Enough of all that 'Raja', 'Rani' cosplay

While it's cool these days to blame Nehru for everything from broken toasters to Chinese global supply chains, his daughter did one super thing. No, not ensure that Narayana Murthy's teenage dream of 'talking less, working more' becomes a reality, but abolish the privy purse - pocket money for penny royalty - in 1971, and along with it their fancy titles. But in India, de jure and de facto quite often takes opposite paths. So, it was great that last week, the Rajasthan High Court decreed that descendants of the former royal family of Jaipur drop prefixes like 'Maharaja' and 'Princess' from their ongoing petitions. If not, their case would be dismissed. What applies to the 'House of Jaipur' should apply to all ex-princely-types prancing about with poncy titles.

These faux feudals could insist - with a smirk under their invisible handlebar moustaches - that their subjects... oops... 'the people' still call them by their 'amar chitra katha' names 'out of love and respect'. Well, they can choose other manifestations without having to resort to 'Rani' or 'Raja'. Unless, of course, it's Mukherjee and a not-too-popular brand of papad, respectively. And unless you're talking about period-costumed characters in that anachronistic monarchy where a king, queen, princesses, princes, dukes and the whole jingbang still live off the not-so-fat of the Eng-land.