371. The First British Indians: Last Sikh In Lahore (Ep 3)

10:38William:And she wants to go to America to study there.

10:40Anita:Well, ideally, she wants to go to India, but the British will never let her go there. You know, Catherine and Sophia understand that, you know, having a Dilip Singh on the loose in India is everybody's nightmare here in London, because you become a focus point for all of the malcontents in Punjab, right? So they don't want her there.

10:59William:And throughout the whole of British Indian history, deposed royals and moved around to keep them away. And so you have Bhandshar Zafar, the Mughal emperors we saw in our mutiny series, sent off to Burma. The King of Burma sent off to India, anywhere but where they should be and where they can stir up resentment against the Raj. So, yep, she's got a point.

11:19Anita:She can't go to India. The only place, the only option really is America. In the English-speaking world, it is the only place where a woman can realistically get a medical degree.

11:29William:Could she not do it in England or just doesn't want to do it there?

11:32Anita:There are no medical degrees. Look, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson broke through in 1865 getting a medical licence, but she had to get it through the back door of the Society of Apothecaries, and then the society changes its rules. It is really very, very difficult. And she doesn't want to stay here anyway. So on the 30th of January 1900, Bamba Books Passage on a ship called the König Albert, a German ocean liner bound for the Far East, seems to be wanting to travel to San Francisco via Japan in 1900. But, you know, we know about her arrival in America because the American press love a royal. They loved a royal then and they love a royal now.

12:14William:They do, as we have seen lately, exactly.

12:17Anita:So, you know, they're willing to love her. There are reporters waiting at the pier for the König Albert to dog, and they are waiting to be charmed by the Indian princess from the Far East exotic. What they get is something quite different.

12:31William:She's not playing. She is not game for this at all. She's not bloody playing at all.

12:35Anita:This is what they write. A dark, timid-looking woman of small stature who was the object of much attention on the pier was Princess Bamba Dilip Singh. She had a large assortment of baggage beside two fine dogs, one a Great Dane named Leon, the other a beautiful cream colour Russian wolfhound, the name of which she refused to divulge. And then when they ask her, they report that she just screams at them, leave the dogs alone and don't you put anything in the paper about them either. So she's not playing at all. Like she just hates it.

13:05William:interestingly the whole dog thing is is again a continuity because jindan's their grandmother's

13:12Anita:father had been the kennel keeper kennel keeper's daughter yeah yeah yeah you're right echoes of the

13:19William:past and we know that sophia does these pomeranians but she has more my kind of dog i love the idea of big russian wolfhand enormous beasts well i mean sophia also she goes from pomeranian to borzois

13:31Anita:If you like a big dog, she's into the Bozoys as well. And she wins the Crufts with them as well. But look, Bamba, for a brief moment, is magnificent in Chicago. She's living on West Adams Street. She is going to the Women's Medical College every day. One of the few non-white women in American medicine in 1901. Fewer than a thousand medical students in the entire country. But you know what? It is hard.

13:55William:Again, an extraordinary story in itself, this.

13:58Anita:Yeah.

13:58William:Even without all the other stuff.

14:00Anita:It's just amazing. I'm so glad you think so. Delighted.

14:04William:You should write a book in it. Okay. Now, anyone that's been to Chicago knows that it is effing cold in winter. The winds blow off the lake, notorious Chicago freezing winds, and it gets to, well, 14, 15 below zero in winter. Streets unpaved, frozen mud. and she is in a sense the first South Asian woman of many today trying to qualify as a doctor in the United States.

14:32Anita:Yeah, you can't move for tripping over Indian women doctors these days but it was a very rare unicorn sighting in those days. And what makes it worse, the weather was bad and remember she hated the weather in England as well.

14:46William:This is worse.

14:47Anita:The locals are unkind to her as well because she's not charmed the press. She hasn't got them unsigned. And her walks to the medical college are torture. There are reports in the paper of how she's complained because she's pelted with lumps of snow on her way to the college. And she sort of shouts at the press.

