Princess Usha Raje Holkar, current titular head of Holkar dynasty of erstwhile princely state of Indore.

It was a late Autumn evening in 2015 when I was attending a high-profile book launch event at an art gallery in south Bombay where I came across a soft spoken, very elegant and dignified lady. She was of medium height, her mannerisms and etiquette very classy, with a tinge of sassiness. An old school charm from the British Raj. I was introduced to her and her husband by a common friend. The lady was none other than Her Highness and the present titular head of the royal family and erstwhile princely state of Indore, Maharani Usha Raje Holkar who became Malhotra post her marriage to Shri Satish Chandra Malhotra. As there are rarely very few present photos of Maharani Saheb in circulation in media and web, I would had failed to recognize her if she was not introduced to me as I had no idea how she looked in present. Though we interacted for few precious minutes, she came across as a very warm and gracious person. I was also introduced to Shri Satish C Malhotra who was delighted to hear about my research on princely states. In an age of digital and social media, where you can come across the lives of other erstwhile princely states and their current descendants, Maharani of Indore Usha Raje Holkar Malhotra and her immediate family is known to be fiercely private and very few people are privy to know her from near. Hence for me, that meeting is a precious memory as I believe in respecting the privacy of any individual.

 

The author with Maharani Usha Raje Holkar Malhotra, standing at extreme left in 2015.

 

But I was curious as an individual, as a human, as a researcher to know why Maharani Saheb is so unusually private, which can be equaled to the hibernation taken by stalwarts like Greta Garbo or Suchitra Sen, who insisted and maintained their stand on keeping their personal lives, notoriously private from public limelight. But what compelled Maharani Saheb to be fiercely private might have some similarity with the situations of Greta Garbo and Suchitra Sen where shocking circumstances led them to lead such a withdrawn life later.

 

I decided to dig further. What’s interesting is that Indore was a 19 Gun Salute Maratha princely state during the British Raj under Central India Agency, headed by Holkar dynasty. Actually, there were 3 big Maratha princely states in central and centrally west India, Baroda, Gwalior and Indore. The boundary of Indore started where Gwalior’s ended. Though Gwalior and Indore had a long history of rivalry, but it’s not our topic of discussion here. Indore was the leader of Malwa Plateau with her old capital Maheshwar along the banks of river Narmada and a glorious past headed by Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar whose charitable and religious activities to restore many Hindu prominent temples and structures in entire India was legendary.

 

International news coverage of the birth of Princess Usha Raje in 1933. In the photo, she is in the lap of her mother Sanyogitaraje.

 

Coming back to the life of Princess Usha Raje Holkar, Usha Raje had a relatively unusual and lonely childhood if we compare her childhood with other children from royal families who were her contemporaries as in most royal families, prince and princesses are over crowded with multiple siblings and half siblings from step mothers. Usha was born on 20^th October, 1933 in the American Hospital of Paris, France. She was the first and only child of Maharaja of Indore Yeshwant Rao Holkar II and his first wife, Maharani Sanyogitabai Holkar. Unfortunately, Princess Usha Raje lost her mother, the young Sanyogitaraje when she  was just 24 years of age in a mysterious death in Switzerland in 1937.

 

Parents Maharani Sanyogitaraje Holkar and Maharaja of Indore Yeshwantrao Holkar in Paris, 1930s.

 

 

PARENTS – YESHWANTRAO AND SANYOGITA’S MARRIAGE

Princess Usha’s father Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Holkar was the only son of Maharaja of Indore Tukojirao Holkar III and his first wife Maharani of Indore Chandravatibai Saheb Holkar. Yeshwantrao was born in 1908 in Indore, educated in England at Cheams School and Oxford University from where he completed his Masters in History. Yeshwantrao succeeded his father as a teenager under aged Maharaja in 1926 when Maharaja Tukojirao Holkar had to abdicate his throne due to the infamous scandalous case of his time, the Bawla murder case, which also happens to be the first most sensational high-profile criminal case of modern urban India.

 

Maharaja of Indore Yeshwantrao Holkar.

