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A walk through London’s Victoria & Albert Museum’s exhibition on Indian kings will leave you both impressed and disgusted at the same time. A redefi nition

of luxury in unbelievable ways, the kings, or Maharajas of India, lived truly decadent lifestyles and far surpassed what we would consider the heights of opulence in this day and age.

The V&A claims this major exhibition is the fi rst to comprehensively explore the rich and varied culture of royal India. Entitled Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts, the exhibition spans the start of the 18th century, just when the Mughal Empire began to wane, and ends in the mid-20th

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existed in a time that predated contempo-rary India, which is really a British creation — a communal administrative region that sought to combine the forces of almost 700 very disparate kingdoms that spoke almost as many languages. Like all kings, their objectives were to wrestle power, guard their territory and look better than everyone else.

Excessive wastage and wanton spend-ing drained the coffers of their kingdoms, turning kings into megalomaniacal despots. Swathing themselves in luxury was at the cost of much pain and loss — for example, the craftsmen who built Shah Jahan’s Taj Mahal were all blinded and their hands cut off lest they created something similar anywhere else.

Such excessive peacockery came from an accepted fact that rulers had to be patrons of the arts; thus, Indian courts commissioned all sorts of fi ne art like jewellery, woodwork, painting, enamelling, inlaid weaponry and intricate fl oor coverings. Dance, music, poetry and literature were also widely encouraged. It was about being a show-off — a 234-carat diamond serves no other purpose — and ensuring your neighbours resented you for it.

Additionally, ancient Indian kings weren’t just rulers; they were quasi-gods and had quasi-divine proper-

ties. As the ruler and therefore supplier of everything his people needed to survive, a king was half man, half god, and so had to shine accordingly.

Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts is carefully split into fi ve sections that serve to categorise the exhibits by their role in history. Royal Spectacle describes the opulence that existed not only with the king, but also the procession that preceded him — the vision of the king was consid-ered very fortunate and therefore required the accompanying pomp and ceremony.

It was central to the notion of darshan, the auspicious act of being seen by a superior being. Although originally a Hindu concept, it became a central aspect of Indian kingship.

Kingship in India describes the concept of rajadharma, the at-tributes appropriate of the king. Apart from being wise and be-nevolent, kings were expected to be fi erce warriors and skilled hunters. Rajadharma was also exercised through the patronage of poets, musicians, architects, artists, craftsmen and religious foundations.

Shifting Power, as its name suggests, tells the story of the

century when the Maharajas were forced to cede their territories to the British-created unifi ed states of India and Pakistan.

A mouth-watering collection of rare pieces of art, jewellery and furniture (some of which have never been exhibited) has been gleaned from museums in India and from V&A’s own collection. Combining the colour and mysticism of India with the opulence prevalent at the time of the Maharajas result in a display of luxury and magnifi cence that oscillates between sheer beauty and mere extravagance. Gold and diamonds were playthings, cheap toys instead of the icons of luxury we call them today — for example, a throne is made completely of gold, and a pen and an inkpot set liberally with rubies and emeralds.

The rule of India’s great — and not so great — Maharajas left history and historians much to deal with in terms of the legacy they left behind. Their kingship

Maharaja

When borne on an elephant, Indian rulers sat on a howdah inlaid with precious stones and metals. This pure silver one comes from the collection of the maharajas of Marwar. The rear seat was usually occupied by an attendant bearing a parasol.

Maharaja of Mysore Sir Sri Krishnaraja Wodiyar IV Bahadur. His successor, Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur, was Mysore’s last Maharaja before the kingdom became part of India in 1950.

This bejewelled turban ornament, called a sarpech, was given to

Admiral Charles Watson by Murshidabad ruler Nawab Mir Jafar in July 1757

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BY ANANDHI GOPINATH

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Photo Short

Jane Krakowski made her on-screen debut in the 1990s cult dramedy Ally

McBeal, playing a plain, lonely and rather odd receptionist. No more the plain Jane she once was, Krakowski has charted a rich and varied career in acting to emerge as a successful, tal-ented and beautiful actress.

Over the years, she’s bal-anced her work on television with her musical career with roles in several award-win-ning musicals on Broadway — she’s taken home a slew of trophies from the Tony Awards, the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Drama Desk Awards. However, she fi lls most of her time now playing Jenna Maroney on the multi-award winning 30 Rock.

Versace did a wonderful job of dressing Krakowski — who is Polish — at the recent Emmy Awards, giving her pale skin a touch of glam with a shimmery silver dress. As you can see, Krakowski is simply glowing — or could that be from her nomination for an Emmy and 30 Rock’s sweep of fi ve awards?

gradual downfall of the Mughal Empire and the arrival of the British as the English East India Company transformed from a trading body into a major military and political power.

As British rule intensifi ed, Indian kings were guaranteed their borders and rights but con-stantly faced the interference of their foreign administrators. The Raj shows the beginnings of Western infl uences in the lives of the kings — for example, photographs instead of paintings and a new respect for the Queen.

Politically emasculated, the kings continued to maintain order and patronise cultural activi-ties in a way that fused rajadharma with Western models of governance. European icons of luxury — which include jewel-lers like Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, malle-tier Louis Vuitton and watchmaker Jaeger-Le-Coultre — were com-missioned frequently by kings, and they also began to adopt Western styles in their dressing. Princely India covers this section.

The exhibition does a wonderful job of outlining the gradual era of change that colonisation brought to

the kings. Elaborate gold palanquins set with multihued precious stones gradually become a Rolls Royce Phantom. Luxuriously woven silk carpets and embroidered fabrics from which kings pondered on the future of their kingdom were replaced by European art deco pieces. Silver plates and dinnerware are given up in the name of porcelain and glass sets from F&C Osler. Court paintings? Too passé, thought the Maharaja of In-dore, who posed with his Maharani for American photographer Man Ray.

What the exhibition perhaps doesn’t say is the suffering of the thousands of common people whose taxes funded such overindulgence. But it is not the V&A’s job to make a judgement of what is more valuable now — the pain behind the creation of such objects or their historical relevance. The exhibition is simply a celebration of how these Maharajas’ patronage of the arts gave birth to such magnifi cent objects of such powerful identities. Perhaps it is up to us to keep in mind that there was

nothing selfl ess about this patronage — these kings were only interested in their self-interest and in sustaining the status quo. That the items they cre-

ated were of such beauty and magnifi cence is a pure accident.

Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts will

be held at the V&A Museum, Cromwell Road, London till

Jan 7, 2010. A large number of exhibits can be viewed on www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/

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Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso watches ordered by Maharaja Man Singh II of Jaipur bore the emblem of his elite Sawai Man Guards and

that of the Hindu god Rama

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