“That’s a lot of money to pay for a name on a box”, the auctioneer exclaimed as she banged down the gavel. My husband was similarly astonished. “You spent how much?” he queried as we backed the car into the stables at Kedleston Hall and I went to retrieve my prize: a battered black wooden packing case, with “Lady Curzon Bombay” stencilled in large white letters on the lid. The estimated sale price had been £15, but I paid over £300 (plus buyer’s premium and VAT).
I recalled that moment of extravagance recently as I sat in a thick traffic of rickshaws, lorries and bullock carts heading, bumper to hoof, towards Coronation Park, a vast dusty wasteland some ten miles north of Old Delhi. It was fun to think my packing case probably made this same journey exactly a century ago on the back of an elephant. The great Coronation Durbar was held here on New Years’ Day 1903, when Lord and Lady Curzon, the Viceroy and Vicereine of India, presided over “the most extravagant assemblage the world has ever seen” to celebrate the coronation of Edward VII. Their descendents, who still live in one wing at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, although the estate now belongs to the National Trust, had spent that cold March day selling off superfluous treasures from their attics in a marquee on the front lawn. Quite what the notoriously “superior” Lord Curzon would have made of the hoi polloi trawling through the family knick-knacks is hard to imagine although he himself clearly had a penchant for tents, having turned this flat river plain on the outskirts of Delhi into a gigantic campsite. My packing case, sold with the junk at the end of the auction, was almost the only lot directly associated with his wife, Mary Leiter, the beautiful Chicago department store heiress whom he had married for money – to fund both the upkeep of Kedleston and his ambition to become Viceroy. Surprisingly their alliance proved unusually loving. The rusted nails securing the lid were hammered down tantalizingly tight.
Today Coronation Park is a jealously guarded open space whose emptiness comes as a bit of a shock after the dense traffic and crowded shanty towns of northern Delhi’s urban sprawl. The Park is regularly used for big religious festivals and municipal conventions which is convenient as most taxi drivers know how to find it. I visited on a quiet day and had the whole place to myself.
As I drove down the long straight track that leads across the wide expanse of sunbaked earth towards a white stone obelisk in the centre - so far away, it never seemed to get any nearer – I gazed like a Vicereine (with a packing case) to right and left. Neither the earlier Delhi Durbar of 1877, which proclaimed Queen Victoria Empress of India, nor the later Durbar held here in 1911, when the King Emperor George V attended in person to lay the foundation stone for New Delhi, could match the razzmatazz of Lord Curzon’s 1903 festivities. In a few short months at the end of 1902, this deserted plain had been transformed into an elaborate tented city, complete with temporary light railway to bring crowds of spectators out from Delhi, a post office with its own stamp (much sought after by philatelists nowadays), telephone and telegraphic facilities, a variety of stores, a Police force with specially designed uniform, hospital, magistrate’s court and complex sanitation, drainage and electric light installations. Souvenir guide books were sold and maps of the camping ground distributed. Marketing opportunities were craftily exploited with Brook Bond Tea, for instance, purchasing the right to supply the Durbar’s official beverage. Special medals were struck, firework displays, exhibitions and glamorous dances held. Maharajahs came with great retinues from all over India, many of them meeting for the first time while the massed ranks of the Indian armies, under their Commander-in-Chief Lord Kitchener, held daily parades, band practice and polo matches. Edward VII, to Curzon’s disappointment, did not attend but sent his brother, the Duke of Connaught who arrived with a mass of dignitaries by train from Bombay just as Curzon and his government came in the other direction from Calcutta. The world’s press despatched their best journalists, artists and photographers to cover proceedings and the popularity of footage of the event, shown in makeshift cinemas throughout India, is often credited with having launched the country’s early film industry.
The two full weeks of festivities were devised in meticulous detail by Lord Curzon himself. It was a dazzling display of pomp, power and split second timing worthy of Barnum. Indeed, a Delhi Durbar parade became a standard feature of early twentieth century circuses, being a good excuse for glitz and a natural deployment for elephants. Sadly the very success of the Durbar was to be Lord Curzon’s undoing. His perfectionism, combined with his arrogance, only made him unpopular. Bickering about the spiralling costs (in an India wracked with famine) and problems of protocol left a sour taste for years after. The Coronation Durbar was soon dubbed the Curzonization Durbar as people suspected he regarded the occasion more as a celebration of his own Viceregality than of the ascension of a new king. Lord Curzon would eventually leave India a disappointed man, his wife’s health was ruined (she died a few years later, leaving him heartbroken and with three young daughters) and he was never to achieve the higher office – of Prime Minister – that he craved.
But on New Years Day 1903, here in this great dusty park north of Delhi….
