Big B pays homage to Rajmata Gayatri Devi

Amitabh Bachchan is presently in Singapore at the moment with wife Jaya Bachchan busy attending to an ill Amar Singh, who is undergoing treatment there. But he managed to take some time out to visit a nearby temple to offer prayers for Rajmata Gayatri Devi’s peaceful soul in heaven after he heard of her demise.

Big B in his homage to the late Rajmata writes in his blog, “As a young student in the Delhi University I used to sneak into the Jaipur Polo ground, next to the Air Force colony opposite the Gymkhana Club in Delhi, to watch some of the finest polo players of the country, riding majestically on thoroughbreds competing with some of the finest teams from overseas. The Maharaja of Jaipur, a great proponent of the game, would play there and accompanying him used to be his wife, the Rajmata Gayatri Devi, in her soft and pastel flowered chiffon’s, a picture of grace and beauty. It was expensive to get into those grounds and to find a place on the stands to watch the fast paced ‘chukkers’, but we managed to get in and kept ourselves at a distance from all the main activities. Never in my born days had I ever imagined that one day I would get to meet this lady. But time and circumstances changed that. While working in Calcutta we moved around socially in a group of common friends who were related to the Cooch Behars- as royalty from that region was addressed. The Maharaja of Cooch Behar himself a great polo player and the brother to Gayatri Devi a most distinguished and handsome man, would often play at the polo ground in and around the Victoria Memorial and the race course and we would gather around to ogle at them on Sunday evenings. He had, had a fall from his horse during one of the games and a severe concussion to the head had kept him in-firmed for long."

He continues, "After joining the movies there were many visits to the pink city of Jaipur for shootings and that is when a formal introduction with the Rajmata took place. Of the many private palaces that belong to the Jaipurs, some have been converted into grand hotels and I have had the pleasure of staying in them and enjoyed their exquisite regal ambience. I was later asked by Gayatri Devi ji to inaugurate one of the functions at the girls school that she started, now a flourishing institution. Some years ago she had invited me to be the chief guest at a charity she promoted for the under privileged and cannot forget what a gracious host she was that evening. On another occasion she called me over for a private lunch at her Lily Pond residence, serving me personally with delicious vegetarian delicacies which she had so considerately asked her kitchen to prepare. She wrote a personal note to me a few years back to seek my involvement for another event that she was inaugurating, but time constraints kept me away. That was the last communication I had had with her. The many palaces of these princely states have some of the most unique artifacts that I have ever seen. Crystal-ware and silver, paintings, art work, the ‘pichvai’ murals rare and beyond value. At one of the smaller private palaces, now converted into a boutique hotel, where Queen Elizabeth had stayed during her visit to India, there is a painting of Gayatri Devi’s mother. And I shall have to say this, that her beauty was unmatched. Gayatri Devi documented her enchanted and eventful life in her autobiography; a fairy tale of this lovely Princess from Cooch Behar. May she rest in peace!”

- Sampurn Media