35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

254
EMPIRE OF THE SOUL
India, and husbands are still frequently decades older than their
brides.
Hearing all this was the last straw for Bentley. He crept off to the
shadows of a cenotaph interior and lay on the cool stone floor,
breathing heavily, waving away all offers of drinks and medication.
Even the cameleers muttered anxiously among themselves, pointing
to where the photographer had crawled looking as if he’d decided
an empty tomb was exactly where he needed to be.
I wandered the avenues of chattris, worried and not sure what to
do. The Moghul architectural style of the cenotaphs, high on raised
stone platforms, with their ornately worked, slightly drooping ribbed
stone canopies, their magnificent octagons of monolithic fluted
columns, had remained virtually unaltered for over five hundred
years. Each bore an inscribed tablet bearing the death date of the
monarch in whose memory it had been erected. Yet the last
maharajah commemorated here – cremated, alone, in 1982 – had
only a crude low brick wall for a memorial, sloppily fenced in with
rusty barbed wire, containing only somewhat mysterious
earthenware pots and two sad little faded photographs in cheap
frames.
‘No skilled craftsmen and no money now,’ Hoppy explained
mournfully. It seemed a partial truth. The real explanation flapped
in the prayer rags tied to the fence wire by those faithful few who
still believed their maharaja was a god, able now to answer petitions
from his new throne in paradise. Although the princely titles have
officially been abolished, the royal families of today continue to
command a deep loyalty and respect from their subjects – now called
voters – that threatens the modern democratic political process. The
real truth about this humble tomb was that lavish funerals and the
erection of cenotaphs affirming the divine status of rajas are
discouraged by the nervous commoners running New Delhi.
The quasi-Marxist inclinations of Nehru and his daughter, Indira
Gandhi, sought to undermine all traditional Indian institutions
that threatened their power. And, in once-mighty kingdoms like
those of Rajasthan, religion is linked to royalty in a potent medieval
combination that frustrates the modern central government. For
instance, maharajas are made into members of parliament, elected