 

Ironically, Tukojirao’s father, Maharaja Shivajirao Holkar too had to abdicate his throne in favor of his son in 1903 due to misadministration. However, Maharaja Yeshwantrao after succeeding the throne in 1926, got full powers to rule as the Maharaja of Indore from the British Govt in 1930. He remained the Maharaja of Indore till Indore merged with Indian Dominion after independence of India in 1947.

 

International media coverage of the Yeshwantrao's installation on Gadi of Indore in 1926.

 

Yeshwantrao Holkar will remain immemorial in the annals of Indore’s history as not only her best ruler, but the most flamboyant, debonair, glamorous globe trotter Maharaja, the history of Indore had ever seen. He had residences outside India, in France, England and multiple residences in United States of America. He had friends from all over the world, from different walks of life, who were successful in their own fields. His taste for modern art whether in commissioning paintings, photographs, interior decorations, houses, rail saloons, his legendary car collections spoke of his vivid imagination and playful attitude with bespoke luxury. His association with German architect Eckart Muthesius produced some of the most futuristic interior designs of its time in the art deco era and of course, the famous Manikbagh Palace in Indore. All these were due to the peaceful serene and beautiful stability in his life in the form of his 1^st wife, Maharani of Indore Sanyogitaraje Holkar and this stability was unshaken till 1937. She was literally his backbone to be alive. But prior to all these in life, Yeshwantrao had a favorite hobby, he was fond of birds and had a large aviary which brought him nearer to the destiny of his future wife Sanyogitaraje.

 

Maharaja Yeshwantrao Holkar and Maharani Sanyogitaraje.

 

Now let’s push back time further when Prince Yeshwantrao was just 11 years old. As he was the crowned prince of Indore, he was allotted a separate palace on the outskirts of Indore where he had constructed a large aviary in a wing of his palace, where birds from different parts of the world in all color and sizes were present. Now this is where exactly the love story of Yeshwantrao and Sanyogita starts. A beautiful depiction of the beginnings of this love story had been once printed in Brisbane edition of THE TELEGRAPH, dated 18^th June, 1926,

 “It was here amongst his favourite birds that the boy Prince won his wife. He was feeding the birds of Paradise, a collection of about 20, of which he is particularly fond, when a little girl came up and playfully opening the door of the aviary let all the birds out. The Prince was very much agitated and flying into a rage began to chide the girl. The little girl was greatly distressed, and while big tears were rolling down her soft cheeks, she in order to pacify the Prince, whistled, and waved to the birds, some of which, bewildered by their newly-acquired liberty, flew back. The Prince was now highly pleased, and, saying that the birds liked the girl, he kissed her. The Maharani (mother of Yeshwantrao), who never suffered the Prince out of her sight for long, saw this drama, from a distance, and emerging upon the young couple — the Prince was 11 and the little girl about eight — joined their hands, saying they would be husband and wife. Two years ago, the Prince married this little girl, who is the daughter of the Prince of Kagal, a hereditary Minister of the State of Kolhapur.”

 

Maharano Sanyogitaraje's portraiture done by Man Ray, the famous photographer.

 

Sanyogitaraje Ghatge was born in 1913, as the daughter of Chief of Kagal, Junior branch, an aristocratic family from the erstwhile Maratha princely state of Kolhapur. She married Yeshwantrao in 1924 at the age of 11 years and became the Maharani of Indore in 1926, two years after her marriage. Now she shared a very delicate and tender relationship with her husband, as his first crush, love and soul mate. As Maharaja Yeshwantrao had witnessed her mother Chandravatibai’s pain when his father Maharaja Tukojirao was devoting his time towards his favourite dancing girl, Mumtaz Begum or his abdication of Indore throne or Tukojirao’s 3^rd marriage to American Maharani Sharmisthhabai, somewhere the conjugal loneliness of his mother led him to gel and shower all his affections towards Sanyogitaraje. Yeshwantrao and Sanyogitaraje’s 13 years of conjugal journey was nothing short of love and magic as they were the hippest and happening ‘IT’ couple from Indian royalty globetrotting the world, and were much in demand among the elite circles of Europe, Britain and America.

