Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma

"We are rulers on His behalf, I live because of His grace."

"When we have guests, my wife and I serve them sometimes. In fact, a mediaperson from Germany who probably expected me to dress in fine clothes, once mistook me for my secretary."

"From the age of eight, I have grown up in an atmosphere pervaded by religion. The State was surrendered to Lord Padmanabhaswamy in 1750 by my ancestor whose name I bear. Nothing is greater than this concept and since that day, every morning, the ruler has the tradition of rendering an account of the previous day's administrative events to the lord. Whether I can communicate this attachment and devotion to others — the younger people in the family — is what worries me. Are they in attendance at the right time at the temple? This alone bothers me."

"Sri Chithira Tirunal Maharaja was a visionary. Gandhiji came here after the Temple Entry Proclamation was made by my brother, throwing open the temples to all the castes. The Mahatma said it was not a trip but a pilgrimage. The carpet on which he sat is now a prized possession of the family."

"I am what I am because I was the son of a princess. Women have always been very educated and progressive in my family."

"She [Queen Elizabeth II] is a person of sharp memory and has great knowledge about India. I met her first in 1933 during my maiden visit to England. It was long before her coronation. She was then Princess Elizabeth. Her father, then Duke of York, was also there when I saw her."

"In 1954, I was invited to a tea party hosted in honour of the Queen in Bangalore. She came with her husband to the party held at the Vidhan Soudha. I was keen to meet the Queen personally. I conveyed my desire to Vijayalakshmi Pandit, sister of India's first premier Jawaharlal Nehru, who was present. She immediately facilitated a meeting with the Queen for me and my wife Radhadevi."

"You are the elayaraja (crown prince) of Travancore?' She then recollected our first meeting years back in England. I was amazed when she asked if Travancore was in the southern tip of India?"

"She had great knowledge about India. I again got startled when the Queen asked about my house in Bangalore. She said she had twice passed by my house at Nandi Hills during her visit to the place with the Maharaja of Mysore, who told her it belonged to the Elayaraja of Travancore."

"It is nice to see that the royal family of England has easily adapted to the changed times. They are well-trained to retain their memories, updated their knowledge and live according to the new conditions."

"If my knowledge is correct, the government in the United Kingdom even took away the tax concessions given to the Royals. But the British royal family seems to have no complaint about that. It is a rare quality," he said."

"We are the Cheras, one of the four erstwhile royal families of South India and have a long and dynastic family tree. By 1750 Travancore had become rich and big. So my ancestor, the then king, made a unique spiritual and historical contribution. He decided to surrender all his riches to the temple - Padmanabhaswamy is also our family deity. He said our family would look after that wealth, the temple and the kingdom forever. But he did want the ego that comes with possessing it. He was influenced by Emperor Ashoka's catharsis in the killing fields of Kalinga. So he declared our family to be Padmanabha's 'dasas', devotees. A servant can resign his job, but a dasa can do so only when he dies."

"I have to go back a bit in time, to explain why. Everybody thinks that we Indians first rose against British colonial rule in 1857. In 1741, Travancore was the only Asian power to defeat the Dutch when they arrived here. After the battle, all the Dutch soldiers kneeled before my ancestors. One Dutchman, Benedictus Eustachius, even joined our army. We called him the Great Kapitan. Later, I learned that he was [US president] Franklin Roosevelt's ancestor when the latter's grandson came to look at our historical records."

"Then in 1839, almost two decades before the mutiny, we rose against the British. Our punishment was severe. They disbanded our police and army of 50,000, transferred our capital to Kollam, dumped two British regiments on us, and ordered us to pay for their upkeep. Thomas Munroe named himself Diwan of Travancore. When our spirit still did not flag, they brought in missionaries. But we did not get gobbled up by Western thought. We travel abroad occasionally, but it has not affected or changed our simple way of life. Why am I telling you this? So that you get an idea of how much our life has revolved around our faith, despite so many outside influences and kept us going."

"He was educated by 14 palace tutors. He remembered a childhood stay with his mother in London, when he folded up as a paper boat a doctors’ report about his being too fat, and set it adrift on the Thames, so that she would not see it. He studied economics at Travancore University, and was a Sanskrit scholar."

"Later, he graduated from the then Travancore University with specialization in Economics, Politics and History. The varsity honoured him with Moncombu Aandi Iyer Gold Medal for being the best student in Sanskrit."

"He took over as the head of the Travancore royal family, following the death of his elder brother Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma (the last ruling monarch of the kingdom of Travancore) in 1991."

"He held the prestigious post as trustee of the famous Padmanabaswamy temple, which is deemed as the richest temple in the country."

"He had varied interests including photography, sports and motoring. He has won trophies as an amateur horse rider and has even played table hockey, tennis, football and polo."

"His passion for photography from a tender age and it was his brother, the last ruler of Travancore, Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, who presented him his first camera. With the Rolleiflex camera presented to him in 1934 he learned the basics of photography and then there was no looking back."

"His passion for photography took him to take an air sortie on the VTAYK aircraft that the Travancore Royal Family owned in 1939, all over the erstwhile Travancore region."

"During his Bangalore days he was a motor enthusiastic who clocked 4 million miles in his Mercedes Benz 180 D.. During those days Mercedes used to honour drivers who crossed one-lakh miles and it had presented him with 10 medals."

"His favourite car, the copper blue 180D Mercedes Benz, was in his possession till he breathed his last. A person with varied interests, he had to his credit several trophies won as an amateur horse rider at various places in the country."

"The man still called “king” in Travancore, south India, found himself the centre of world attention in his nineties in June 2011 when the temple hoard of which he was guardian came to light. The rubies, diamonds, 18ft gold chains, golden bows and arrows, gold umbrellas, coins, and diadems piled in six vaults under the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Trivandrum, Travancore’s capital, were estimated as being worth £26 billion."

"He remained well-loved, and presided over about 200 ceremonies annually such as the deity’s sea-bathing. He received visitors including, in 2013, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, and, farther back, Somerset Maugham, Agatha Christie and Eleanor Roosevelt, who noted the matrilineal rules of succession, saying she did not understand them, but thought they were good for women"

"I went to a State at the extreme tip of India. Here the king's son is not the king, but the king's sister is a very important person. Anyway, it is very good for the women."

"When Lord Mountbatten came visiting in 1948, it was he [Uthradom Thirunal] who led a cavalry demonstration. It is said that Mountbatten was greatly impressed and congratulated him."