The Images of Sikh Heritage

The other day we were invited to pass the evening with the King whose palace is in a fortress at the other end of the city. The King received us in the open, in the midst of his warriors, in the moonlight in a vast courtyard, surrounded by crenellated walls. There were thirty magnificent horses there, covered with precious stones and illuminated by torches and by a kind of Bengal fire which cast a blue light from the tops of the walls. I might mention that the Punjabis are famous for their fireworks. Seen thus the white horses, with their emerald ornaments, seemed like dream figures, while the black ones, with their ruby decorations, looked like specters from the Inferno, in the dim torchlight. The King, with the simple and unaffected air, which distinguishes him, led us along some narrow corridors, and we soon found ourselves in another court, paneled with marble and hung with beautiful carpets. In the middle was a basin full of waterfowl and fine jets of water filled the air like diamond dust. Around it, thousands of illuminated globes of different colours gave faint, soft light like that of dawn. As we advanced towards some splendid tents of shawls and gold brocade in the opposite comer of the court, enormous red curtains were drawn up slowly one after another by means of cords, like curtains of a theatre, by Sikh warriors armed to the teeth, and as these curtains disappeared we were more and more overwhelmed by the splendour of a new hall which was disclosed to view, the walls and ceiling of which were decorated with green, white, and red crystals framed in gold and looking like a pavement of precious stones upon an enormous ladder. Thither we were conducted by the King, and on entering, we saw, spread out to view on brocade covered tables the royal arms; hundreds of swords, daggers, shields, cuirasses and helmets, all very richly decorated Then the girls arrived, some thirty in all, pretty but small and delicate, in splendid costumes with their little noses so loaded with jewels and their foreheads and eyebrows so gilded that one could hardly distinguish their features. Their feet and hands, adorned with rings and mirrors, were very pretty though dark. The transparent veils that covered them were of gold, silver, or bright colours. Their short coats of velvet or other costly materials and their tight trousers of silk were very pleasing to the eye. These charming girls approached the King one by one and gave him one or two rupees. The King, who was in conversation with the ambassador, turned to them with an air of careless good humour. There is so much that is good natured and straightforward about him that, although his figure is awkward, he is charming and one would say that, in spite of his nervous air, he possesses plenty of pluck in danger. It seemed a curious household. The girls approached without any fear, most of them laughing, and looking about them. Then they sat down together on the ground between the tables. Suddenly a plaintive melody was heard, and two of them began a slow dance, while the others sat, looking like butterflies.

Princess Bamba Dalip Singh

The melodrama and nostalgia of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s court did not end with his death but came back in waves during later periods also, especially during Dalip Singh’s time, and lingered on right upto the death of the last of his direct family, Princess Bamba Sutherland, in 1957, at Lahore. Born on 29 September, 1869 in London, Princess Bamba, with her younger brother and sisters, was placed on the death of their mother under the care of their father’s Equerry Mr Arthur Oliphant and his wife at Folkstone. She was sent to Oxford for her university education, and later married a Colonel Sutherland. Princess Bamba remained in the United Kingdom for part of her life and finally settled in Lahore, at first in Jail Road and subsequently at 104A, Model Town. A fellow resident recorded her pathetic condition. ‘Old Princess Sutherland, widow of an English army doctor, and last descendant of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was heard complaining that she could not get a seat in the lorry (bus), when all Punjab should have been hers! The old lady spent her days dreaming about her ancestral glory.’ She died at the age of eighty-eight, on Sunday, 10 March 1957. An item appeared in the newspaper the following day, giving a brief obituary and ending with the belief that ‘the arrangements for her burial will be made by the United Kingdom Deputy High Commissioner, Lahore.’ In fact her burial was arranged by her faithful secretary, Pir Karim Bakhsh Supra, to whom she bequeathed her property, including the collection of Schoeft’s painting s, and some Sikh relics. She was laid to rest in the Gulberg Christian cemetery, two and a half miles across Lahore from the Fort. Neither the British nor the Sikhs were represented at her funeral. The Punjab was left to claim its own (Aijazzudin).

Maharaja Kharak Singh

Maharaja Dalip Singh with Ajit Singh & Lehna Singh Sandhawalia