Indian passion

Javier Moro’s book, based on true story, is a peculiar blend of novel, historical analysis, and travelogue. The author primarily draws a vivid portrait of two great personalities, a man and a woman, about their fairytale encounter and dramatic separation. Anita Delgado was the bridging daughter of a slipped Malaga, and at the age of 16 she danced with her sister in a music café in Madrid. Among the guests of the trendy café was a 34-year-old Indian Maharaja who went crazy at first glance to the pretty, madonna-faced dancer with a natural humor. At first, Anita's parents resisted the siege of the "king of the nutmegs" hard, fearing the integrity of their daughter for fear, but when the Maharaja offered to teach Anita French, English, tennis, horseback riding and social customs in Paris for a year, then in the French capital , before moving to India, they gave in. Jagatjit Singh made no secret of the fact that Anita was his fifth wife, but the other women lived separately in the harem, and the Maharaja had a luxurious palace built where he lived his young ara in a European way. Ana was already pregnant in India and soon had a baby son. European and Indian customs mingled in his everyday life; she traveled extensively with her husband, and many of the famous personalities and artists of the age took part in their lives (in addition, Anita's first suitor, the Spanish painter Anselmo Nieto, had a good friend Picasso and later (already in Europe) Anita's girlfriend, including Josephine Baker). In addition to historical fidelity, Javier Moro brings the fate of the royal couple wonderfully, true to the expectations of the novel genre. He included in his book the world of the Thousand and One Nights, the erotic bacchanalias, the special attraction of the Maharajas to jewelry, the splendor of the palaces, the sparkle of the Rolls-Royces, the tiger hunts. The right to film the book was bought by Penélope Cruz, a Hollywood superstar who is Almodóvar’s favorite actress. (The author will arrive in Hungary for the presentation of the volume at the end of October.)