Read Victoria & Abdul for Free Online Page A

wrote in his Journal. The first night at sea had passed well, but the tossing waves took their toll on him by morning. Tyler advised him to spend as much time on deck but Karim found this to be even worse than the cabin. Finally he took some medicines, noticing that the Europeans preferred to take spirits to tide over the seasickness. However, by the time the ship reached Aden, Karim was sufficiently recovered to step on deck. Tyler went to see the town but Karim stayed on board watching the young Arab boys rowing around the ship in their canoes, diving for money thrown by the European ladies. The ladies, he noticed, liked buying ostrich feathers (called the Shutarmurgh in Persian). After a few hours in Aden, the steamer sailed up the Red Sea to Suez where Karim was struck by the arrangement of the vessels going through the canals. He marvelled as the steamer entered the bluewaters of the Mediterranean sea and they reached the island of Malta, where he disembarked with Tyler.
    In Malta, Tyler took them to see an ancient church, but when the attendant there asked them to remove their turbans, the Indians resisted and chose not to enter the church. ‘We consider our headdress the most honoured of all our habitments, and go with it on to any place we venerate,’ wrote Karim. ‘Therefore we could not think of desecrating the sacred building by entering bareheaded.’ From Malta they sailed to Gibraltar where they were joined on board by Prince Albert Victor, before proceeding on the last leg of the journey to England. Karim was impressed by how downright the Prince was.
    On arrival in London, the Indians were taken by Tyler to the Victoria Hotel, where Karim noted that the rooms were fine. ‘The bustle and stir caused by the Jubilee visitors from all ranks and nations beats anything I had ever dreamed of before,’ he wrote. However, there was one problem in London faced by the Indians, namely the food:

    We suffered much inconveniences in regard to our food, although the troubles of Mohammedans in respect were little compared to the sufferings of the poor Hindoos, whose religion enjoins performing of many stringent rites in connection with the preparation and partaking of their food. For instance an orthodox Hindoo must have a bath before every meal to which he has to sit down barebodied, rather an inconvenient thing to do in a cold country like England.

    The Queen was still at Balmoral at this time and Karim had no idea when she would come down to London for the festivities. During the twelve days in London, Dr Tyler took them to Madame Tussauds and London Zoo. Karim found the Chamber of Horrors in Madame Tussauds depressing as it showed ‘sin and misery in their various forms’.

    The first of the Royal guests to arrive for the Jubilee were the highly recommended Maharajah and Maharani of Cooch Behar, one of the most westernised of Indian princely families. Cooch Behar was a tiny principality set in the north-eastern hills ofBengal, an idyllic paradise of tea plantations and game-rich forests full of rhinoceroses and tigers. The Maharajah, Nripendra Narayan, a dashing twenty-five-year-old, was a keen huntsman who had been educated in the elite Presidency College in Calcutta and tutored by English teachers. His wife, the beautiful twenty-two-year-old Sunity Devi, was the first Indian Maharani to visit the English Court. They travelled with their three children, Sunity’s two brothers, an English secretary and an entourage of servants, and received a rousing welcome. The press clamoured to see Sunity when she rode in Hyde Park, reporting every detail of her clothes, accessories and lifestyle as she socialised with Alexandra, the Princess of Wales and Princess May, later to become Queen Mary.
    Nripendra Narayan wore silk embroidered Indian tunics with ornamented turbans and was never without his strings of pearls and ruby and diamond encrusted rings. Sunity Devi’s gowns were fashioned by top Paris couturiers combining