15:07William:And it's a rough place, Chicago, at this point, isn't it? I mean, presumably Al Capone's already in business at this point. It's not a safe or easy place to be living.

15:17Anita:I think Al Capone comes a lot later, but you get the idea. It is not the nicest place for her. and the press instead of sort of taking her side and saying this is really outrageous treatment can we just treat our guest a bit nicer they just really revel in breaking into her rooms describing what's in her knicker drawers and also writing about her losing her rag with the locals you know she sort of screams at the press you know that when she's pelted with the snow or she's asked about the snow pelting she goes such things would never be permitted in England I shall leave Chicago. I've never encountered such rude people in my life.

15:52Anita:So you can see, you know, this is, she's just full of rage and anger, most 23 out of the 24 hours of the day. But she sticks it out for almost three years, she does.

16:00William:But does she complete her course? Does she get a, does she become a doctor?

16:03Anita:Well, God, William, she does complete her coursework. She's about to, or she should be, graduating with her medical qualification. But in the summer of 1902, the trustees of Northwestern University decide in all their wisdom that women, full stop, cannot be doctors after all.

16:23William:So she's gone right through this training and then they've taken it all away.

16:26Anita:Yeah, women cannot grasp surgery. That is a direct quote from the university. So she sails back to England in June 1902, completely defeated. You know, Catherine had her escape route through Lena. Sophia is happy to sit in Faraday House. She can't understand it, but okay, so be it. She does not want to be there. So, you know, whatever her rage was, it's now burning with the fire of a white hot sun. She comes back, but she has an attitude problem right from the beginning. And there are reports of her just being very rude and demanding around Faraday House about where and when she should be allowed to leave, how people talk to her.

17:07Anita:She keeps complaining about life there.

17:10William:Does her sister resent her being rude to everybody? Do they get on?

17:14Anita:So her sister finds her tricky but loves her. And her sister will actually push back against, because Bamba, when she comes back into Sophia's life, keeps telling her, you cannot trust these white people. You can't trust them. Why are you friends with them? Why are you going to these parties? Why are you so happy that you're in their magazines? They hate us. And she keeps saying, no, they don't hate us. They don't hate us. Look, can't you just be a bit easier? But she's loyal to Bamba. She's never going to leave her sister's side. Like I said, these sisters have an unusually close bond. So do you remember I told you about the Delhi Darbar of 1902, which radicalises Sophia?

17:54William:You did. Now, whose idea is this, to go off uninvited to the Delhi Darbar and present themselves? Is this Bamba's own idea?

18:02Anita:It's Bamba's idea. It's Bamba, who says, I don't care if the Secretary of State is not going to let us. We're going anyway. So nobody's surprised that this is, you know, some fool plan from the really awkward sister.

18:12William:She's her father's daughter.

18:14Anita:She's great, but she gets so much further than he did. And when she goes to India, when she goes to Lahore, standing in the Shalimar Gardens where her father played as a boy, going to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, she decides she is staying here. She is going to live and die here and stuff it to anyone who doesn't want her to do that.

18:37William:I mean, with good reason. Not only is it home, it's one of the great cities of the world. Lahore. You and I have been together in Lahore. And it's one of the greatest places to live. I'd love to live in Lahore. Shalimar Bagh, gorgeous, gorgeous. The mall, the gorgeous museum, the Jaduga, the Zamzam gun sitting on its splinth on the road. I'd move to Lahore in a flash. Anyway, she does.

19:00Anita:She does. So when Sophia comes back to see her, because Sophia's trying to say, why are you staying there? Why don't you just come home? Because Sophia misses her. You know, Catherine's gone off with Lena. She's all on her own. She keeps begging her to come back. and Bamba keeps saying, not on your nelly. I'm not going anywhere. If you want to see me, come and see me. But then more alarmingly, she writes to Sophia who doesn't want to go to Lahore, doesn't have that connection with Lahore yet. She writes and says, I think the British are trying to kill me. I'm really ill and I think they're trying to poison me.