 

Maharaja of Indore Yeshwantrao Holkar and Maharani Sanyogitaraje Holkar seen with Hollywood star Gary Cooper in 1936.

 

Young and peppy, Yeshwantrao and Sanyogitaraje captured the essence of cultural changes between 2 World Wars perfectly created their own signature style, a fusion of East and West in that Art Deco era. The global impression about Indian royal families were that most of the women were always covered from head to toe in Purdah, leads a very restricted life, have less exposure to education, almost nil personal freedom and not at par as the progressive ladies of London, Paris or New York. Now in that era of Art Deco, women from Indian royal families have already started making their mark outside India, in elite societies of France, London or New York. A Maratha princess who went on to become a Bengali Maharani due to marriage, Indira Raje Gaekwar had already upped the glamor quotient of Indian royal ladies in the West.

International poster couple from Indian royalty in the art deco era was Yeshwantrao and Sanyogitaraje, 1931.

 

Now Maharani of Indore Sanyogita Raje, a young girl, with slim and slender beauty on her side, created her own place in that short span of life. As Sanyogita was the only wife, herself being a Maharani, had the entire world, riches and luxury at her feet.  She was the first Maharani who openly endorsed wearing swimsuits when she was in France very publicly.

 

Maharani Sanyogitaraje and Yeshwantrao relaxing on a beach in France in 1935.

 

The best time of Sanyogita’s life was from 1930 to 1937. Her husband was given full powers to rule as Maharaja of Indore in 1930. Sanyogita moulded herself, her taste in fashion, etiquette and lifestyle as per the likes and dislikes of her husband, the Oxford educated Maharaja who himself was a stylish westernized Ruler. Sanyogita had wardrobe filled with couture from best designers of Paris, London, or New York. She was a big lover of Schiaparelli gowns, bespoke jewelry from Chaumet, Van Cleef and Arpels, Cartier.

 

International media coverage about the glamorous side of Sanyogitaraje in 1934.

 

 Photograph of Maharaja of Indore Yeshwantrao Holkar with his first wife Maharani Sanyogitaraje Holkar, 1930 taken by Manray.

Well, Man Ray immortalized her sense of fashion and style in his portraiture photographs. It is said that the rooms in her palaces were all air conditioned, and had such beautiful interiors that when she was in Paris, heavily pregnant with her first and only child, she disliked the Parisienne interiors and chose to return back to her palace in Indore which were more beautiful than Parisienne architecture.

 

Last public photograph of Maharani Sanyogitaraje seated in the center, seen in Cairo Gymkhana in 1937.

 

Her only child, Usha Raje was born in Paris in 1933. Her movements were widely reported by the global press and paparazzies. Once in 1936, when she visited USA, she went to Hollywood, made friends with film stars like Constance Bennett, Gilbert Rolland, Gail Patrick. When she was returning back to Asia via Pacific Ocean, she stopped over in Hawaii for 3 months and also invited and hosted these Hollywood stars over there. And these stars did join her and accepted the invitation. In 1937, Sanyogita Raje visited Egypt to witness a tennis match at Cairo Gymkhana.

 

 

Maharani of Indore Sanyogitaraje Holkar with her daughter Princess Usha Raje Holkar in California in USA, 1936.

 

Suddenly this beautiful and happy life Sanyogitaraje came to an end in 1937. She came to Engadin in Switzerland for a cure in June 1937. But was suddenly taken ill. At that time, Yeshwantrao Holkar was in Paris but gave permission for an urgent surgery by Dr Ruppauer, a world-famous surgeon in Kreis Hospital, Samadan, Switzerland. It was said that she was operated for a ruptured appendicitis but what went wrong on the operation table during the surgery, is still a mystery. Something went wrong and she died on the operation table. Her husband was not by her side. That unfortunate day was sometime in the middle of July, 1937. She left the world, living behind her 4 years old baby daughter Princess Usha Raje, and a husband who was madly in love with her, for whom the entire world revolved around her. A very young  bright life of just 24 years became silent forever……

 

International press coverage about the sudden death of Maharani Sanyogitaraje in 1937 in Switzerland.