Lone birds of prey circled high overhead and stray dogs begged for toffees from my pocket as I left the car at the foot of the obelisk. I had not known quite what, if anything, to expect but was delighted to find an enormous, semi-circular abandoned garden, enclosed by black cast iron railings. A few visitors come most weeks, the caretaker told me as he unpadlocked the imposing gates. “We had three English people yesterday, a man and two wives.” He told me he had been employed by the government following a serious spate of vandalism a few years ago. “A lot of statues stolen, Ma’am. And statues damaged. There was much hue and cry.” He shook his stick at the long grass and warned me to watch out for snakes.
I picked my way along the crumbling ornamental brick pathway that sweeps in a wide curve through the overgrown garden. A great fluttering of dragonflies danced around me, sparkling in the sun like Maharajahs’ jewels or fleeting memories of that January day in 1903. This garden occupies the actual imprint of the great semi-circular Durbar amphitheatre where double ranks of colourfully caparisoned elephants paraded with chandeliers dangling from their tusks, and Maharajahs wowed spectators with their splendiferous regalia as they waited beneath the burning sun for Their Excellencies Lord and Lady Curzon to make their triumphal entry on a golden howdah atop the biggest tusker in India. (When I cleaned a century’s grime off the packing case, I had been thrilled to find the letters HE painted in white before Lady Curzon’s name: Her Excellency). Today the garden feels as timeless and haunted as an abandoned graveyard, but without any graves. A row of identical chunky red sandstone plinths, some still bearing statues which retain absurdly patrician poses, despite missing limbs and dented noses, stand in a semi-circle round the central white stone figure of George V, rather like some frozen moment in a children’s playground game. He meanwhile ignores them all as he gazes loftily away towards his obelisk standing proudly beyond the gates. His ludicrously long mantle wraps majestically down his towering pedestal providing welcome shade for the resident dogs who eye me warily as they sit like carved stone Landseer lions guarding the base.
On January 1st 1903, it was a dog that was Curzon’s undoing. A small fox terrier belonging to a bandsman became so excited as the Curzons rode into the amphitheatre on their elephant, he dashed across the arena in front of them, mounted the Viceregal throne and sat barking furiously much to the amusement of the British and distress of the Indians (who do not generally share the British fondness for the creatures). Lord Curzon was so anxious to keep this unfortunate incident out of the papers he compounded the diplomatic offence by devoting more time briefing journalists about what they should or should not say than he spent with the Maharajahs.
Today the few surviving statues in the garden are probably grateful for the company of the Landseer-like hounds. Most of these statues were rounded up from their various positions of glory in New Delhi and brought here after Independence. George V was shifted, complete with canopy, from India Gate which was rather appropriate since the obelisk he stares at marks the spot where in 1911 the King Emperor laid the foundation stone for New Delhi. A decade later, when architects decided that Coronation Park was unsuitable for the new city, being a river plain and liable to flooding, the stone was simply shifted to the south side of Old Delhi. A beautiful meditative sadness hangs over the gardens, a fitting monument to the grandiose futility of human endeavour.
It was a relief to leave the sobering graveyard of the Raj and head back to the bustling crowds of Old Delhi to be among people rather than memories and stray dogs. I intended to retrace the route of the Durbar procession on a cycle rickshaw, ending where Lord Curzon had begun on his arrival from Calcutta at the main railway station. In the event, circumstances continually conspired against me, rather as they had done to Lord Curzon. My trip was hampered by the chaos caused by a new underground railway under contruction – billed as “a dream come true” - which will do wonders for traffic congestion in Old Delhi but meanwhile means many roads around the Red Fort are impassable. The first section is due to open next year and I could not help thinking Lord Curzon, with his zest for grand projects, would have been much excited by the prospect. This and the complicated one way traffic system meant that I was obliged to visit the main points on the route in haphazard order. Whenever I paused to compare pictures of streets in 1903 with today I was continually waylaid with offers of help. My photocopy of a contemporary picture of a leafy sedate Chandni Chowk caused astonishment as a crowd of onlookers passed it between themselves expressing disbelief. Today the main street through Old Delhi is uncomfortably crowded with every square inch of building and pavement crammed with all manner of commercial activity and traffic. My cycle rickshaw was the perfect way to travel because it hardly moved. It was also quite high up and proved an ideal vantage point for spotting interesting things in shops. I became adept at hopping off, doing a quick barter and hopping back on again before my cyclist moved far down the street. This ensured I made considerably slower progress through the old city than the Curzons on their elephant although I could have done with the Vicereine’s packing case to carry all the shopping. I found a wonderful stall in the Chawri bazaar selling exquisite handmade paper and another in the Dariba Kalan, established in 1816, which blends its own perfumes and incense. I bought an enormous pair of brass scissors on a brass scissor stall but the most colourful shops were in the street beside the Jama Masjid Mosque selling fireworks. As I endeavoured to decide where exactly the Durbar photographers had stood to snap the procession as it passed the front steps of the mosque, I was amused to spot a popular brand of firecrackers called Coronation, established in 1903.
