Where traffic stops for sacred cows

A visit to Rajasthan highlights a different attitude to cattle

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SIXTY years ago, my parents spent their honeymoon with Jai and Ayesha, the Maharaja and Maharani of Jaipur, family friends through a shared love of polo.

Nine months later, I arrived. I am regretting that it has taken six decades for me to make a pilgrimage to the beautiful pink city of Jaipur to see where my story started.

Family history relates that my late parents took a Fortnum & Mason Stilton as a present for their hosts. Halfway through their stay, they were relieved to find it had been a hit when Ayesha asked where the Stilton was and Jai confessed that he had eaten it in his dressing room with his shoe horn, as the last time someone had brought one, he hadn't had any.

Ayesha is better known as Gayatri Devi (her real name, shorn of titles post independence), bestselling author of A Princess Remembers, a riveting tale that follows her life from Swiss finishing school to political prisoner under Mrs Gandhi via purdah in the Jaipur zenana. I am pleased to see it top of Delhi WHSmith's bestseller shelf 15 years after her death-a posthumous victory over Mrs Gandhi and proof that the superpower of the 21st century has got over its hang-ups about its princely past.