Maharanis
A Family Saga of Four Queens
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2.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Until the 1920s, to be a Maharani, wife to the Maharajah, was to be tantalizingly close to the power and glamour of the Raj, but locked away in purdah as near chattel. Even the educated, progressive Maharani of Baroda, Chimnabai—born into the aftermath of the 1857 Indian Mutiny—began her marriage this way, but her ravishing daughter, Indira, had other ideas. She became the Regent of Cooch Behar, one of the wealthiest regions of India while her daughter, Ayesha, was elected to the Indian Parliament.
The lives of these influential women embodied the delicate interplay between rulers and ruled, race and culture, subservience and independence, Eastern and Western ideas, and ancient and modern ways of life in the bejeweled exuberance of Indian aristocratic life in the final days both of the Raj, and the British Empire. Tracing these larger than life characters as they bust every known stereotype, Lucy Moore creates a vivid picture of an emerging modern, democratic society in India and the tumultous period of Imperialism from which it arose.
Through the sumptuous, adventurous lives of three generations of Indian queens—from the period following the Indian Mutiny of 1857 to the present, Lucy Moore traces the cultural and political changes that transformed their world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Drawing on accounts from the waning days of the Raj and the British Empire to the present, Moore (The Thieves' Opera) brings exhaustive research to bear on the stories of four Indian queens who used their power to help forge social change. Her fly-on-the-wall approach gives their triumphs and struggles immediacy. Refined Chimnabai began her marriage to the maharaja of the northern city of Baroda in purdah, which kept married women hidden from men other than their husbands, but after breaking purdah in 1913, she became a champion of women's rights. Sunity Devi, maharani of Cooch Behar (near what is now Bangladesh), forged a close friendship with Queen Victoria and wrote books on India's history for British audiences. Chimnabai's gorgeous daughter, Indira, rejected her arranged alliance in order to marry Sunity's son, and later ruled in her late husband's place as regent of state. Indira's daughter Ayesha defied her parents' wishes so she could become the third wife of the man she loved and was elected to India's parliament in a 1962 landslide. Today, she breeds polo ponies, works on conservationist campaigns and serves on the boards of schools she founded. "In their different ways," Moore writes, "they were icons, modernizers and revolutionaries... inspiring a redefinition of the role of women in modern India." The book's rich details make up for its sometimes stiff prose, as Moore explores everything from the women's elaborate fashions silk chiffon saris, magnificent jewels and spangled veils to the politics and strict traditions of India's aristocracy.
