all these men and knew what their pet subject was.

Each year for a fortnight, the Railway Budget was discussed.  Each of the ministers of the Railways who represented us sat in the official gallery.  I had to go at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.  You first had the Minister’s speech then a member would get up and ask his question.  If it was anything to do with you, you wrote what you considered was the answer, which was passed down to the Minister.  He studied these answers and when it came to the time for him to answer he was able to get up without looking at a note and answer as if he knew the whole subject.  I admired him very much for this.  I gather the same thing happens in this country.          

One day in Perambur we had a railway strike and had to meet the Union representatives.  There was a very strong Labour man who used to come and see me in my office and I’d say “Come in, sit down, Mr so and so.”  He would say something like this, “We are asking for an increase in pay,” (It might be five rupees)  “but I know you cannot give this.  But if you give me 10 rupees, I will see there’s no trouble.”  We’d have a talk, then after, he’d say “Mr Morris, I’m told that in your country, boys of 10 or 11 understand how a locomotive works.  Is that true?”  Then we’d have a talk on these lines.  Two or three years later when I was in Delhi, we went into the parliament restaurant where you had a cup of tea.  This communist member of parliament came up to me and said “Hello Mr Morris, how nice to see you ….” 

END OF TAPE  2

 (Believe it or not, on the final line of the final page of the first exercise book!) 

Next week:  Grandpa talks about how India was affected by World War II, and the effect of Partition on the Indian railway system.