Tribute to a Mysore Rani

Date: Jan 9, 2006

Tribute to a Mysore Rani

Date: Jan 9, 2006

Thanks GVK

I read the article in Deccan Herald and was about to mail the request to you to put it up on the site. It really makes interesting reading. Hope we get more such info regarding the glorious Heritage of our beloved city.

Date: Jan 9, 2006

Thanks GVK for the article and link. Wonderful to get such background information of the history of our town and those who inhabited it. Stories like this and those of others who lived in that era would only help understand and appreciate our city. Hope there are othrs that can come forward and throw some light of life in Mysore back then. My grandma who is no more, used to tell stories of those days when we were growing up. I wonder if I can ask my parents to narrate some aspects of life then and put it down in this blog.

Date: Jan 10, 2006

Thank you Mr. GVK. I did not have the privilege of experiencing living under the rule of the Maharajas. But, we had Jaya Chamarajendra Wodeyar a very good gentleman, a Maharaja just in name. Democracy was taking hold with good leaders elected by the people worthy enough to carry on in the traditions of the Mysore Maharajas. Credit should go to those who elected them. My brother Mr. B.R. Gopal who retired as a Professor of Physics at Yuvaraja's College would speak to me about the glory days. While he was living with his son here in the United States we would have lengthy discussions about the different forms of governance and why democracy repeatedly failed to produce a large number of good leaders. What went wrong as people continued to elect corrupt and power hungry leaders to replace the good Maharajas. Should the country go back to have Maharajas again? If Rama Rajya was such a glorious thing why did we embrace democracy, basically a western concept? What would be the current situation had we been contineously governed by the Maharajas? Would we have been better off? Just a thought. B.R.Ramaprasad, Millington, New Jersey, USA

Date: Jan 10, 2006

Capt. Anup Murthy wrote:

I wonder if I can ask my parents to narrate some aspects of life then and put it down in this blog.

Wouldn't that be nice ? Don't wonder, just do it.

Date: Dec 29, 2006

GVK wrote:

In her early years Rani Vijayalakshmi Devi’s uncle was the king. She was witness to the making of Mysore into a model state of princely India. We are talking of the 1920s and the thirties. Mahatma Gandhi called the Mysore administration a Ram rajya. Lala Lajpat rai spoke with pride, of its administration ‘which distinguishes it even frm British India’. Lord Willingdon spoke of Mysore’s ‘incredible’ industrial development; Lord Samuel, of peace and harmony in a state where the ruler was of the Hindu faith, and Dewan, a Muslim.

Rani Vijayalakshmi Devi was born in 1922, when uncle Krishna Rajendra Wodeyar was the maharaja. We must thank Deccan Herald for publishing an informative feature – ‘End of a gentle glow’ – as a tribute to Rani Vijayalakshmi Devi, by M Bhaktavatsala. The rani died last month (Dec.8, 2005).

An account of her life by the writer gives us a flavour of Mysore of those times. We would like to hear from ripe old Mysoreans or those who know of life in Mysore’s glory days.

1927: As a five-year-old the Rani attended the unveiling of the town’s clock tower, put up to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the rule of Shri Krishna Rajendra Wodeyar. Lord Irwin and his wife were among the guests.

The Rani was close to her grandma Maharani Vanivilasa Sannidhana, who had, among other things, got the palace ladies to learn English from the nuns; and started a Ladies Club (that recently completed platinum jubilee). The palace boasted of a music school and orchestras for Carnatic and Hindustani music. There were three bands – the Reed, Cavalry, and the Karnataka band.

Rani Vijayalakshmi Devi took piano lessons from Dr. Alfred Mistowsky of Trinity College, London (who made yearly visits to Mysore). She learnt veena from Shri Venkatagiriappa.

At 19, the rani married Thakur Saheb of Kotadasangani, in 1941, and shifted base to Gujarat. On her husband joining IFS in 1947 the rani had occasion to stay abroad extensively – New York, Colombo, Karachi, Rome and Hong Kong.

(Click here to read M Bhaktavatsala’s ‘End of a Gentle Glow’, Deccan Herald).

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