Dimensions
128 x 198 x 20mm
European Women Who Broke Society's Rules and Married Indian Princes.
An unputdownable factual account of the zenana world of the rajas and sultans of India, concentrating on the firangi bahus and begums of this veiled world of myths and folklores.
The book gives us the stories of many different European women who broke society's rules to marry the "heathen" Indian princes. Who were these women? Were they gold-diggers or hopeless romantics hoping to enact their own Cinderelia fairytale? Did they live happily ever after?
The liaisons were many: In 1903, the Rajah of Pudukkottai enraged official society by having an affair with a Mrs Reid, the wife of an army major. A series of European women found the good-humoured and generous Maharajah Gopal Narain Singh of Tikari extremely appealing.
And French women were preferred by the avowedly Francophile Maharajah Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala, who threatened to stay away from his state if his mistress Mademoiselle Seret was not allowed to come and stay with him in India. She was soon followed by Mademoiselle Serrurier and Madame Lemma L Izzat Pasha.
Set against the backdrop of India's independence struggle, the book has a delicious and potent mix of flavours - the end of the British Raj and the downfall of the pompous and extravagant Indian aristocracy.
