Wine, women and song

There are at least three accounts of why Bishnu Shumsher Rana had to leave Nepal. In the first, news reached the ears of his father, the prime minister, that Bishnu had committed a cardinal sin in Calcutta by eating beef. Family disapproval ultimately led Bishnu to depart Nepal.

             Another credible report was that Bishnu was suffering from leucoderma that results in white patches on the skin. Bishnu got word the prime minister was using this as a pretext to send him into exile, so he quietly left for Calcutta, then on to England.

             Another reason could be what was cited in Nepal Under the Ranas, a book by Adrian Sever:

‘Young, wealthy and English-educated, Vishnu Shamsher found the conservative and austere atmosphere of the Rana court intolerable. He secreted his money out of Nepal, obtained a passport by fraudulent means and then, in violation of all caste restrictions, slipped out of the country and set sail from Bombay for the high life of Europe, mailing his resignation from the Roll of Succession back to the Prime Minister along the way. Bhim Shamsher was so upset by the whole affair that Bal Kumari [Bishnu’s mother] thought it prudent to move to Calcutta.’

             Kaiser Shumsher, older brother of Bishnu, noted in his diary that Shankar Shumsher came to Kaiser’s home on 16 April 1931, ‘and we talked about BH’ (Babu Hazur referring to Bishnu). Another person present (identified by initials only) ‘remarked his going was the greatest blot on the family to which I (Kaiser) could not help remarking he (Bishnu) had lost Nepal but gained the world’. 

             On the 21st, letters arrived from Bishnu, and as Kaiser read them, ‘tears streamed down my cheeks in spite of myself’. Bishnu’s property in Nepal had been confiscated. 

             Bishnu’s wrote postcards home from Aden and Macedonia. Kaiser records in his diary that Prime Minister Bhim said he had heard that Bishnu had left Nepal with 72 lakh Indian rupees, the value of which today would be nearly $2 million.

            In early May 1931, Prime Minister Bhim wrote to ask a British official ‘to help (Bishnu)’. Later that month, his brothers received Bishnu’s letters from Marseilles. From there, Bishnu made his way to England, where his wife soon joined him. On 17 August 1931, Bishnu’s only known child, Pitamber, was born in London.

             Now freed from the constraints of Nepali society, and with a wife who like many Nepali women of her time, turned a blind eye to the escapades of her husband, Bishnu was ‘free’ to pursue a life of ‘wine, women and song’. 

Read also: Inside story of Nepal's Rana dynasty, Kunda Dixit

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            Bishnu left Southampton for America in July 1933 accompanied by brother-in-law, Raja Jai Prithivi Bahadur Singh, son of the Bajhang Raja and husband of Chandra Shumsher’s oldest daughter. 

             Singh was educated in India and became a founder and editor of Nepal’s first newspaper, the Gorkhapatra. He published a book on humanism in Nepali in 1913 and advocated educational and social reforms that displeased Chandra Shumsher. 

             Jai Prithivi left Nepal in 1916, first settling in Nainital and later in Bangalore, where he established the Humanistic Club. He was invited to Chicago to address the Second World Parliament of Religion meeting in August 1933 and visit the World’s Fair Exhibition in Chicago. 

             Bishnu Shumsher and Jai Prithivi sailed together on the Bremen and reached New York on 26 July, 1933. We will recognise Bishnu Shumsher as the second Nepali to set foot on American soil. (The first, Padma Sundar Malla, had reached San Francisco from Yokohama in 1917 and studied at the University of Illinois.) Bishnu returned to London after a few weeks in America. 

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            Bishnu’s first American girlfriend was Mary Dorothy Rambo, or Sandra Rambeau as she later called herself. She was beautiful, blonde and lucky. Unable to get a stage role on Broadway, Sandra seized an opportunity to see the world (and perhaps a wealthy husband in the process). 

Sandra signed on as a member of the ‘Midnight Follies’ at a salary of $75 per month. Follies shows usually involved scantily-clad women dancing on a nightclub stage before men seated below, eating and drinking. It was at London’s Dorchester Hotel that Sandra met Bishnu Shumsher in the autumn of 1933. It was a whirlwind romance, and after Sandra had returned to California, papers across America breathlessly announced that a California girl was soon to marry a ‘Prince of India’, third-in-line to become the maharaja of Nepal, confusing the King of Nepal with the Rana prime minister.

             Sandra said she and ‘Bish’ planned to reside outside India until the prince succeeded to the throne of Nepal. She showed photos of herself with the prince to her family and stated she would sail to France, then go to Genoa, where she would meet her fiancé. They would then marry in London. After marriage, she wanted to live in Paris, but Bishnu insisted on a suburb of London. When questioned further about her prince, Sandra said:

‘It was a case of love at first sight, for he proposed to me a week after our first meeting. My romance with the prince, which started in London, will thrive in London, despite the fact that the prince has a wife in Nepal. As far as his being married is concerned, Indian princes usually have several wives.’