19:29Anita:And that's when Sophia does go and visit her and sort of tries to put her back on her feet and try to understand.

19:36William:And presumably there's no truth in this, is there?

19:38Anita:Well, no, I don't think there is. But Bamba definitely thought there was. And Sophia, who turns up thinking that Bamba is nuts, then starts to believe actually there is a conspiracy against her sister. People are being cruel to her every day. It is not beyond a stretch of imagination that she's being followed because Sophia sees that they're being followed and surveilled. But poisoning? I don't think so. I don't think so. And I don't think Sophia thought so as well.

20:04William:But what's her status? Because as we saw, her father was actually physically taken off the ship at Aidan. They haven't done this to her. They've let her land. They may be following her. They may be being rude to her, but they haven't actually sort of, I mean, is she allowed to just arrive and settle there by the Raj authorities?

20:22Anita:They let her. They let her be because they figure by this time, you know, there's not what's the worst that can happen.

20:29William:Everyone's forgotten about them.

20:30Anita:Everyone's forgotten about them. But what they don't realize is everyone hasn't forgotten about them, and particularly the nationalists haven't forgotten. So people like Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who is the teacher of Gandhi, the reason Gandhi comes back to India, he comes to pay his respects hugely.

20:48William:important figure in the Indian National Congress in the turn of the century.

20:53Anita:Lala Larjpetrai, who's this firebrand, who is the very genesis of this idea of Swadeshi, that, you know, we will make our stuff, we will sell our stuff, and we will keep the profits. We have self-reliance is what Indians need, and deplores the depredations going on, the colonial depredations in the country. So she starts mixing with those people. And it's through her that Sophia meets these radicals, as they would have been called in those days, and becomes politicized. There is one gorgeous moment, and I'll just tell you very briefly, but you like a feisty woman. And I think we did cover this in our episode with Ram Gua when we talked about Gandhi and some of the women in his circle.

21:34Anita:Sophia comes back after a ride, and she comes back to the home that Bamba has set up in Lahore, the Palms, very near Shalama Gardens.

21:43William:Next to the Shalimar Gardens, which is exactly where I would settle the palms.

21:47Anita:Yeah. So there she is. Bamba's not at home. She's at some mystery meeting because Bamba does keep disappearing off of mystery meetings while Sophia is there. And she sees this woman waiting patiently on the veranda. And she's obviously blown away because she writes about it in her diary. But she writes with such care that it took a long time for me to unravel who she was. Why has she made such an impression? You know, this woman who is referred to as a nice Bengali woman and is referred to only by a very innocuous name, which then I sort of traced back and is actually linked to Saraladevi Choudrani, who is a firebrand revolutionary.

22:29William:That's a match for Bamba. These two will get on.

22:32Anita:Yeah. A very dangerous woman is what they call her. To the point where, and again, go back and listen to our Gandhi episodes, my friends. She runs training camps for Indians to learn how to do battle with the British. And she does these sort of meditations where people come and they have to chant the name of revolutionaries. Including, although he wasn't a revolutionary, the grandfather of Bamba, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Maharaja of the Punjab. So, you know, Sarla Devi is a huge figure in the resistance movement of the day and from a really interesting lineage as well.

23:11William:Niece of Tagore.

23:13Anita:Yeah, the Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, absolutely. So, you know, she's from a very posh family. Anyways, so you get the idea who Bamba is running with. There is an interesting thing that Bamba does that none of the other sisters do. Really, really strange. change she gets married and she gets married to a man well the way she announced it to her family really is really very weird um in 1915 it's the middle of the first world war she sends a telegram to her family and in it she writes i should now be addressed as princess bamba sutherland because she's married a scotsman well australian by birth but a scotsman okay so tell us a little bit about Colonel David Waters Sutherland.

