I think you should take it fairly seriously. The combined attitutes and workings of the princely states brought change of power into British hands and again to some extent contributed to free India. You may want to read several books like Arbindo Ghose's Rebirth of India to get an idea on the dark ages of India and the shortsightedness of its leadership. Ajay From: <DPhillips@fbm.com> Date: 2008/02/08 Fri PM 01:32:54 EST To: <INDIA-ROYALTY@rootsweb.com> Subject: [INDIA-ROYALTY] Diwan Jarmani Dass I am new to the group and this is my maiden e-mail. I am just now reading Diwan Jarmani Dass' book Maharaja, first issued in 1969 and just reprinted in 2007 in paperback in India. He was a minister in the princely government of Kapurthala in Punjab and the book (which I gather from its appearance in bibliographies) is well known, is full of the most scandalous stories about the princes of many states, especially Patiala. In fact it is almost nothing but scandalous stories. I wonder: how seriously should I take the stories in this book? Some of them seem pretty extreme. I'd be grateful for guidance. David Phillips San Francisco dphillips@fbm.com ___________________________________________________________________________ This e-mail message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. Thank you. Farella Braun + Martel LLP ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to INDIA-ROYALTY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message