             One article noted that Prince Bishnu was ‘fabulously wealthy' and had ‘$3 million of his own in gold and is heir to the royal family’s bulging treasure chests'. American readers must have marvelled at this ordinary American showgirl becoming the Maharani of Nepal.

            Confident of her future, Sandra sailed from Los Angeles in February 1934. Bishnu issued a statement in India that he was going to Genoa to meet the Princess of Nepal (his wife) and their child and accompany them to London for the season. Upon arriving at Genoa, Sandra checked into the same hotel where Bishnu’s wife and child were staying, but said that did not ‘disturb her’.

             We do not know the details of what happened when Bishnu arrived in Genoa. Did Bishnu inform her that the Nepal government had pressured him not to marry her? There was no marriage, and the British, ‘upset at the idea of an American chorus girl’s becoming a princess of strategic Nepal’ refused to issue her an Indian visa.

            Sandra continued to exert her seductive charms on rich and famous men. Prince George, the youngest son of King George of England, was also smitten with Sandra. He saw her perform at a seaside resort in southwest France, sent her love letters, and gave her a ring of diamonds and rubies. The King sternly intervened, and George soon married a Greek princess. 

             Bishnu’s wandering eye continued to wander. This time it was ‘ravishing’ Edith Roark, also a Folies Bergere dancer, who attracted the ardent attentions of Prince Ibrahim of Egypt. While Edith claimed her two rivals ‘became violently jealous of each other', Sandra did not stand idly by, because she still liked Bishnu. 

             Sandra confronted Edith in a hotel lobby in England. ‘There were screeches and hair-pulling and harsh, peppery epithets.’

             Prince Bishnu continued to provide reporters with good copy:

‘Prince Bishnu of Nepal … reported that his subjects used to present him with the equivalent of his weight in gold on all his birthdays. He told us that it began on his first birthday. “Were you weighed in the nude?” the prince was asked. “No, I wore a diaper” he said, “not only for the sake of modesty, but also for the added weight”.’

             In 1935 Bishnu purchased a Rolls Royce in London, the same year that a portrait of ‘Princess of Bishnu of Nepal’ was painted and exhibited at an art show held at the Royal Institute Galleries in Piccadilly. 

             Bishnu returned to America in October 1938 on the Queen Mary. With him was Hatim Attari, a merchant in London, originally from Swat, now in Pakistan. Attari functioned as a lawyer-secretary to Bishnu and was the executor of Bishnu’s estate in 1946. 

             At a dinner Bishnu gave for fifteen guests at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, ‘pearls and emeralds were passed out as dinner favors’. Bishnu  left New York in late November and returned to England on the ship Normandie.

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             World War II broke out in 1939, and Bishnu decided to seek safety in America unaccompanied by his wife or child, but with Attari in tow. 

             Soon, ’Prince Bishnu’ began appearing in newspaper columns written by two nationally famous gossip writers, Walter Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen. Bishnu began courting another American actress: ‘Prince Bishnu of Nepal, India, and Jean Carmen of Man Who Came to Dinner. Sends her orchids every night and diamond brooches to pin them with.’ 

             Appropriately, Jean had played a ‘gold digger’ in the 1938 Three Stooges’ comedy Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb. She was blonde, blue-eyed and 26 years old when Bishnu met her at a Broadway theater.

             Three months later, a society column reported: ‘Prince Bishnu of Nepal, India, wants to return there, but can’t get a visa for Stephanie Markin, former show gal in American Jubilee. She’s his Girl Friday at the Hotel Madison.’  He and Stephanie broke up, but readers were reassured in April that ‘Prince Bishnu and his dream girl, Stephanie, have reconciled.’ 

             One writer described Stephanie as ‘a tall, beautiful, flaming-tressed Venus and former showgirl'. The reason why Stephanie wanted to reconcile was clear: ‘Stephanie Markin is wearing the biggest diamond [New York] has seen in years. They say Prince Bishnu is changing his will, making her an heir.’

             In May of 1941 this interesting news tidbit appeared: 

‘Prince Bishnu of Nepal, reputedly such a solid spender, can’t move from his (New York) hotel to Oyster Bay—because he’s out of funds. The lad who’s been showering so much champagne on the gals about town can’t pay his own rent, because his money hasn’t come through from England.’ 

             This led another paper to comment sarcastically: ‘the light-headed moths who flutter around Prince Bishnu don’t know that he is just a remittance man.’ 

