I enter a space that is contemporary and yet exudes a certain bygone charm. Immediately welcoming and somewhat inhibiting. Already, a flight of broken steps had taken me down towards the sea, an unusual part of Mumbai, this too redolent of another era reflected in old stained glass, partly falling to pieces. But now I am being greeted by a tall lady, gracious in her loungewear – a long black khadi kurta and stylishly cut off trousers. Her attitude to clothes, I notice, is casual with a marked preference for the uncluttered. Priti Devi is a ‘princess’ of Kapurthala, proud of her heritage and yet totally immersed in the fortitudes of modern living. Global advisor for environment and sustainable development, Royal Dutch Shell Company, she is surrounded in her home by paintings of contemporary Indian artists rather than portraits of royalty, dhurries that have replaced priceless carpets and coffee table books and photo frames that speak of Indian princes, fabulous palaces and an amazing life gone by. Priti has travelled and lived around the world. I wonder if she craves the luxurious trappings of another age.

She decorously pours tea from a silver service on a silver tray on a table laden with snacks. Some fresh orange roses shimmer in a modern glass vase. This is the hospitality of another more gracious time, before the invention of tea bags. I nudge her back, to her childhood. What does she remember of royal living? “Our childhood was magical,” she says, “in two elegant and sophisticated homes. For us, these were just homes and not palaces that we, as kids – siblings Gayatri Devi and Shatrujit Singh (Tikka) and a cousin close in age – ran around in. What did strike me as we grew up to appreciate this elegance, was how sophisticated and ‘western’ our homes were compared to the more equally beautiful, more traditional Indian forts and palaces of other royal families we visited. I suppose this was the result of the ‘European’ influence that impacted the taste and style of my great grandfather, H.H. Jagatjit Singh.” This dashing and stylish ancestor was known to be an intrepid traveller with a love for Europe. The main palace he built in Kapurthala, with ornate interiors and Renaissance-style painted ceilings, was influenced by the Château de Versailles. Kapurthala came to be called the ‘Paris of the Punjab’ and “We have all inherited a little of those preferences,” she admits.

Priti Devi remembers the state guards who would line the driveways and salute the car when it drove past. The children would love the crackling salutes and imitate them. And, even as western styles, little French dresses and ruffled shirts for the boys spoke of a world view, the Sikhs never forgot their proud heritage. Even “our Sikh staff were wonderful and respectful and very proud, so there was no grovelling and subservient behaviour from them.” The children had to follow strict rules. Both homes had the ‘children’s wing’. They ate in a separate dining room and were watched over by the main governess and maids. “My father (HH Sukhjit Singh) is a wonderful, humble, gracious person but was a strict parent. His own disciplined upbringing and military exposure as a young man made him rather serious and as a result we have always had a loving, respectful but formal relationship with him.”

Priti Devi’s earliest, most ‘precious’ memory is of her mother, HH Gita Devi, dressed in her chiffons and silks, ready for a night out, walking through the palace corridors wafting perfume, always Shalimar, which she wears to this day. “My mother is for me the Diva of all Divas,” she says. “She is a mother and best friend, something I try and emulate with our daughter, Shaiyra Devi. All our family values, heritage knowledge and pride was imparted to us by her.” Priti remembers winters in Kapurthala, summers in Mussoorie, an entourage of cars winding up the hills, one with members of the family, another with butlers and maids, picnics on the way. And she relates the perfection of those outdoor meals with exquisite tablecloths and matching cutlery all laid out, created by her mother. “She has more class in her little finger than any mega-rich woman today,” she says, in an unguarded moment.