My best souvenir of the day was light as a feather and cost me nothing. I stopped at the Kudsia Gardens where Lord Curzon built a gallery to house an exhibition promoting Indian arts and crafts and was deeply moved to chance upon a white wickerwork cradle set into the wall of an orphanage near the entrance. As I was taking a photograph a schoolboy walked past with his mother. He insisted on getting in the picture and then gave me the large eagle’s plume he was carrying. A lovely passing encounter that overshadowed even my joy at finding the crumbling ruins of Lord Curzon’s exhibition hall.
After a long exhausting morning I stopped for a late lunch at Maidens Hotel, now a sumptuous establishment belonging to the luxurious Oberoi chain. I joined businessmen enjoying a curry buffet in the Curzon Room, but while they struck postprandial deals I found myself recoiling somewhat from countless pictures of tiger shoots around the walls. Lady Curzon was evidently quite a dab hand with a gun. The Maidens was the hotel where Durbar visitors who did not fancy life under canvas stayed so it was fun to find it still in use albeit vastly extended, and Lord Curzon not forgotten.
If I had paid a lot of money for the name on the outside of the packing case, I had been even more delighted with the name I discovered inside when eventually I prised open the lid. “If you spent as much time cleaning the house as you have on that box,” my husband grumbled. A handwritten label in sepia ink read:
“Urgent by passenger train from Miss Garland, Government House, Calcutta”
Miss Garland was Lady Curzon’s frumpy inefficient maid at the time of the Durbar. I imagined she had packed her mistress’s things and forgotten to include some vital item, perhaps even the diamond studded peacock dress Lady Curzon wore at the Durbar ball in the peacock throne room in the Red Fort. The label itself provides a direct link between Kedleston Hall and Calcutta. It was when as a young man, Lord Curzon visited Calcutta and saw that Government House was a copy of his family home, he had set his heart on becoming Viceroy. The peacock dress can still be seen in a perfect state of repair in Curzon’s own India Museum in the cavernous basements of Kedleston. Meanwhile the Red Fort is being painstakingly restored and probably looks better today than it did in 1903.
By focusing the attention of the world on Delhi, Curzon inadvertantly contributed to the decision, made after his time in India (and opposed by him), to move the capital of India here from Calcutta. I stayed at the Imperial Hotel in New Delhi, built in 1931 on the same grand scale as the rest of that spacious new city. Lord Curzon’s portrait graces the menu and walls. Pictures of all three Durbars muddled up indiscriminately decorate the “1911 Restaurant” and people find these so fascinating that “the hotel reserves the right to charge a cover charge of 350 Rupees per person per hour” to stop people lingering all day looking at them over their Curzon Salad and Coronation Chicken. Perhaps it was typical of a man of such energy and talent that the legacy of his viceregality is still felt everywhere in India and is still controversial. While many have never forgiven him for the division of Bengal, few do not thank him for saving the Taj Mahal. It was Curzon’s passion for architecture and his far-sighted laws on the preservation of ancient monuments – far ahead of any in Britain - that ensured the survival of many of India’s greatest sites, like the Taj and the nearby abandoned ancient city of Fatehpur Sikri.
I left Old Delhi as Curzon did in January 1903, by train from the main railway station, a red brick miniature version of St Pancras, with gothic arches at the main entrance large enough to accommodate ranks of elephants picking up and setting down passengers. Curzon returned to Calcutta while I went up to Simla, where the Raj administration decamped in summer to escape the heat of the plains. The second half of the journey is by narrow gauge railway which is also celebrating its centenary in 1903. It climbs slowly and spectacularly into the foothills of the Himalayas, stopping for long spells at every station for the elderly engine to recover and for passengers to buy bright pink candyfloss and “short eats” from hawkers. It is also a joy to read the old signs at every station with such slogans as: Ticketless travel is a social evil.
I stayed at Wildflower Hall, a luxuriously appointed hotel that resembles a highland shooting lodge and was once the mansion belonging to Curzon’s enemy and chief architect of his ignominious retreat from India, Lord Kitchener. The men fell out badly, probably because they had similar temperaments. Both were autocrats and both actively disliked Simla society and spent their time in the hill station out in the hills. Kitchener, here at Mashobra some ten miles distant and Curzon even further away at Naldera where he camped on what is now the highest golf course in the world. When I went to collect my packing case from the Kedleston stables I had been surprised to discover that my expensive lot contained another case, this with the name The Hon A N Curzon on the lid. Alexandra Naldera was the Curzons’ youngest daughter who was conceived perhaps after a high altitude game of golf.
As proud proprietor of two Curzon packing cases I felt a little treacherous
tucking into cucumber sandwiches and jammy dodgers in Kitchener’s drawing
room but next morning, when the mist rolled off the deodars to reveal a perfect
day for my drive into the mountains, it was hard to care much about enmities
a hundred years back. The past in another country is definitely a good excuse
to see things differently.
Sunday Times
December 29th 2002