Maharani

Ruskin Bond

Penguin Books

Pp 192, Rs 350

So you think you know who the real Mata Hari was? Are you sure? Think again, because the Maharani of Mastipur has some shocking revelations. First of all, Mata Hari was no woman, she was not even a man. She was ?the perfect hermaphrodite?. Secondly, she spent her last days in India as a nun, in a smock, as a nanny to the children of the Maharajah of Mastipur. Whoever said she was executed by the French firing squad? That?s what the history books say, silly! But as old Rusty?s pen scribbled a revelation, she fell down the stairs and died. Now, it is entirely up to you, if you wish to believe the history books, but remember the Maharani gave you an alternative, maybe not a subaltern one (after all she was a Maharani), nevertheless it was another perspective and perfectly believable.

Does this interesting anecdote manage to expand the peripheral vision of your imagination a tiny bit? Now if you want to stretch it further, you should immerse yourself in 192 pages of delight called Maharani by Ruskin Bond. You have a Maharajah with his quaint (read abnormal) hobby for rearing hundreds of white rats as pets, and who was later ?consumed, literally, by his hobby?; faces appearing on walls; voodoo dolls; premonitions of death; murders and, of course, Mata Hari. There is also a small stint by Jim Corbett, the famed British hunter of man-eating tigers. But all these characters and events are crude ancillaries when compared to the novella?s heroine, HH. Even Ruskin Bond, the narrator and life long friend of Neena (the Maharani known as such to her close friends) crouches just safely on the fringes, giving the readers a free-flowing and incisive observation of the Maharani and her wickedness.

Willful, spoilt, beautiful and utterly selfish, the widow of the Maharajah of Mastipur believes in indulging in all good things of life?wine, whisky, her coterie of handsome and virile men, grand parties?she lives up to the image of a spoilt royalty. Married at the young age of 16 to the Maharajah, as his second wife, ?Neena the jungle princess, Neena of the nine lives?, was the perfect companion to His Highness? shikar trips. And observing her various shenanigans is the young and old Ruskin Bond, who once shared a kiss with this feisty princess at her school dance party. Set in the beautiful, misty hill town of Mussourie, the novella goes back and forth in time, and Bond?s narrative recounts and traverses the life of Neena and those connected to her with witticism and wry humour, so well associated with Bond?s style of writing.

While Bond is critical of the ?feudal? Maharani and her beliefs in ?the old caste system, in the inequality of peoples and nations? and ?that black people were inferior to fair people, and that there should be masters and servants, even a master race?, he approaches the character of Pablo with tenderness and a slight hint of amusement. The young son of Ricardo, the cultural attache in the Bolivian Embassy (Bond is actually not sure if he was from Peru or Chile) and one of the numerous lovers of the Maharani, Pablo is the dreamer and movie-poster collector, with whom Bond develops a deep, though short bond over cinema. The young boy reminds the narrator of his own ?lonely boyhood?, one of the many few instances where the autobiographical element peppers the story.

Written for his adult fans, after a long gap, it seems Ruskin Bond wrote Maharani for himself, indulging in his self-professed love for the macabre and fantastical. Like how his first novel, The Room on the Roof had a certain freshness, as it was a book about adolescence, written by an adolescent, Maharani carries the same unrestrained streak in his style of writing. Like the Maharani?s unruly character, the novella reads like an idea unbridled, and Bond, it seems, went along with it, reining in and shaping it with his wit and humour. So ?naughty Neena? flirts with babas, spirituality, yoga, different species of dogs and men, but she never fails ?to make life as unpleasant as possible for all those who had any claim on her purse or affections?, especially her two brat of sons, whom she denied huge allowances and ?never really helped to straighten out their lives?. But Neena?s life, which ?had been one long party? met a dreadful end?life bit back at her. She died of shock and fright when the rats, which roamed her palace, bit her.

But amidst all these hysterics and frenzy of the drama queen, Bond finds time to indulge his love for nature and his love for writing. As he says : ?There is just one way to write: put pen to paper…In my window seat at Maplewood I allowed the words to come through the window, laden with the scents of summer. An old honeysuckle, planted by someone 50 or 60 years ago, climbed the outside wall and poured its heady fragrance into the room?. Born in the lap of nature, his writing has always had a deep connect with the environment and surroundings. With all its macabre and death, Maharani is no different; it still abounds in mist and dew of the morning sun.