White Girl Tells Story Of Her Marriage With Indian Prince.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18585, 10 October 1928, Page 6

White Girl Tells Story Of Her Marriage With Indian Prince.

NANCY ANN DEFENDS MARRIAGE TO HINDU, AND SEES NO PERIL

FORMER MAHARAJAH OF INDORE IS NOT A MAN OF MYSTERY, WITH FEARSOME BACKGROUND, SAYS SEATTLE GIRL, HIS BRIDE.

THIS is the third of four consecutive articles written following an interview an American newspaper woman won with the former Maharajah of Indore and his bride, who was Nancy Ann Miller, of Seattle, Washington. It is the first authentic interview given by the two since their marriage, which aroused the interest of the world.

(Written for the “Star” by ZOE BECKLEY.)

(Copyright 1928 by North American Newspaper Alliance.)

Until I had met, face to face in 'their present home near Paris, the former Maharajah of Indore and his American bride, Nancy Ann Miller, of Seattle, Washington. T had tried vainly to explain how this hot-blooded Indian ruler, used to every luxury . his enormous wealth could buy, came to be attracted by an undistinguished American girl without showy beauty or. dash, who smokes not, and wears plain clothes. And of her ardour for him—a man of another world, another race and colour, worshipping strange deities and living by a totally different moral and-social code. Now it seemed clear, or almost so. Hero was the purely male attracted by the purely female. Right enough. Power, sophistication and experience reaching out for the feminine qualities that mean peace and rest. Extremes answering each other. The man seeking compliance and devotion; the woman wanting strength and love, and to belong compeltely to someone bigger than herself, viet someone who NEEDS her. But Nancy Ann’s own words had much to do with my enlightening. “I wish,” she said, “that people who are interested in our marriage could get rid of the idea that I stepped from a world of light into a world of darkness or something of the sort. Marriage Natural to Her. As, a matter of fact, our marriage srems perfectly natural to me, not at ai; a step from a familiar world to a totally different one. All my life 1 have loved the literature of the East, and studied it. Even as a child I got hold of every Oriental tale I could. I sometimes think I remember happenings of a former life—as though I might have belonged ages ago to that Eastern life " She broke off, searched my face for signs of scoffing, and finding none, continued : “That is why His Highness never seemed to me a ‘man from Mars,’ a mysterious person whose background was that of another race and creed, fearsome and terrible. I understood it all. I have read the poetry and literature of his land and loved it. Our love and marriage seemed as natural as though he had always been my neighbour. “Perhaps this is partly why I was not ‘frightened’ at the ceremonies at Gangapur and Barwaha. It seemed almost as if the people sensed it. They were so sweet to me, yet I couldn’t even say a word to them. All I could do was smile. “There were 25,000 persons at the public ceremonies. They were under a marquee, a big silk tent without sides to it, just a canopy. When the marriage rites were over and'we were leaving. people stooped and kissed His Highness’s garments and hands, begging him not to go. They love him. It

touched me more deeply than I can explain. They implored us to come back,- ■ • “Does that look,” Nancy Ann added, “as though he were a man exiled by the will of his people?” She stopped and looked timidly at her husband, as if to ask, “Am I saying too much?” He smiled reassuringly, and his eyes spoke. I got the flash that they were completely happy together. To her he is power and tenderness. To him she is purity, submission, goodness—all that a man who lived longer and harder . than his thirty-seven years would indicate to us of the West would want in a wife. Has Son. ol twenty. I remarked oh the youthful appearance of the Maharajah, how I had supposed him middle-aged, portly, and with a compromised waistline. “Fat and sensual-looking,” he added, with almost a schoolboy grin. “Well, my son is twenty, so I can’t claim to be a youth, exactly.” “Nevertheless,” cut in Her Highness, “he IS a boy. in everything but years, with all a boy’s enthusiasms and ideals —I assure you! ” The Maharajah’s son, Yeshuant, child of the first Maharani, who, so the story goes, ran away leaving the boy behind her, was divorced by Tokaji Rao, and has since married again, is still at Oxford (from which his father was graduated) and will ultimately rule Indore. As everyone remembers, Tokaji Rap was forced to abdicate following what is generally referred to as “The Mumtaz Begum affair”—a scandal concerning Tokaji’s favourite dancing girl and a rich Indian merchant who later became her protector. This man was set upon and murdered, and the girl’s beauty harmed by slashes in the face. British officers who were passing prevented her being kidnapped as planned, beating off the assassins with golf clubs. Mumtaz recovered, her looks not so greatly marred after all, married, and is now divorced. With a burst of courage, 1 asked the soft-voiced Maharani if she had known the story before her marriage. For answer, she merely nodded, and with the gesture that now seemed characteristic she put out her hand and covered her husband's with it. No words were needed to tell that Nancy Ann Miller could believe no ill of her bridegroom. ... j By the way, they speak always m English. The Maharajah has little French, his bride but a smattering of Hindustani, although she is digging away at it and is determined to learn. “She will learn it,” smiled Nancy Ann’s husband confidently, “if she makes up her mind to.”

(Final Article: Palace as Home ef Seattle Princess).