GWALIOR, India, Dec. 11, Reuter: In the palace of a Maharaja at a times by the stars, a Prince and a Princess joined in marriage in Central India on Friday in an ornate ceremony reminiscent of Moghul extravagance.

The ceremony began at precisely 7:54 p.m, the time fixed as ‘most auspicious by princely astrologers for the marriage of crown Prince Vikramaditya Singh of Kashmir and Princess Chitrangada Raje Scindia of Gwalior.

Eleven minutes later, as Hindu Priests chanted mantras and guests tossed rice and rose petals, richly brocaded red veil between. the bride and the groom was dropped, and the now married couple turned to face each other.

‘The wedding in the Maharaja of ‘Gwalior’s sprawling Jai Vilas Palace, which has been billed by Indian popular magazines as the “Wedding of the Year” united two of India’s most distinguished former ruling families.

More than 50,000 people jammed the palace grounds, and city streets, witnesses said.

The 20yearold bride is an English Literature student in New Delhi. Her 23yearold polo playing groom has just finished business studies at the University of California.

Prince Vikram, garbed in a pink high collared frock coat and a pink and yellow turban studded ‘with a huge diamond brooch, arrived at the palace from a nearby hotel in a silvery horse drawn coach.

Waiting on a brilliantly lighted platform on the palace lawns was princess Chitra, dressed in a shimmering red brocaded sari, Her face veiled until the ceremony was completed.

But the wedding’s fairytale aspect has been clouded by adverse comment in the Indian press which has criticized the Maharajah, Madhavrao Scinidia, for unseemly extravagance at a time of widespread drought and hardship across India Scindia.

Railway Minister in the Indian Cabinet, in a gesture towards the drought which devastated farming districts around Gwalior, told his guests the traditional lavish wedding feast would not be served.

This prompted the influential Times of India to comment in Friday’s edition that the farmers “would no doubt be touched by (Scinidia’s) concern for their plight.”

Palace officials said 20,000 guests were invited, including the King and Queen of Nepal, 30 former Indian rulers, politicians, the rich and the famous.

Tens of thousands of other on lookers also jammed the streets of this Central Indian city of 500,000 which has been given a facelift for the wedding, with street repaved, houses and shops painted and the railway station spruced up.

‘The antigovernment Indian Express newspaper said “the Scindia family has gone to town with its onetime royalty. At public cost, in a big way”, and estimated at least 10 million rupees (800,000 dollars) had been spent to dress up Gwalior.

It quoted a railway official as saying the station refurbishing “was routine” and said local residents told reporters the roads repaired for the wedding procession ‘were last fixed 20 years ago.

India’s former rulers, the Maharajas, Rajahs, Nizams, Nawabs and assorted minor princelings of the Raj, lost their power after independence from Britain in 1947.

They lost their remaining prerogatives annual pensions; relicense plates, diplomatic passports  and legal right to their titles in the early 1970s.

But the former rulers, many still retaining their palaces and wealth. retain a hold on the Indian imagination.

 

Article extracted from this publication >>  December 18, 1987