23:58William:So, yeah, this is Lieutenant Colonel David Waters Sutherland, Australian by birth, Scottish by ethnicity, born in Victoria, 1871, son of a gold miner, interestingly. And he's come up through the Indian Medical Service. He is the Honourable Surgeon to the Viceroy of India. But what is extraordinary is that this isn't some sort of handsome Punjabi chap that you might be expected to marry some revolutionary. He is white establishment. Absolutely straightforward Raj Central Casting. What does she do with it, Benita? How has this happened?

24:29Anita:So Bamba has always said throughout her life that she's only attracted to Indian men and Indian people. She also tries to arrange the marriage of Sophia on one of her visits. It's hilarious the way Sophia talks about, you know, these completely inappropriate Indian men that Bamba keeps throwing at her. She has disdain of English-speaking white people, but then she suddenly marries this Australian colonial doctor 20 years older than her as well. And the reason is twofold. It's money and it's legitimacy to stay in Lahore. So there is a proviso.

25:02William:But rich Punjabis around in Lahore? She could have done that.

25:06Anita:Well, she can't get to her own money. So always her gripe was that they were given a pittance and there's a mountain of money that rightfully belongs to her family. and when her father dies there is a provision that is is made by the british government that the girls will get a certain amount of money a stipend but if two of them marry they will get a dowry okay so it's about 10 000 pounds worth of dowry they only do this for catherine and bamber and i was trying to understand why they would put that in a huge amount of money for catherine and bamber and i sort of think it's because they thought they would never marry because they were so difficult and so useless but Sophia might marry someone quite useful and so she didn't need it so they they felt free to put it in Bamba was always trying to get her hands on the money but she had to get married to have it and do we know what kind of marriage this was do we was

25:58William:there any closeness in this couple do they like each other what's the well so again I mean they

26:03Anita:they liked each other but whether it was a real marriage I've heard it suggested and and by other historians who toil in this field that this was a marriage of convenience that you know he was away so much. There are no children. You know, he's busy. She's busy.

26:17William:Is he terribly good looking or do we have any pictures of him?

26:20Anita:Yeah, I mean, he's fine. He's okay. I have high standards, as you know.

26:25William:You do, most certainly do. Your very splendid looking husband can take a bow at this point. Thank you.

26:32Anita:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But you know, the thing is that also being married to him, to the surgeon of the Viceroy of India, gives her some kind of protection to stay. So she does get married. He's also Australian. He's not English or Scottish. He's Australian in her eyes. So this marriage does take place. How loving it is, but they don't spend much time in the same hemisphere in their married life. So you decide. Anyway, let's take a break and then we'll find out what happens to the woman who is now Princess Bamba Sutherland, who is refusing to leave India.

27:14Hi, this is Gary Lineker from Goalhangers. The rest is football. This episode is brought to you by WISE. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print. Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate, an easy transfer and no surprises along the way. Wise keeps things simple. Wise is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than 160 countries and with over 40 currencies.

27:50Most transfers arrive instantly. Wise uses the mid-market exchange rate, like the one you see on Google, with no markups or hidden fees. So when money needs to move, you can see the rate, know the fee and get on with it. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees by downloading the Wise app today. Be smart, get wise, T's and C's apply. I see you. Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. Go, go, go, go! A true epic and completely jaw-dropping.

28:25William:This is the only purest thing in this world. Return to Pandora on Disney+. It will be an adventure for the whole family. And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home. This is sick! Avatar Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney Plus, rated PG-13. And we're live from the living room as Doug eyes up the matchday spread. He's reaching for the Buffalo Wing. Perfect. Hang on, what's this? Oh, he's going for a can of Pepsi too. Incredible. What a finish. Sensational combination. Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi.

29:07Grab a pack of Pepsi Zero Sugar for today's match. It's poetry in motion.

