Book Review: Maharani by Diwan Jarmani Das

I have long campaigned that if we have to save the planet, we should not tax consumption. We should tax the waste generated. Every household should be taxed according to the waste it generates and the progeny it creates. 

If the trash tax was a reality, it would apply to this book. The publisher would have been taxed on every copy going off the press. 

According to Diwan Jarmani Das, it is customary for the Maharajas to have mistresses and concubines, but for their own safety, the Maharanis must be kept in the 3 layer security in the palace and any transgression should be suitably dealt with. 

Not content with convincing us that the Maharanis had only one side to their personality - the erotic, he also goes on to generously disburse his opinion on why working women and educated women are a disaster. The woman comes home tired and is not able to look after the welfare of the family. This leads to a situation where the husband returns tired from work and finds that there is no one to look after him and his needs. This is the main reason why men go astray. 

So generously is this advice doled out, in fact, that the book reads like a sermon book rather than a record of the maharanis. Not content with giving advice to mere mortal beings, the author also decides to give advice on the Khajuraho temples. (Read excerpts below) 

And the book is not about Indian maharanis. It also tells us the details of the sexcapades and the bitter retribution given to European queens. That section, of course, is a waste of time because the book was bought to read about the lives of, well, Maharanis. 

Here are a few excerpts from this book. They are self-explanatory. 

In my opinion, women's main job is to look after husbands and children and the formation of their character. 

The homes which were like paradise before the so called emancipation of women have become, in most cases, a blazing till due to the disparity in thought and culture between husband and wife, between father and daughter. 

Most of these perverted maharanis were the offspring of the ultra modern education with they received under British tutors in India and at schools and colleges in England. 

The husband and wife do not have enough time have intimate talks with each other on family matters and to spend a few hours of bliss which is the duty of the wife to provide for the husband who comes home tired after a hard day's work. 

Women in the services, and particularly in high posts, dominate their husbands, with the results that mutual love or confidence between them is gone. In the upper classes, wives are becoming nagging monsters and behave like superior beings. 

They wear chiffon and high coiffeurs, and their mouths are reddened with lipstick and the eyebrows blackened, the back lines above the eyebrows giving them the look of a professional prostitute. 

But the majority of women do not believe in feminism, they care for more for femininity. 

French women, even though they are in service or politics, are seductive and sexy. They take care of their figure and complexion unlike the suffragete women of England and the USA who, when in politics or high office, look more manly and neglect their dresses. 

Women want to create a lovable impression on their husbands and get things done without having legal rights. 

In France, before the Matrimonial Bill of 1964 which abrogated the old laws that forbade women from opening bank accounts or obtaining passports, the wife's infidelity was considered more serious than her husband's desertion and infidelity.

And finally, advice for our temples: 

Khajuraho and similar temples in Orissa and other states depicting sexual poses are a gross insult to Indian culture and civilisation. 

We should either demolish these temples or forbid foreigners to visit them. 

Whatever explanation one may be able to give the visitors about the true interpretation of these sexual poses, they begin to believe that Hindu religion and temples are all dedicated to sex worship. 

Endnote: 

1. Women should not buy this book because (read excerpts above) and chauvinistic men who agree with the author should not buy this book because the book will kill their domestic monopoly on misogynistic advice. At least within their house , they deserve to remain the specialists on the subject of what women should and should not do. 

2. This book, if it remains in publication, should be heavily edited to completely remove the personal insights of the author, remove the European history and sexual laxity, and just share the facts of the lives of the maharanis.