| The Princess Diaries : Mehrunissa of Rampur
From India to London, Pakistan, Spain and finally America, life has been a journey of privilege, passion and pitched battles for Mehrunissa of Rampur, discovers Vatsala Kaul
 The princess of yesteryear walks in unannounced. You have been conjuring up a morphed image of a bejewelled princess, caged in India, feted in London, celebrated in Pakistan, persecuted in Spain, and finally freed in America. But Mehrunissa of Rampur aka Begum Rahim Khan is not going to fit into any mould of your making. As she walks into the room, all 71 plucky, eventful years of her, clad in a chrome yellow salwar-kameez shining off her translucent skin, a multitude of thin gold bangles on one wrist, and the mascara carelessly leaving her eyelashes to settle on her lids, you can see that she is willing to be only what she is.
She carries her heritage like a treasured bauble from childhood, often throwing it up mischievously and always catching it back in her cupped palms with proud delight.
"I have led an interesting life," she announces in impeccable Waverley-Convent English. Then she corrects herself. "I AM leading an interesting life." Of course, you are not surprised to hear that she is writing her autobiography in unusual third person though with lines like 'Mehru said this' and 'Mehru did that'. Her life as the only child of the beloved but unofficial third queen of the Nawab of Rampur, growing up in the Nursery Block of the Khas Bagh Palace in Rampur, has no linear link to her now teaching Urdu and Hindi at the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington DC. Instead, her life goes spinning and spiralling like a wondrous whirlwind through a bad marriage in Lucknow, a sudden ticket to London, a huge and deep love for a Pakistani Air Force officer, a forced fleeing to Spain and at last, asylum in America.
 " Now she is back in India after 10 years, after briefly visiting family and friends in Pakistan. "My life as a princess was so computerized," she says. "Everything was controlled: who you met, when you went to see your father for adaab, when you would read, or shoot, or play." But it was also a privileged life. "We were brought up with the classical ragas and gayaki of Ustaad Mushtaq Hussain and Ustaad Ahmad Jaan Thirkwa. We grew up in cotton wool, and never heard anyone raise their voice. Of course, I never saw the inside of a kitchen. I can pick up a gun more easily than a ladle!"
Part of the programming meant that the princess was groomed to marry whoever was chosen for her. Her marriage in early 1954 to Sayed Ali Naqi, a Lucknow attorney, was as lavish as a royal wedding could be her jewellery box was two feet high and four feet wide, with trays of gold, silver and precious gems. However, it turned out to be a miserable marriage between two incompatible people and her husband kept asking for keys to her dowry box. After the birth of two children a girl, Zeba, and a boy, Zain she rebelled and left her husband, upsetting her father. A bitter three-year-long divorce case later, she flew to London in 1962 where her younger brother lived.
That's where she met her second husband, the handsome Group Captain Rahim Khan, "a compassionate, caring man" who wooed her right off the floor. Pakistani law was changed to accommodate the unprecedented marriage between a Pakistani and an Indian! To marry Khan, Mehrunissa gave up her country, her substantial inheritance, the custody of her two children, and her mother. Today, though, she is in touch with her children from the first marriage.
"He was a Pakistani, and for my father a Pakistani was taboo," she says. As Begum Rahim Khan, Mehrunissa realized at least one dream: to travel the world. In 1969, when General Yahya Khan became President of Pakistan, Rahim Khan was made Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistani Air Force, second in charge to the President from 1969 until 1972. In his new post, Rahim Khan and his Begum globe-trotted, meeting dignitaries such as King Hussein of Jordan, the Shah of Iran, Mao Tse Tung and Chou En-Lai. In 1990, Rahim Khan, love of her life, died during a kidney transplant surgery.
Despite the roller coaster of her life, given a choice between the Rampur of old and America of new, Mehrunissa would choose the latter anytime. "I love my freedom and what America stands for," she declares. She is now the opposite of everything she once was. The apartment she shares with her daughter Mariam is small and its only ostentation is a carpet presented by the Shah of Iran to her husband many years ago. She gets by without too much money, and is still "looking for my millionaire!" In America, she found what she had been secretly seeking all her life -- freedom. "I never looked back from America," she says. "Life as a princess was stifling, artificial and formal. It was life always bound in shoes and socks."
As the daughter of the third unofficial wife, the one chosen for love, Mehrunissa was always subjected to less in quantity and quality in everything at the zenana darbar than the more important princesses. But she was the prettiest, and a born fighter. "People always noticed me with my red, flowing hair, my looks always gave me confidence," she says candidly. "They still do. When men come up to me, even now, it's easy to say, 'My son is as old as you are. Knock it off!"
It's not just her beauty that gives her confidence but also her deep belief in herself. "My tumultuous life has shaped me," she says. "I can make things move. I don't give up easily." Her eyes mist as she talks about Abid, her young son from her second marriage who died tragically in a car accident. A small, quiet cloud settles on her face, then lifts as suddenly. "I don't believe in self-pity. When I sink, I may hit rock-bottom, but my head comes up out of the water first."
Dreams? Of course. She is planning a book on her life and has spoken to publishers but will not reveal more details. "The idea is to share with all women that one can do what one wants." And then there's another one -- the desire to learn Hindustani classical ragas again, which she first learnt in the palace nursery as a child. "There are never enough years," she rues, then smiles. "I would love to meet Amitabh Bachchan too!"
Not this time, though. She will leave the next day, her bag packed with Sufi music CDs, DVDs of Dilip Kumar movies and Hindi Harry Potters, but you know she will be back. Bouncing.
Featured in Harmony Magazine
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