29:17William:Welcome back to Empire. Now, what's intriguing me, Anita, is there any correspondence from this woman? She just made this marriage that none of us can understand to a kind of random Australian doctor, which seems totally out of character. Do we have any illumination of her thoughts from letters or diaries or anything?

29:34Anita:The saddest thing in the world is that the conservator of letters was Sophia. And she kept every letter that her family sent to her. They, to my terrible horror, didn't keep any of her letters or they were destroyed or they are lost. And the sisters, their letters, whatever they owned, scattered to the wind. So again, these are things that may come out in people's attics. I know the letter about Sophia finding Catherine dead on the floor was found in an attic in Thetford and a very nice man who I met there said I've got this letter you might be interested in just a little bit you know so so these things may crop up.

30:12William:If anyone is listening has access to the diaries of Princess Bamba we both want to read them.

30:17Anita:Very very much indeed but also I mean I sort of think it wouldn't be safe for her to keep a diary because she was being surveilled and knew it.

30:23William:Tell us what happens next 1926.

30:26Anita:Let me take you back to 1924 first of all because this is 61 years after Jindan's death Bamba personally arranges for her grandmother's ashes to be transferred from Narsik, which is where the British allowed it to be, to Lahore, where her grandmother wanted to be. And she and Sophia, Sophia's visiting at the time, go to Narsik, they collect them together, they go to a ghat on the Godwari River, where the ashes are scattered and they say prayers with a Sikh priest in attendance. So you can just see, you know, that attachment to her family is so strong. Has she converted back to Sikhism?

31:02William:Is she showing any interest in Sikh religion?

31:04Anita:I'm really glad you've raised that, actually. There are two things that happen these days with these girls, who people are really keen and for good reason to own. They are always described as Sikh princesses. They were, each one of them, Christian. They were born, baptised, and remained Christian and had Christian burials and funerals. And there's no records of them reading the Guru Granth Sabah home or something? They were aware of it. They talked about being aware of it, but they wouldn't have described themselves as Sikhs. And you can see that from their funeral arrangements.

31:37William:That's interesting. Isn't that interesting?

31:38Anita:Also, they're always described as being Sikh princesses. They were mixed heritage. And everyone sort of deletes that from their mind.

31:45William:The German bit, the Ethiopian bit.

31:47Anita:exactly right do you know the other thing that um i should say is that 1926 you see the difference within two years of who she thinks is her real family and people who are family but she doesn't accept them so do you remember i told you about her father having an affair with ada weatherall

32:05William:from the knocking shop yes and we do remember absolutely well you know there are two children

32:10Anita:who are born to that relationship and we're going to do a fourth episode on that because it's a miserable and dark story. What Bamba does to those girls is wicked. She's a great character. People are complicated. I won't tell that story now. I will tell it in our fourth episode. But let's sort of skip forward to 1939. Her husband dies in Scotland while she's in Lahore. She's 70.

32:37William:Has she seen him for much time or have they been separated?

32:40Anita:They're just living parallel lives. They're just living parallel lives, Willie, which is you know sort of answers your question where they happily married i think they were fine i think they were okay but it was a marriage to an end she was clearly a handful yeah oh should i tell you a thing so um when i was researching sophia the book i talked to a woman who had been a maid at faraday house and she said all the servants detested bamba they loved sophia detested bamba because in her words this is a very elderly woman who was in her 80s who is talking to me she was a class a her words bitch that's what she said class a bitch they would hide her clothes they would sort of fold things up and put them in the wrong places just to hear her scream because she was so awful but look she is what she is her husband husband uh dies thousands of miles away

33:36William:1939 in scotland she's in lahore second world war's about to break out yeah she's trapped okay

33:42Anita:she can't leave she's stuck there and then in 1942 she learns that katherine has died and has been found by sophia she can't go to the funeral so she's grieving from a distance and then in 1947 another great catastrophe the partition of india and lahore the jewel of the north her family's ancestral city which was mixed you know hindus sikhs and muslims it ends up on the pakistan side now you and i know how many people decided to leave for being the wrong religion okay yeah

34:17William:1.5 million people are killed in this terrific upheaval whole populations are on the move backwards and forwards there's violence there is rape there is bloodshed there are moments of extraordinary heroism and kindness from people's shelter, people who are fleeing mobs and so on at great personal cost, but it's not somewhere you want to be and bambo's caught in the middle of it.

