Sometime in the initial decades of the twentieth century, an Ottoman princess and a Hindu queen exchanged photographs, letters, went on vacations to Kashmir and even became godmothers to each other’s children. This is the story of a friendship that is somewhat unusual when viewed from today’s vantage point.
Durru Shehvar (1914-2006) was born an Ottoman princess and married the eldest son of the Nizam of Hyderabad. He was arguably the richest, most powerful princely ruler in colonial India.
The Hindu princess of Kashipur, later Maharani of Kapurthala, Sita Devi (1915-2002) was one of her close friends and a global fashionista of the time. Durru and Sita were of the same age, had much in common yet, at the same time, belonged to completely different worlds.
Neither of the two women published full-length autobiographical accounts. Durru did write a memoir, but it primarily delves into her childhood and forced exile, not around her life after marriage.
As a result, there was only one piece of evidence to substantiate the anecdotal information about this friendship that Sita Devi’s grandson told me in a telephone conversation – a handwritten note on this 1939 photograph.
“To Sita, with affectionate thoughts, Durru Shehvar,” it says.
Even a cursory glance reveals how markedly...
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