Mysore and Secunderabad

When we realised that we would not be able to buy a property in India we had to reassess our situation. While living at the Shilton Hotel we had become friendly with several fellow long-term residents. One was a German called Max who worked at the Goethe Institute in Bangalore. He had an Indian wife who took a great shine to Michael and he called her for some reason known only to himself, because it certainly wasn't her name, Petunia. Here they are together in the grounds of the hotel.

Another acquaintance was also given a soubriquet by Michael though this one had some kind of rationale to it. This gentleman was the ex-Iranian ambassador to Switzerland who had gone into exile after the Iranian revolution when the Shah was deposed a couple of years previously. It must have been quite a comedown, from being an ambassador to living in a middle ranking hotel in India, but he seemed to take it all philosophically. He had lost his wife, and his daughter was still in Iran so he was by himself. His daughter did come out to see him while we were there and she was a totally Westernised woman in terms of education and dress, but now she had to cover her head when in her own country. Unlike her father who seemed to accept the situation in his homeland, she had a decidedly fiery attitude to the new regime. When asked what she thought about it she drew her finger across her throat and said "I want to kill them!". One forgets how Westernised Iran was under the Shah, though maybe it was only the case for the educated elite.

I don't remember the ambassador's real name but it was something like Monsieur Mogadon. I give him that title because his French was better than his English so we spoke to him mostly in French, a language in which Michael was fluent, having lived there for a while in his childhood, and I was reasonably competent, having done it to A level standard. Michael called him Moggie which delighted him and they used to play cards together in the evening. Here is a photo of Michael, Moggie and Max in Whitefield with a flame of the forest tree in the background. 

Inspired by Michael, Moggie had also bought himself a solar topi.

Here's a photo of Moggie and me in the same place.

We were in Whitefield because after we found out we couldn't buy the bungalow we decided to move there anyway. We rented a small house with a little garden for 6 months, and some of our Bangalore friends would occasionally come by to visit. However, we still needed to find a more permanent solution and an Indian friend suggested that Michael apply to the Maharajah of Mysore, a friend of whose grandfather he had once known, for a job of some kind. Over 40 years later this seems a strange thing to have considered, given our original purpose in going to India, but Michael wrote to the Maharajah anyway and he replied quite quickly suggesting an interview. So, off we went to Mysore.

In fact, we had visited Mysore on a day trip earlier as it's not far from Bangalore and is one of the more interesting cities in Karnataka state. It's famous for its palace which is a mixture of the magnificent and the kitsch. Designed by an Englishman in the early 20th century in the Indo-Saracenic style for the grandfather of the current (in 1980) Maharajah, it combines European and Indian influences for a result that is undeniably impressive but veers towards Disneyland on occasion. More to my taste were the 1,000 year old Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in nearby Srirangapatna and the 18th century summer palace of Tipu Sultan.

We arrived at the palace for the interview with the Maharajah and were inevitably kept waiting for an hour or so. This was only to be expected as the hierarchy must be enforced, but eventually a servant arrived to tell us that His Highness would see us now. This caused Michael to crack a smile and he told me as we progressed through dark passages to meet the Maharaja that his father, who was a large man, had been affectionally known as His Heaviness. When we got to the royal chamber we could see that the family propensity for a generous girth had passed from father to son. The Maharajah was seated on a throne raised on a platform with his petite wife sitting at a lower level, more or less at his feet. Here's a picture of the two of them at their wedding about 4 years previous to our meeting.

He motioned to us to be seated on a bench about 15 feet away from him and asked if we would like some refreshment. We thanked him at which a servant brought us some coffee in one of the metal cups often used in South India. Then we saw why the Maharaja might have got to be the size he was. He was given four cups of coffee and a whole chicken. Rather than drink the coffee, he just poured it down his throat, one cup after another. Then he ate the chicken with his fingers during which time we sat silently. When he had finished he asked Michael a bit about himself. Michael talked about his previous time in India as ADC to the Governor of the Punjab and the Viceroy, and the Maharaja nodded politely but there was no mention of any job. His wife didn't speak during the interview but sat silently staring ahead the whole time. I was asked my name but not much more. After about 20 minutes the Maharaja indicated that the interview was over. We got up, thanked him and were escorted from the palace. We never heard anything more. It was all rather strange.

Michael's second attempt to get some kind of job was almost as odd as the first. Someone told him that the club at Secunderabad was looking for a new secretary. Clubs in India were an inheritance from British days when people would get together after a day's work to socialise and drink. The game of snooker was invented by a British army officer in the 19th century in an Indian club. Michael wrote to the Secunderabad Club offering his services, and they asked him to come for an interview. I was against this because, as before, it seemed to have nothing to do with our reason for coming to India, and I had no interest in being a hanger on in such circumstance. But by this time we had been in the country for several months and all our plans had come to naught so I agreed to give it a go and see what transpired so we went to Secunderabad.

Secunderabad was a twin city to Hyderabad, the two being separated by a large lake, but they have now more or less merged into one. However, originally Secunderabad was developed by the British while the old Indian city of Hyderabad was ruled by the Nizam who at one time had the reputation of being the richest man in the world with jewels the size of eggs. The nearby mines of Golconda were renowned for producing diamonds in the 17th century amongst which was the famous Koh-i-Noor now set in a British Royal Family crown and on display at the Tower of London.

We stayed at the club for a couple of days and it was very pleasant as you can see from these pictures, still run as it would have been in British times with a strict dress code and servants waiting on your every whim.

But it was not why we were in India and when it turned out that the club was not looking for a secretary after all I was pleased though I did wonder why on earth they had asked us to travel over 300 miles to inform us of that. We returned to Whitefield to see what might happen next.

I have not mentioned the Masters but they did occasionally speak to me through Michael at this time. I would never have asked them what we should do, that was up to us, but I believed we would be guided and such did turn out to be the case.