34:41Anita:Yeah, and you know, a notably Sikh name, Duleep Singh is her name, and people know who her grandfather was, but she stays put. And she stays put and is kind of looked after by a Muslim man who's like her factotum secretary, guide. So, Birgi stays with Bamba. That's a beautiful symmetry. And the only reason she's not killed in the riots, as far as we know, is that Birgi, who is one of the most respected Muslims in the city, vouches for her. And also, I guess in a way, she's also protected. The not marriage, marriage with Sutherland is also a protection because he can say or she can say that she is Mrs.

35:21Anita:Sutherland, a British doctor's widow, rather than Princess Bamba Dilip Singh, if she needs to. It's a useful identity to have in that period of time. Even though the world is falling apart, she refuses to acknowledge really that anything has changed. You know, this is still her home. This is still where she belongs. Another tragedy of her story is that despite being the oldest sister, she's the last to die. She sees her younger sisters, her baby sisters, die before her. So Sophia dies in August 1948. We know that Catherine died even earlier. Now, this is really interesting. So some people say she refuses to fly back to England.

36:06Anita:It wasn't that. It wasn't that she refused to fly her sister's ashes out to India either. She travels by sea and over land because she said her sister was always frightened of flying. She says, I didn't want to take her on a plane because she didn't like to fly.

36:22William:Although her sister's dead at this point.

36:23Anita:Yeah, I know. But did you see the closeness of the sisters?

36:26William:That said, you know, the flight would have been something unusual at this period. and the boat would have been the normal way to go.

36:31Anita:Yeah, but she actually comments on it though, Willie. She says, you know, my sister didn't like flying. That's why I'm not taking her by air.

36:37William:Yeah.

36:38Anita:And so Sophia had asked in her will for her ashes to be returned to India and Bamba, an 80-year-old woman, is left to her to take them and she scatters them somewhere secret in Lahore. We don't know.

36:48William:There is, I mean, obviously the Ghat where Ranjit Singh was cremated, which would have been the obvious place to have taken the Udath thought.

36:55Anita:It's a sensible guess, but we don't know for sure. She lives another eight years, alone pretty much, only with Piriji and her company.

37:02William:The only Sikh left in Lahore after the ethnic cleansing of partition.

37:07Anita:And it's a tragic picture because her sight is failing, her health is failing. She's constantly writing letters of complaint that she can't get a seat on the bus from model town into the city. She still calls herself to the very end the Queen of the Punjab, the last true sovereign of the Sikhs. But, you know, to everybody around her in this new country, Pakistan, that is springing up around her, she's an anachronism. She's a weird thing.

37:33William:I interviewed someone who's very like that, who was the last descendant of the Mughals. And this woman whose ancestors had lived in the Red Fort, Princess Begum Sultan, lived in a tiny little house in the old city and worked in the ICCR library, stamping books as people took them out. And she wasn't going to leave her city because it was her city. Yeah. and this is I'm sure Bamba was thinking the same she's going to be the last Sikh in the hall she's not going to go just because the governments happen to have changed this is her city this is the home of Ranjit Singh of Dulip Singh she's going to die there how lonely she was because you know

38:06Anita:a lot of her friends would be dead or would have crossed the border you know that's that's just a fact I mean in her last years she gets really very dark and she's sort of mulling over all of her anger she's a woman who's lived all her life in rage but you have to see how others have dealt with it and I you know I think Sophia then fighting for other people that's really noble they all went through the same thing Catherine discovering peace with Lena that's also lovely and she has a life she has joy there's a joy in their lives that does not exist for Bamberg and when she's sort of in her twilight she starts putting out the story that the reason the entire Dilip Singh line dies with her.

