Snapshot · Empire: World History
Princess Bamba died of a heart attack in Lahore in 1957 aged 87; her funeral was arranged by the British High Commission and there were no Sikhs present at the ceremony.
Where this was said
At 42:30 · chapter starts 40:30
In 1957, with Pakistan already going wrong and Piyaji her last real link to the outside world, Bamba died of a heart attack aged 87. The city she had chosen was Sikh-free: there was no one left to say the final prayers. The funeral was arranged by the British Deputy High Commission — the institution representing the very empire she had spent her life opposing. She would have been appalled. She was buried at Lahore's Christian cemetery on Jail Road under a Christian cross, as she had lived: a Christian, whatever anyone else wanted her to be. [1] — William Dalrymple "When Bamba died in 1957 at 87, there were no Sikhs left in Lahore to pray for her. The funeral was arranged by the British Deputy High Comm…" 42:30 On her tombstone, translated for the Pakistani Dawn newspaper: a Persian couplet from the 13th-century poet Saadi — 'The difference between royalty and civility vanishes when the bones are dug up.' Her entire collection of Sikh-era paintings, watercolours, miniatures, and manuscripts passed to Piyaji, and is now on display in the Bamba Museum inside Lahore Fort — five minutes' walk from the house she had bought to reclaim her grandfather's kingdom. Her house is long demolished, her roses gone, almost every physical trace of her erased. Anita closes by teasing the fourth episode: the two daughters Bamba tried to erase — Princess Pauline and Princess Irene, born of Ada Wetherall, the chambermaid — one dying in an unmarked French grave, the other walking into the sea at Monte Carlo aged 26, leaving a note reading 'I am homeless.'
When Bamba died in 1957 at 87, there were no Sikhs left in Lahore to pray for her. The funeral was arranged by the British Deputy High Commissioner — the very establishment she had spent her life fighting. She was buried under a Christian cross in a Pakistani cemetery with a Persian couplet from the poet Saadi on her stone.
Bamba's collection of Sikh-era paintings, watercolours, miniatures, and manuscripts passed to her Muslim companion Piyaji on her death. They are now housed in the Bamba Museum inside Lahore Fort — the very fort she moved near at the start of her quest to reclaim her grandfather's kingdom.
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