Hot Afternoon

Washington, B.C. is a blase and socially jaded city where almost anything can happen without drawing a crowd. But even Washingtonians were impressed one blazing afternoon last week by a pastoral scene near suburban Olney, across the District line in Maryland. The throb of hooves on turf, the click of mallets on willow root balls, and the clink of ice in highball glasses were enough to identify the occasion as a polo match, but the diplomatic license tags and the Caddies and Jags that outlined the field indicated that it was of more than passing interest. The interest, in fact, was focused almost entirely on the sidelines.

Envoys & Farmers. Opulent Oriental rugs were spread out on the grass, and dazzling turquoise gadis (bolsters) were placed on the rugs. Reclining on the rugs and gadis, His Excellency Syed Amjad Ali, the Pakistani ambassador, sat in cross-legged splendor. He was dressed in gaudy sport clothes and a dark ten-gallon hat. A red and green silk beach umbrella shaded the ambassador from the direct touch of the cruel sun, and a swarm of sari-clad women from his household kept him and his guests plentifully supplied with cooling drinks.

In the crowd of 2,000 were also the ambassadors of India, Burma and Ceylon, lesser diplomats of every degree, an eye-filling contingent of Eastern ladies, and a solid phalanx of Washington officials, socialites and curious local farmers. The star attraction was Lieut. General His Highness Saramad-i-Rajahai Hindustan Raj Rajendra Shri Maharajadhiraj Sir Sawai Man Singh Badahur, Maharaja of Jaipur, Rajpramukh of Rajasthan, descendant of the sun gods and a most puissant poloist.

Like all the rest of India's 562 reigning princes, the maharaja was stripped of a great deal of his wealth after India became a free nation in 1947. Confiscated by Nehru's government were his solid gold and silver temple, a fortress filled with jewels, all his palaces but one, three-fourths of his private possessions. The royal herd of 200 elephants melted down to a mere dozen or so, and only a dozen polo ponies remain from his prewar champion string of 100. Even so, the maharaja still manages to make ends meet.

His remaining palace has forty guest rooms, 15 acres of gardens, several swimming pools and a fabulous, ruby-studded gold hawk. The maharaja still pilots his own C-47, still rates two wives, a 17-gun salute abroad, 19 guns at home. Because of his high status among Indian princes, and the fact that he approved independence of India despite personal losses, he was named Rajpramukh of Rajasthan, a new state made up of Jaipur, Jodhpur* and 16 other principalities. In his new lifetime job, the maharaja holds the rank, but few of the responsibilities of governor, draws an adequate salary of 18 million rupees ($3,780,000) a year. And, since his job does not require him to stay at home much, he has adapted himself to the New India by doing what he" has done most of his life: cruising the world in search of polo games.

Saris & Cha Cha Cha. Last week's game was arranged by an old friend and fellow poloist, J. K. Atal, minister of the Indian embassy. The maharaja and his handsome son and heir, Maharaj Kumar Bhwani Singh, 21, alternated in the No. 4 position on a team of mixed diplomats (Indians, Britons and a Pakistani), against the socialite Washington Polo Club team. The maharaja, a big (6 ft. 2 in., 200 lbs.), beaming fellow, turned up in unexotic loafers, levis and leather chaps, managed to score one goal (he has a seven-goal rating) before the weather fagged him and his overburdened pony. The maharani, his darkly glamorous wife, looked cool and composed in a diaphanous sari of watermelon pink, but she didn't feel that way. "Saris look cool," she explained, "but they hug the ankles, and are really too hot on a day like this."

Between chukkers, the 35-year-old third maharani* dutifully mopped her sweltering husband with a dry towel, fetched him beer, and shaded him with her bright parasol. Gasped sweating Prince Kumar: "In India, we start our polo games at 5 in the afternoon." Between the humidity and the royalty, hardly anyone noticed the final score of the game, which the Washingtonians won, 10-5. Afterwards the maharaja and his wife and son repaired to a local dairy, where they cooled off over frosted milkshakes.

Even the diplomats, most of them petit bourgeois civil servants, were awed by the royal visitors, and the Asiatic envoys outdid one another in their efforts to entertain the maharaja royally. As usual. Ambassador Ali came out ahead, with an elaborate garden party celebrating the maharaja's 43rd birthday. In the garden behind the receiving line he thoughtfully installed an attic fan. to cool the royal rear. The maharani gamely learned to dance the Cha Cha Cha, while her husband consumed four bottles of champagne and discoursed on the fine points of pigsticking. When the turbaned waiters brought out a large pink and white birthday cake, the band struck up "Happy Birthday," and the guests sang spiritedly until they reached the last, difficult line: "Happy birthday, dear Your Highness, Maharaja of Jaipur, happy birthday to you."

* Unlike their neighbors in Jodhpur, the natives of Jaipur have never succeeded in popularizing their local trouser-style in the Occident. As a matter of fact, even in Jaipur, the only people who wear jaipurs are babies.

*The first maharani is dead. Maharani No. 2 is living in retirement, back in Jaipur. The currently visible maharani is the sister of the fun-loving maharaja of Cooch-Behar, and a sportswoman in her own right: by her own reckoning, she has bagged some 25 tigers.

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