38:47None of the children of Dilip Singh have any children.

38:50Anita:None of them do. With her generation, they're wiped out. That family disappears off the face of the planet. Sophia doesn't have children. Catherine doesn't have children. Victor doesn't have children. Freddie doesn't have children. Bamba doesn't have children. One of the things that Bamba starts putting around is that when they were in England, even when they were children at Elverdon being looked after by nannies, people were putting mystery powders in their food to make them sterile. Now, look, you can treat that the way that Sophia treated the story of she's being poisoned. She thought she was being poisoned.

39:25Anita:Whatever it is, she died bitter, angry, and actually quite alone.

39:30William:There was a thing, wasn't there, of putting bromide into the tea or something?

39:33Anita:In World War I, soldiers getting randy.

39:35William:So it's not impossible.

39:37Anita:Yeah, but who knows?

39:38William:But she's a crazier woman, but you interpret it as that, is it?

39:41Anita:My feeling, spending so much time with them, is that this is an articulation of anger, rage, and trying to make sense of it all. And the fact that it ends with you, how awful is that? That it's all over. That however great you thought your family were, all over, all gone.

39:57William:So 1957, now Pakistan is already beginning to go wrong. And she's now 87. Pirji is her last link with the outside world. she's now in a in a Sikh free city after the ethnic closing of partition there are no Sikhs at her funeral no the funeral is arranged oddly enough by the deputy high commission of the British high commission which is a sort of terrible irony she would have hated

40:24Anita:it still has a British passport can you imagine what she would have thought of that yes exactly right so she's buried in Lahore's Christian cemetery on jail road buried under a Christian cross in a Pakistani cemetery, as Willie says, no Sikh to say the final prayers. We should say she died of a heart attack. There's a Persian couplet on her tombstone. And it was translated very helpfully by the Dawn newspaper, a Pakistani newspaper. And it goes like this. If you open this grave, you will just not know who is rich and who is poor, which is a line from Sadi, a great Persian poet. The difference between royalty and civility vanishes when the bones are dug up.

41:05Anita:Isn't that lovely and sad and awful?

41:08William:Very Sufi thought.

41:09Anita:And her entire collection of Sikh era paintings, her watercolours, her miniatures, her manuscripts, her personal possessions, they all go to Piergi.

41:17William:And there's now a museum where they presumably are on a show.

41:19Anita:They're inside, yeah, the Lahore Fort. And you can see the Bamber Museum. I've seen it twice now and see all the... Of course, the Bamber Museum. That's her. The Bamber Museum, that's her. I've been there. Yes, there you are.

41:29William:I hadn't made that collection. Right, right, of course.

41:31Anita:So, you know, her house is demolished, long gone. The roses that she planted in Gauzar, they're all gone. You know, everything, almost every sign of her has gone. But so I'm really glad that we've done this about her because she's really worth knowing. And that story encapsulates so much of the period. I think it's rather wonderful. Next time, though, we're going to talk about things that are rather unlovely about Bamba's history. Two princesses who we've mentioned lightly a few times in this series. is Princess Pauline and Princess Irene. I mean, very much names of the street. Their mother was Ada Weatherall, the chambermaid, born out of wedlock in a Moscow boarding house and a Paris apartment, rejected by Queen Victoria, frozen out by three famous sisters, although one of them, Sophia, will relent and will be very kind eventually.

42:23Anita:One dies alone in an unmarked grave in the south of France. during the war, the other walks into the sea off Monte Carlo, 26 years of age she is when she does it, and she leaves a letter behind her saying, I am homeless. Empire Club members can hear that really tragic story right now. But for now at least, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand. And goodbye from me, William Drimple.

42:58This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+.