‘The match is on tomorrow morning at 9, sir. Cheers to the start of something beautiful. A league that will lay the foundation for Indian cricket.’ He rose from his seat and held his glass up high. The glass hovered above the Gaekwads’ heads as they contemplated how to handle the unstable prince.

‘One last thing,’ said Bhimji, before succumbing to Abhimanyu’s unreasonable demand. ‘A little token of our respect for the late queen.’

A lanky man stepped in to remove the cloth from a painting that stood on an easel in a corner of the room. The Gaekwads had brought in a talented painter, the best in Baroda, on the trip so that he could memorialize their trip to Ranakpour through his vivid paintings. The plan was for the painter to be present at the cricket match and capture the spirit of the game as well. In the wake of the queen’s death, Bhimji had ordered the painter to create a moving representation of Kaushalya Devi that would stand the test of time. The painter did not disappoint. Abhimanyu was visibly moved when he saw the bright and colourful interpretation of his mother. There was an inexplicable intimacy in that image that Abhimanyu admired so much that he carried the painting with him wherever he went and really felt that she was somewhere close by. He also admired the artist’s skill in depicting the Ranakpour palace in all its glory. Unlike typical royal portraits of the time, this young painter had Kaushalya Devi standing outdoors, with the Ranakpour palace rising from the cliff in the background. Even though the palace looked diminutive in the distance behind the queen’s left shoulder, the attention to detail was undeniable, down to the minutest stroke in the Ranakpour flag that waved atop the grand dome. Moved, Abhimanyu reached for his wrist to take off the diamond-encrusted watch, a gift given to him by the queen herself when he had turned eighteen, and presented it to the painter.

Not many people know that years later, the painter reached out to Abhimanyu to apologize for his creation, and returned the watch. When a puzzled Abhimanyu said that the painting was one of his most valuable possessions, the artist admitted that the painting was in fact blemished by the vagaries of his youth. ‘I feel bad of having cheated you of your emotions all these years,’ he said, quietly adding, ‘do look at the painting once more, you’ll notice something right over the Ranakpour flag.’ It was a deft play of colours, easy to miss and yet impossible to ignore once pointed out. The saffron hues of the setting sun behind the palace, the scattered white clouds hanging low and almost touching the dome, and the green pastures next to the palace grounds neatly represented the Indian flag. Saffron, white and green, the tricolour hiding in plain sight, ready to ensnare the Ranakpour coat of arms and signifying that the queen had left behind a defeated kingdom.