Stardust and Wanderlust
A royal reminisces about her tryst with adventure, history and travel of a lifetime
Gin ghar gin takht. For the tipplers this may seem a cryptic advertisement for the spirit but please allow me to ramble. This has been the motto of the Baroda Gaekwad Dynasty for 300 years. Simply translated it means: The saddle is my home, the saddle is my throne. The horse then being the main mode of travel and conquering. Now, for all royalty in India as the world over, travel and treasures were synonymous. But Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda travelled the world to bring back the best specimens of people, policy and porcelain. By then of course, the mode of transport had transformed into gold carriages and private trains and even a private jet, Baroda had them all. Annual train journeys to Pune, Mumbai, Mussoorie and Ooty included maids, teachers, butlers, governesses, secretaries, companions, and of course all the pets! Legend has it, Maharani Padmavati’s African Grey parrot created quite a commotion when he whistled from his cabin, confusing the engine driver into pulling out from the station before the entourage had settled in the saloon. A princess re members ... LouisVuitt on, then an upcoming luggage maker customised iconic trunks and travel tea sets for Baroda and luxury became a staple royal sojourner. Maharani Chimnabai II travelled across the seas replacing the purdah with minks while the saree and jadau jewels were traded for sheer chiffons and Cartier. The royals transformed travel as much as travel emancipated them. Circa 1995. The star dust has waned but wanderlust...not quite yet. My father, Maharaj Kumar Ranjitsinh of Wankaner, one of the early princes to shed the turbans for a tripod is an ex IAS officer and ex director, wildlife for India. He made sure my sister Meenal and I grew up with an equal measure of silver spoon and leopard droppings. Both have influenced how I travel but despite 52 stamps on my passport, the atlas still mocks me. Lunar Landing...The first of my innumerable visits to Ladakh was in 1995. Only 16 years of age at the time, the beauty of its bareness made this place my sacred space forever. It inspired a love for Buddhism as also awe for the Indian Army that stands guard. It is here that I had my first encounter with the snow leopard, and altitude sickness. Since then, I have travelled to Ladakh in varying seasons spanning summer to peak winter, waking up to the gushing Zanskar, flapping frayed flags of the monks, crystallised soap and frozen waterfalls, sipping on gud chai (yak butter tea) and availing drop loos and yes, camping in -25 degrees celcius weather. Always trailing the elusive snow leopard, always with my father, and for that reason alone, Ladakh will always be home.
Walk on the Wild Side... December 31st, 1999, I was 21 years old and chose to spend it in my old childhood haunt, the musty beaten down, no-electricity-connection forest officers hut, in the heart of the sacred Kanha forest of Madhya Pradesh. To the beat of the Night Jar and the lights of fire flies is how I brought in the millennium. The millennial sun rose after me, when I was well into the grasslands of Saunf, watching a pack of jackals catch their first meal of the century. Can you imagine a more specially-curated luxury? Land’s End... By far the most cathartic trip of my life was the 18-day cruise to Antarctica in 2011. A special treat from my father to his two daughters; excitement peaking, much like the icebergs we beheld. The sight of a playful humpback whale and her calf that blocked our ship helf our father in such focus behind his lens that he actually bumped his head on the ship staff and had to be stitched up in the medical room. As for me, the much-anticipated polar dip. was every bit as eciting and imprinted indelibly as I was perhaps the first Indian to have attempted it thus far. Or so I was told. To a crowd of cheering spectators, I jumped into the frozen
sea and even swam for a minute or two before my body awoke to the brain freeze that finally reached my bones. As I emerged from the water, a quick shot of brandy later, still numb from the cold and the shock, euphoria was all that remained from a moment so special I didn’t realise I was still wet and needed to get out of my suit. To the sounds of cackling ice and squeaking albatrosses, we rolled with laughter and the waves in our triple sharing cabin, long after the thaw. And in the midst of the icebergs and penguins, the seals and champagne-seared salmon and cheeky orcas, Meenal and I both lost and found ourselves, the mercurial Drake’s Passage notwithstanding! The Inca trail...Meenal and I arrived in Peru shortly after Antarctica, convinced that nothing could compare; not even close. Yet the sights and sounds of Lima, one of South America’s largest cities woke us from our frozen reverie, forcing us to reconsider. The Museo de la Nación, tracing the history of Peru’s ancient civilisations is weighed down as much by the crush of centuries as by the sheer weight of the gold. The city’s remarkable architecture—leftovers from their Spanish colonisation—is breathtaking. One of the most beautiful places I have visited in the world is Cusco. A jewel set in the Peruvian Andes, Cusco was once capital of the Inca Empire, and even today proudly flaunts its past. Plaza de Armas, the central square in the old city still bears arcades, carved wooden balconies and Incan wall ruins, and wedged between them are beautiful stores selling exquisite textiles, alpaca wool and jewellery. The baroque Santo Domingo Convent with a Peruvian style Mother Mary was built on top of an Incan Temple and has archaeological remains of Inca stonework. Interestingly the painting of the Last Supper in this cathedral shows guinea pigs as the meal, reflective of local tastes and traditions. We of course did gorge on the same, along with purple corn on a cold evening, overlooking the Andes. Machu Picchu was a long-standing dream and yet when I made my pilgrimage to the site the experience was more moving than I could put in words. The 5 am drive up the Inca trail along the gushing Urubamba river prepared the ambience for what we were to witness. We arrived, engulfed in mists too thick to see beyond ourselves and found our way to a cold rock to lie on till Machu Picchu chose to reveal itself and as minutes trickled by slowly, the majestic site appeared before us, as if by magic!