She had great knowledge about India. I again got startled when the Queen asked about my house in Bangalore. She said she had twice passed by my house at Nandi Hills during her visit to the place with the Maharaja of Mysore, who told her it belonged to the Elayaraja of Travancore.

She [Queen Elizabeth II] is a person of sharp memory and has great knowledge about India. I met her first in 1933 during my maiden visit to England. It was long before her coronation. She was then Princess Elizabeth. Her father, then Duke of York, was also there when I saw her.

It was in his time that the Travancore Rajah was known and generally styled " Rama Rajah" and " Dharma Rajah," which names are quite familiar to travellers who journey from Benares and other northern parts of India to Bamaswaram or Ramanad.

Some time previous to the death of this Rajah, a female member of the Kolathnaud family was adopted as a Princess of Travancore, and Her Highness gave birth to a Prince in the Kollum year 899. This was the renowned Rama Rajah, generally called Dharma Rajah.

"British Empire. First trip to India. Glorious. Never would have believed it would all be gone in my lifetime. Not possible, I'd've thought. I am the last king-emperor, you know. My brother was, for a time, but had to give it up. I didn't.

It's in human nature to mention any personal connection when offering solidarity, so I shall just briefly say that on my first visit to India, in 1980, I stayed at the Taj Mahal in Bombay, visited the "Gateway of India" and took a boat to Elephanta Island, toured the magnificent railway station, had my first diwali festival at Juhu beach, and paced the amazing corniche that was still known by some—after its dazzling string of lights—as "Queen Victoria's necklace." Wonderful though some of the 19th-century British architecture can be, Bombay is quintessentially an Indian achievement, and an achievement of all its peoples from the Portuguese-speaking Catholic Goans to the Zoroastrian Parsis.

The Maharaja of Mysore (then Governor of Mysore), ayachamarajendra Wodeyar, visited Berkeley for a day. I took him around. He was really impressed when he saw the accelerators in the Radiation Laboratory on the hill. He was happy to speak to me in Kannada and even more happy that I knew a little Sanskrit.

We are the Cheras, one of the four erstwhile royal families of South India and have a long and dynastic family tree. By 1750 Travancore had become rich and big. So my ancestor, the then king, made a unique spiritual and historical contribution. He decided to surrender all his riches to the temple - Padmanabhaswamy is also our family deity. He said our family would look after that wealth, the temple and the kingdom forever. But he did want the ego that comes with possessing it. He was influenced by Emperor Ashoka's catharsis in the killing fields of Kalinga. So he declared our family to be Padmanabha's 'dasas', devotees. A servant can resign his job, but a dasa can do so only when he dies.

In 1954, I was invited to a tea party hosted in honour of the Queen in Bangalore. She came with her husband to the party held at the Vidhan Soudha. I was keen to meet the Queen personally. I conveyed my desire to Vijayalakshmi Pandit, sister of India's first premier Jawaharlal Nehru, who was present. She immediately facilitated a meeting with the Queen for me and my wife Radhadevi.

One day, a strange woman appeared before king Kampana and complained in the following strain about the occupation of the south by Turushkas, and its evil effects. “O King! The place known as Vyaghrapuri (Chidambaram, Perumparrapuliyar) has become truly so, for tigers inhabit it now where man dowlt once; the vimana (dome of the central shrine) of Srirangam is so dilapidated that now it is the hood of Adisesha alone that is protecting the image of Ranganatha from the falling debris. The Lord of Gajaranya (Tiruvanaikka, Jambu-kesvaram near Srirangam), who once killed an elephant to obtain its skin for his garment, has now again been reduced to the same condition, because he has been stripped bare of all clothing; while the garbhagriha (central shrine) of many another temple is crumbling, its mandapas overgrown with vegetation and its ponderous wooden doors eaten up by white ants. In the temples which once resounded with the joyous mridanga (a kind of drum), there is heard at present only the jackals that have made them their abode. The river Kaveri, that was curbed by proper dams and flowed in regular channels, has begun to breach in all directions. In the agraharas where the smoke was seen to curl up from the fire-offerings (yagadhuma), we have now the offensive-smelling smoke issuing from the roasting of flesh by the Muhammadans, and the sonorous chant of the Vedas has been replaced by the harsh voice of these ruffians. The beautiful coconut trees which once graced the gardens surrounding the city of Madura, have been cut down by these intruders, and in place of these, we have gruesome substitutes in the form of iron sula, which are adorned with garlands of decapitated human heads strung together. The water of the river Tamraparni, which used to be rendered white by the sandal paste rubbed away from the breasts of youthful maidens at their bath, is now flowing ted with the blood of cows slaughtered by these great sinners”. Thus did the strange lady describe to Kampana, the fate that had overtaken the fair south, and drawing from her girdle a resplendent sword, addressed the king once again as follows: “O Sovereign! Once upon a time the divine Visvakarma, gathering the splinters from the weapons of all the Devas and smelting them together, shaped this strange sword and presented it to Paramesvara for gaining victory over the daityas. By performing a severe penance, one of the early Pandya kings obtained it from Lord Paramesvara. With the help of this divine weapon the descendants of this race continued to rule the kingdom prosperously for a very long period; but by a misfortune the princes of the Pandya dynasty lost the virility of their sires. Agastya, having secured this remarkable sword, presents this now to you. Just as Krishna slew Kamsa in Mathura in olden times, O King! do you also proceed now to the southern Madhura and slaughter the Mussalman king, the enemy of the world, and set up several pillars of victory on the bridge of Rama (between the mainland and the island of Ramesvaram). During your administration of the south, you should also build a strong dam across the Kaveri, and make her flow in a manner useful to the agricultural population”

