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short distance there in an aged Ambassador that had frilly curtains
on wires around its rear windows to keep out the sun and seal in its
heat. It was like being in a mobile doll's house. On several very
hard courts, people in modern-looking gear played inept and languid
games, often with the net.
The rajkumar and I sat watching these efforts from a courtside
table. We sat with a pleasant man to whom I was never introduced,
sipping Campa Colas and discussing education, a subject the pleasant
man had strong and knowledgeable opinions about. He suggested
that the current system needed a thorough rethink, the introduction
of a more structured syllabus, and a more disciplined approach to
what was taught. He was right about this. It was the closest I had
been to a normal conversation in many weeks, and I was enjoying it.
As the light faded and the insect chorus of yet another suffocating
tropical night tuned-up, the rajkumar abruptly stood - the pleasant
man was in midsentence - announcing it was time to leave.
Back in the springy leather seats behind those preposterous
curtains, my host said, 'You see that man we were talking to?
I nodded - not that I could now see anything.
'He is going to prison tomorrow. He has been embezzling funds,
you see.'
I gathered that this would be as big a surprise to the pleasant man
as it was to me. The rajkumar did not elaborate on the man's crimes,
staring in silence at his thumbnails.
That night he watched me eat again, suddenly announcing that
he currently had many problems and, as if the news would astound
me, little money to deal with all of these problems.
He sighed. 'Too much of troubles.'
The abolition of the Indian princely titles, in theory, and the
privileges associated with them, in practice, left him in an awkward
situation. The local people, so remote from the realities of
contemporary India, and so conservative, so attached to tradition,
still regarded him as their ruler, and still expected all that this had
always entailed. When his children married, for instance, he was
obliged to provide everyone in Venkatagiri with new clothes.
Fortunately for his peace of mind, the disastrous condition of his
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