The Exalted, oops! Exhausted Highness.

In those black and white days, the Patiala crown who splashed colours on his, otherwise what it would have been, "a monotonous, vague list of conquered territories" life, like those of the regular emperors. Any guesses on who this Rolls Royale was? Let's find out.

His majesty. Image Source: Artnet.

The sunset of the princely states in British India was shadowed by the dawn of independence. The Royalties were signing off their prerogative concessions to the new India. The last of the lasts that auspiciously retained the grand splendour of a noble’s lifestyle was Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala- the man who had an art museum embodied within himself, flaunting his abundant collection of the most priced items of the present.

From owning 44 Rolls Royce to sheltering 350 concubines, Maharaja’s accretion was garnered from countries far and wide. He was born in Patiala (the Moti Bagh Palace) and had to ascend the throne at a very early age of 9 due to his father’s unfortunate death. Fidelity for the British power was the biggest sword for the princes back then. Maharaja’s true-hearted fealty towards the British was seen by his presence at the Coronation Durbar of King George V.

Singh finished his schooling at Aitchison College. Lenience regarding cricket and polo grew within him. From 1915 to 1937, Maharaja followed his compassion for cricket and played 27 matches. He became a member of the esteemed Marylebone Cricket Club. He led the construction of the world’s highest cricket pitch as well as polo field for his own team of ‘Patiala Tigers’, the best in India as said. In 2011, he supervised the Indian team of cricket on their England tour.

The grandeur of Maharaja is accurately stated by The Times, “The flamboyant Maharaja arrived at Boucheron (in Paris) accompanied by a retinue of forty servants all wearing pink turbans, his twenty favourite dancing girls and, most important of all, six caskets filled with 7571 diamonds and 1432 emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and pearls of incomparable beauty”

Sir Bhupinder Singh furnished 2930 diamonds, 234 carat De Beers diamond, sparse Burmese rubies to undertake the chain wreath of his own necklace set. Maharaja secured the rank of Honorary Lieutenant General in 1918 for efficiently pulling off his role in the Great War. But, that wasn’t the talk of England. His astonishing appetite to gulp down 40-50 boneless quail in one setting was worth recording for the Guinness Book at that time. His excess hunger wasn’t only limited to food. The smell floated to his personally decorated harem, a place for his concubines and his own pleasure. A special section was reserved for the hired hairdressers, weavers, beauticians, even plastic surgeons, to redesign his ladies like the models of London Fashion Week. As Henry Poole & Co has denoted, “Instead of Exalted Highness, he was known as his Exhausted Highness”

The most esteemed title that he received was the Chancellor of the Indian Chamber of Princes, as a representative of India in the League of Nations in 1925. 1935 brought him crossing paths with Adolf Hitler. Maharaja’s grandson has narrated in his The Automobiles of the Maharajas, “the Fuhrer asked grandfather to stay on for lunch and then asked him to come back the next day and then a third day. On the third day, he gave him German weapons…and a magnificent Maybach.”

Though some might term him as “a complex character, and excellent subject for a psychiatrist or a writer of fiction” (-Khushwant Singh), he survived as the only royale holding onto his extravagance and authority. His independent Patiala was later surrendered by his successor, vacating his precious ornaments, his architecture of harem locale and many of the private zoos.