1875
Prince of Wales visits India. Telephone.
Dada:
I was five when I first heard of Sayaji Gaekwad, the wonderful boy of twelve who was being made King in Baroda. I heard someone say- "no older than Dhoomil, and a king already". Dhoomilkaka looked unhappy, he was a bit slow at studies, and the adults used this as an opportunity to make endless fun of him. Everyone was in awe of the young boy who had become King.. They would tell stories of the coronation, how the carpets were deep enough to drown a child in, the jewels brighter than the sun, the magician who fell off the palace wall while performing and even his body disappeared, the acrobats who had twisted themselves into footballs and confused the players..and the British of course. Always the British, especially when they talked of Baroda.
Neelkanth repeats: Br- i- tish
Dada:
the British had deposed Malhar Rao, the rightful Maratha king, packed him off from the throne peremptorily. I still say, so what if he was debauched, so what if he slept with every woman who came his way and even those who did not?
Sarasvati bai looks daggers at him.
Dada: The point is, he was the king. What business did they have throwing him out? And got Gopalrao on the throne. That was Sayaji's name, when they brought him in.
Sarasvati bai: Gopalrao. (smiles) not very different from my Govind, was it?
Babaraya:But his name was Dhundi then
Dada: You are almost Gopalrao's age when he became king, Babaraya
Babaraya looks with open eyes, not sure what to do.
Dada: At your age, I was not Sayaji, but I was curious, I was in a new city, I was learning so many things, asking so many questions. Sometimes I wonder how it is, that despite being my son, you have no curiosity, absolutely none? Even your mother has asked me more about the world than you have.
Outside the window, the flying Hanuman, who is Babaraya, watches his own un ease. His large eyes cloud over in the anxiety and confusion that Dada's words sometimes bring him. Sarasvati goes to the windows, and looks sorrowfully at him, trying with her expression, to console him. She cannot bear the magnified pain in her child's eyes. She turns back into the room and stands behind Dada.
Sarasvati: How did they decide to make such a little boy the king?
Dada is distracted, and mindful of his pupil's question:
Sayaji was a shadow in the house of Baroda, accepted but shown its place- the first Gaekwad of Baroda had married a comwn from a lower caste. He only held out his left hand in marriage to hold her right hand in. She and her children were to not have any succession rights.
Now, many years later, when fate throws a right hand his way, Sayaji holds firm to it, and leaps onto the saddle of the royal horse, never looking behind as he is led away. The shadow must prove to be more of a king than any king could ever be.
Sarasvatibai thinks:
A little boy of twelve is lost in the bright ceremonies to announce his ascension, the way I was lost at my marriage. The rituals will lead him further into the palace where advisers and teachers await him. Their words and their books will enter like thunder into his mind, making room, demanding room. Slowly his mind will learn to become the plain for those hooves, and then, a horse itself.. it will canter, it will run across its own plain. And then he will be king.
The ceremonies will lead him into a palace and over the next few years, through a school within that palace where he is the sole student. Advisers of different hues, trainers in different disciplines will stretch the walls of his mind, transforming it, transforming him, till he feels the walls will not hold.
Dada:
The British only want a docile ruler, they send in their teachers to teach docility to the future kings. But there are others too, supporters of Malhar Rao, within the palace. That is what Sayaji must learn, to walk between the two, because power is shared between the two, and he is the face of the power.
Sarasvati Bai:
For a few years more he will still be treated like a child, and he will behave like one too. He will drag his feet on the cool marble floors, he will feel the beings on the carved pillars and stare at their eyes, he will slowly walk around sculptures from all over the world.
My children are nodding sleepily, and Mandakini has even fallen into a peaceful slumber at Dada's feet.
Saraswati:
Meanwhile, far away, Dhoomil kaka has gone to bed. The stars have come out like a perfect magic lantern show. After a rowdy day of battling his friends in the mud, Dhundi lies on the cot in the verandah stares at a sky that is larger than anything else he can see. In the quiet, he waits for sounds that he could hear once. Sounds from another world. ( she caresses her stomach once containing a globe within, a galaxy for a little embryo)
He listens for those sounds, his open eyes staring at the sky seem to anticipate them. He still carries memories from the womb, where he was safest. His eyes are like pieces of night sky, a restless moon shifts beneath their stillness.
Tanjore Madhava Rao, mentor to Ravi Varma, moves to Baroda. He has had many differences with the current ruler and is suspected of being friendly with the critics of the ruler. However, he will return to Travancore again, in time to sort of difficulties in Ravi Varma's life.