Revelations. Ellora magnificent. Ajanta curiously subtle and fascinating-I have for the first time since my return to India learnt something from somebody else's work.

The earliest records of the Madras area, including money-lenders' accounts, go back to the fourth century CE. They identify Mylapore, Triplicane and Tiruvottiyur as temple towns. The Nandikkalambakkam describes Mylapore as a prosperous port under the Pallavas, the early-fourth- to-late-ninth century emperors of Kanchipuram, who patronized various schools of Hinduism including Jainism and Buddhism, built temples and generously supported the arts. There is no record of a Christian church or saint's tomb at Mylapore before the Portuguese period, and Olschki is basing his comments on the wrong assumption that Marco Polo did visit Mylapore and that he found a church there. Friar Oderic is describing the original Kapaleeswara Shiva Temple on the Mylapore seashore (see Henry Yule's comment: "This is clearly a Hindu temple."), which the Tamil saint Jnanasambandar has positively identified as being there at least before the sixth century CE.

He is Karna, whom the world has abandoned. Karna Alone. Condemned goods. A prince raised in poverty. Born to die unfairly, unarmed and alone at the hands of his brother. Majestic in his complete despair. Praying on the banks of the Ganga. Stoned out of his skull.
Then Kunti appeared. She too was a man, but a man grown soft and womanly, a man with breasts, from doing female parts for years. Her movements were fluid. Full of women. Kunti, too, was stoned. High on the same shared joints. She had come to tell Karna a story.
Karna inclined his beautiful head and listened.
Red-eyed, Kunti danced for him. She told him of a young woman who had been granted a boon. A secret mantra that she could use to choose a lover from among the gods. Of how, with the imprudence of youth, the woman decided to test it to see if it really worked. How she stood alone in an empty field, turned her face to the heavens and recited the mantra. The words had scarcely left her foolish lips, Kunti said, when Surya, the God of Day, appeared before her. The young woman, bewitched by the beauty of the shimmering young god, gave herself to him. Nine months later she bore him a son. The baby was born sheathed in light, with gold earrings in his ears and a gold breastplate on his chest, engraved with the emblem of the sun.
The young mother loved her first-born son deeply, Kunti said, but she was unmarried and couldn't keep him. She put him in a reed basket and cast him away in a river. The child was found downriver by Adhirata, a charioteer. And named Karna.
Karna looked up to Kunti. Who was she? Who was my mother? Tell me where she is. Take me to her.
Kunti bowed her head. She's here, she said. Standing before you.
Karna's elation and anger at the revelation. His dance of confusion and despair. Where were you, he asked her, when I needed you the most? Did you ever hold me in your arms? Did you feed me? Did you ever look for me? Did you wonder where I might be?
In reply Kunti took the regal face in her hands, green the face, red the eyes, and kissed him on his brow. Karna shuddered in delight. A warrior reduced to infancy. The ecstasy of that kiss. He dispatched it to the ends of his body. To his toes. His fingertips. His lovely mother's kiss. Did you know how much I missed you? Rahel could see it coursing through his veins, as clearly as an egg travelling down an ostrich's neck.
A travelling kiss whose journey was cut short by dismay when Karna realised that his mother had revealed herself to him only to secure the safety of her five other, more beloved sons - the Pandavas - poised on the brink of their epic battle with their one hundred cousins. It is them that Kunti sought to protect by announcing to Karna that she was his mother. She had a promise to extract.
She invoked the Love Laws.

The image of the whole of Bharatavarsha being a chakravartikshetra is as old as the oldest Vedic literature. The Itihasa-Purana provide glorious accounts of many chakravartins-Ikshvaku, Puru, Prithu Vainya, Sivi Ausinara, Mandhata, Raghu and so on-who accompanied the ašvamedha horse demanding submission from all kingdoms and republics, big and small, spread all over the country. The rãjasûya yajña which was performed at the end of this campaign was more in the nature of a meeting of equals than a durbar held by a despot in order to humble or humiliate subordinate princes and patriarchs. Sri Krishna had demanded death for Jarasandha because the latter had violated this dharmic tradition of empire-building, and kept a hundred kings captive in his castle. The Nandas had won notoriety as an ignoble dynasty because they had also violated the standard code of conduct laid down by the rãjadharma for righteous emperors, destroyed many local dynasties, and reduced other princes to provincial satraps.