Moustaches Music and Mirrors

Rajputana - not easy to summarise but if I try my title will give you some direction.

They are a proud and passionate people and I come from one such like so I travelled to its Capital full of expectation and I was not disappointed.
The first thing you notice is the colours of the changing countryside. From trees and fields you finally end up in a much more arid land, shrubby and dusty. It is not coincidental that the colours of the clothes are fires before your eyes.

Their palaces display the grandeur and the sophistication of their lives. The hall of Mirrors at the Amber Fort and the intricacy of the work is truly dazzling.Fiercely brave, daring and dashing their royal family is full of stories of intrigue and passion, conquests and love.
I will mention two, perhaps the most famous is Gayatri Devi who died recently and who at 19 fell in love with Man Singh II the heir to the Jaipur Throne. Their marriage was initially opposed but they were eventually married in 1939 and lived a life of filmstar splendour and aristocratic comfort.
She survived her husband who died of a polo accident and became a very well respected figure across the whole of India and her book "A Princess Remembers" is well worth reading as an account of her life.
There was another woman too whose tale captivated me for different reasons and it concerned a young Greek girl from northern Greece, Maria  who like my mother was born into a well respected and wealthy family. She met an Indian soldier who was stationed in Thessaloniki after the second world war  who stopped on the road to help her family change a flat tyre. To show their gratitide, the family invited the young and dashing soldier back to their house where a romance flourished between the young daughter, barely 16 and the young Major. He returned to India but wrote warm and enchanting love letters to her and she decided that she wanted to follow him. So with her mother's permisssion and completely unchaperoned she made the difficult journey to India where he met her and they married. He was related to the Jaipur Royal family and she lived a life in the lenana the women's quarters and learned all she needed  to learn to become a good Rajput wife.Major Singh excelled as an army man and won the battle of Rajouri.He became a General and they lived a fascinating life in Paris and Washington but also in many places in India where he was stationed. She wrote "Love and War" about her life with her beloved Zorawar and now named Anar she continues to live in Jaipur.
Everywhere we were we listened to the most wonderful music played on a traditional instrument which looked a little like a fiddle. One night as we ate out the musician played on and on , his cords echoing out onto the arid and volatile landscape. It was eerily haunting and evocative of lovers and passions.
This is my Rajput Princess.