Gayatri Devi: India’s Legendary Princess Passes Away
Jul 31st, 2009 | Comments
Rajmata (or Queen Mother) Gayatri Devi, of the erstwhile princely state of Jaipur in India, passed away at age 90. In her youth, when she was a Queen, the Vogue magazine described her as one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world. She was cremated with full state honors…See here…
Gayatri Devi was one of the few people remaining who could vividly describe the life of fabulous wealth of the old feudal Indian royalty (that ruled over nearly 40% of the Indian subcontinent at the time of Indian independence), as well as full participation in the life of a modern Indian democracy after the country’s freedom from the British rule in 1947.
The princess once told an interviewer: “I am in The Guinness Book of Records twice. First for having had the most expensive wedding in history and, second, after the royal privileges were removed and democracy took over, I had the largest majority ever recorded in a democratic election.”
In the 1940s when Gayatri Devi got married “there were so many guests that her father’s palace in Bengal could not accommodate them. Her presents included a blue Bentley, a two-seater Packard and a mansion in the Himalayas. Her trousseau included sheets from Czechoslovakia, shoes from Florence, and nightgowns in mousseline de soie from Paris.”
Among the first royals to join the democratic process of elections, Gayatri Devi won the Lok Sabha (Indian parliament) elections in 1962, 1967 and 1971 contesting on Swatantra Party ticket. During the Emergency, she underwent a jail term in the rat-infested Tihar Jail in Delhi.
Cecil Beaton photographed her in 1943 and she achieved international recognition. She retained her natural beauty well “into old age. She never made a great performance about her appearance, however, any more than she put on the airs of a maharani (Queen).
“This simplicity of manner coupled with an unforced charm and good humour won her many friends throughout the world, many of whom she entertained generously in Jaipur.” More here…
Gayatri Devi studied at the Nobel-laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore’s famous Santiniketan in Bengal, and later in Lausanne, Switzerland. She started schools for girls in Jaipur, most prominent of which is the Maharani Gayatri Devi Girls’ Public School. She also promoted the dying art of blue pottery. See here…