            Marooned in New York during a hot 1941 summer, Bishnu continued to frequent nightclubs. He struck up a friendship with the 27-year-old showgirl Honeychile Wilder. Patricia Wilder came from Georgia and had ‘taken New York by storm’ when she arrived there in 1934. 

             One reason Bishnu may have appealed to the young nightclub performers was that he apparently was not a loud and boastful suitor. He was a good listener as one columnist noted: ‘Prince Bishnu of Nepal is the best audience in town for glamor girls, because he always listens very attentively and rarely says anything himself.’

             By July, 1941, Bishnu’s drinking was impairing his health: 

‘Playboy Prince Bishnu’s doctors allow him to gallivant only two days a week now; the other five days he must spend at a Westchester [New York] rest home.’

             That September, readers of society pages came upon this startling news:

‘Prince Bishnu of Nepal, Broadway’s most eccentric playboy, has left the country with the aid of the British Government—and you should see the process servers he left behind him! 

             Playboy Prince Bishnu, who cut such a swath among the local gold-diggers when he was playing the Broadway beat, has been ‘quarantined’ in Nassau indefinitely by order of the British foreign office.’

            October’s news was that ‘local creditors still are whistling for their money, despite British Government assurances they would be paid. (Prince Bishnu) owes one New York hotel $4,500.’

            Finally in November, it was stated that ‘the British government has paid all the bills run up by Prince Bishnu of Nepal at the Madison, so now His Highness can have his 32 trunks that were being held.’

            In 1931 Bishnu Shumsher had gone voluntarily into exile from Nepal. Now ten years later, he had been exiled involuntarily from the United States.

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             Nepal's Minister in London, Singha Shumsher, was necessarily involved with his younger brother’s activities. Singha was the middleman relaying funds to Bishnu in America. Singha may have felt that Bishnu’s reckless spending habits had to be brought under control and that his escapades did not reflect well upon the Rana family and the image of Nepal. He also knew that Bishnu’s health had taken a turn for the worse.

            What was to be done with ‘Major General’ Bishnu? London was still under bombardment by the Nazis, so his return there was not advisable. Commercial flights and ocean travel to India were restricted due to the war. 

             The Bahamas in 1941 was governed by the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, the closest British colony to America, only 185 miles south of Miami. Nassau had a warm climate, good medical facilities and undoubtedly a few raunchy nightclubs. So the British government ordered Bishnu Shumsher to leave New York and stay in Nassau ‘indefinitely’. 

           In April 1942, gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote that Prince Bishnu was very ill in a Nassau hospital. He was calling New York three times a day to chat with his old friends. In March 1943, the scoop was that Bishnu wanted to return to the US from Nassau, but British authorities would not allow it. 

            Documents in the British Library show that in 1944 England’s Board of Inland Revenue was investigating Bishnu’s shady if not illegal business activities:

‘It appears that through the operations of a multiplicity of companies engaged in the whisky trade, in diamond trafficking, exploiting of patents, etc., (Bishnu and Attari) have defrauded the Inland Revenue of sums estimated at a total of over 500,000 pounds—on whiskey alone 450,000 pounds. Prince Bishnu supplies the capital, Attari, the brains. The affairs of the several companies are intricately interwoven, and the joint or separate responsibility of Bishnu and Attari in all of them is difficult to determine.’

            Once Inland Revenue had prepared its case, a diplomat recommended it would be best to discuss with the Nepalese Minister the desirability of effecting a settlement out of court, so as to avoid publicity and a politically undesirable scandal. How much the Nepal government had to pay to settle this case is not known.

            In June 1944, a paper noted: ‘Prince Bishnu is flying from Nassau to Canada to consult physicians.’ Two months later Bishnu had moved to Newfoundland ‘for his health’, but that autumn he returned to Nassau.

            A Nassau paper reported this news in February 1946:

‘Prince Bishnu Shamsher, 39, son of the late Maharajah of Nepal, was found dead in bed (February 4). The cause of his death is under investigation.

             When a nurse saw him at 4 a.m. he was apparently well and ordered breakfast for 8 a.m.

             Prince Bishnu who lived in Nassau for four and a half years directed in his will his body be sent to Miami for cremation and the ashes sent to his secretary, Hatim Attari, in London for shipment to India. 

             Government doctors said they are satisfied Prince Bishnu died of natural causes. It was learned however that sections of the intestines and brain may be sent to a laboratory in the United States for further tests.’

             Dr. H.A. Quackenbush, Bishnu’s personal physician, testified before a coroner’s jury that the prince was a chronic alcoholic and subject to alcoholic fits. 

             News of Bishnu’s death quickly reached Nepal. Kaiser Shamsher noted in his diary: ‘Singha Shamsher was trying to get Bishnu’s body from Nassau to London and Benares as desired by his mother.’ On 6 March, Kaiser and Prime Minister Padma Shumsher discussed plans to have a plane return Bishnu’s body to India. 

            Bishnu’s body was brought back to Banaras, and a procession carried his casket through the streets to a ghat by the river. There Bishnu Shumsher was cremated. 

             The Nepal government paid expenses to fly his body to Banares, just as his Rana kin had helped defray his expenses while he was living the life of a prince in England and America. Ironically, the ashes of the man who had rebelled against the strictures of the Hindu way of life were scattered in the sacred Ganges River. 

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            In November 1938, an American psychologist, commenting on the Sandra Rambeau saga, wrote an article entitled, ‘Why the British Princes Fall for the American Girls’. Substituting ‘Prince Bishnu’ for the British princes he referred to, the similarities between the upbringing and lives of British royalty and Nepal’s Prince Bishnu are clear. Excerpts from this 1938 article: 

‘The most democratic thing in all the world is human instinct, which is the same in a royal baby as in the child of his poorest subject. And the strongest of all instincts is self-will—the urge to enjoy life and enjoy it in one’s own way. The self-will of every child has to be disciplined to meet the requirements of the social group that he belongs to. Think, for instance, not only how “well behaved” but how dignified the present Princess Elizabeth [later Queen] has been trained to be whenever she is seen in public. Her natural instincts must have been subjected to a pressure which few children could stand without having an almost irresistible impulse some time to “cut loose” and act as they please.

             But this impulse to rebellion may get to the point where it is psychologically impossible to restrain it, and [a prince] must find an outlet for his repressed instincts. If he does not, he will either turn into a complete nonentity or become an acute neurotic—frequently both. On the other hand, the outbreaks of rebellion are likely to take extreme forms, as the history of many royal escapades has demonstrated.

             One form which the need to rebel often takes is “falling in love” with a person who seems to embody our lost freedom. For a prince, no one can do this better than a girl who is “of the people” and has grown up without the restrictions that have bound him—a girl from America above all.

             The stricter the discipline, the harder this adjustment is, and the stronger is our desire to rebel against it. But there probably is no child who is disciplined as rigidly as the one who is born into a palace. From babyhood such a child is hemmed in by a system of “court etiquette” which forbids the display of almost any normal feeling.’

             This observation seems still valid: Prince Harry, son of King Charles, marrying American actress Meghan Markle. 

            It is the whole idea of royalty from which a young man [prince] is apt to revolt. No one brought up in a country like [America] can take royal birth as seriously as a person who from childhood has been trained to reverence the King with almost superstitious fervor.

             I am sure that with Miss Rambeau, Prince George [read “Bishnu”] felt immeasurably freer than he would with anyone whose attitude kept making him remember the “position” he needed so much to get away from. 

             A girl of the theater [nightclubs] would represent freedom to him more so than one whom he met in more conventional surroundings. The theater itself (like the movies) is a way of “escape” and so puts one in the mood to let down the bars of his inhibitions. Kings and princes have given evidence of this as far back as there was a theater—from the time when Nell Gwynn ruled the heart of King Charles II to the days of Prince George’s grandfather, afterward King Edward VI, whose devotion to the ladies of the state, especially the lovely Lily Langtry, was a favorite scandal back in Queen Victoria’s reign.

             There is another reason why Prince George “fell so hard” for Miss Rambeau and his elder brother [The Duke of Windsor] for the woman [the divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson] for whom he gave up his throne. This is an unconscious psychological reaction which is sometimes called “the flight from mother.” For with all the love a mother gives her children, it is usually she who first takes on the task of “breaking their wills” and forcing them into the accepted social pattern. But the more completely she becomes associated in their minds with discipline and the denial of their wishes, the more likely they are in their moments of rebellion to look for a woman as unlike her as they possibly can find. 

             Queen Victoria, for all her greatness as a ruler, was a martinet in dealing with her children—as in fact she was with nearly everyone who came in contact with her. Never in history were “court etiquette” and social morals upheld quite as strictly as in her time, and even today the word “Victorian” means puritanical and rigid. Is it strange that her son should have had his moments of rebellion against everything she stood for and been most at ease with women who were everything she was not.

             So it was partly in defiance of her—or in “flight from her—that the son she had tried hardest to train married an American, who was as different from her as one woman could be from another.”

             Bishnu Shumsher never could have met young women like Sandra Rambeau and Patricia Wilder in Nepal, and continued to pursue similarly vivacious American showgirls until he was exiled to Nassau. 

The author thanks Himalaya SJB Rana and Lok Bhakta Rana for the information on Bishnu Shamsher. Subodh Rana has written about Bishnu’s life in Nepal on his blog.