A male birth is always anxiously awaited in Hindu families, especially where dynastic succession might depend on it. The birth of a son and heir-apparent to the princely house was an occasion for widespread rejoicing, as it was in every princely state when a potential ruler was born. Provided the boy was legitimate, his arrival was publicly acknowledged on a grand scale, even though the manner varied from place to place. Public holidays were declared, sweets were distributed from elephant back in the streets of the capital, gun salutes were fired.

In many other states, coronations and births of heirs were celebrated by the release of prisoners. 'On these two occasions all jails and lock-ups had to be emptied, then washed with milk and a black ram left tethered in them - and royally attended!'.

Other more traditional and more private ceremonies also had to be performed, among Hindus the jatkarma or birth ceremony at which the child was ritually cleansed before being allowed to suckle. Chichibai, an old maidservant who served five generations of the Rajput house of Pratapgarh, remembers how when the present Maharaja was born they performed the old Rajasthani custom of warding off the evil eye from the child: 'Immediately after the birth a goat kid was held over the mother and child by a Thakur (nobleman). It was rotated over their heads twenty-one times and then buried alive.

The next major Hindu ceremony took place on the tenth day when the baby's mother ceased to be regarded as impure. Her rooms were washed and, in the more simple homes, the walls re-plastered with fresh cow-dung. In palaces, other means of cleansing were employed. Padma Lokur, Princess of Bhor state, remembers how when her brother was born, 'many married women came to the palace with large vessels full of milk which was poured on the palace steps'.

On the twelth day the infant heir-apparent-known in Hindu princely families as the Yuvaraj - had his ears pierced and was given his name. The piercing was done by a hereditary goldsmith using two pieces of gold wire, for which he was usually rewarded with a new turban. The naming was done by an aunt on the father's side, although the actual name itself was one of four drawn up by the court astrologer. This ceremony usually began with the astrologer reading out the baby's horoscope, on which he had inscribed four auspicious names. The father then selected one which was whispered into the child's ear by his aunt, after which she gave his cradle a push with her hip. Here, too, evil spirits had to be deflected.

After that sugar was distributed and the name announced. As in all such rituals and ceremonies, there were local variations. There is a thali with rice spread on it and the father has to write the name on it using a gold ring.

In Hindu princely families the continuation of the ruling dynasty depended on there being a legitimate son to succeed his father, which made a son `a very precious commodity'.

The only exceptions were in the two matriarchal states of Travancore and Cochin where succession passed through the female line, by way of the ruler's eldest sister to her son. All wealth and property goes to the daughter, so normally people want a daughter in the family, just as most people elsewhere want a son. Nor did the rule of primogeniture prevail in the eighteen Muslim and salute states where, in theory, the heir presumptive or Walihad was chosen by the ruler on the basis of his personal qualities. In both Muslim and Hindu states the heir-presumptive had to be male; although here, too, there was one singular exception in the state of Bhopal, where a succession of three formidable Begums managed to secure recognition for themselves as rulers both from their subjects and from the British Crown Representative in India.
It followed that a ruler's female offspring were held in much lower regard than his sons. ‘Among us the birth of a daughter is not celebrated like the birth of a son’. It was Travancore and Cochin, where 'the gun was fired eighteen times for a girl and twenty-one for a boy', that provided the exceptions.

Direct father-to-son succession was important for all dynastic lineages and the more wives there were, the greater the chances of begetting potential heirs. Another no less compelling reason for plural marriages was the forging of political alliances. Under Islamic law, Muslims were limited to four wives, but allowed to divorce and remarry. For Hindus separation was possible, but not divorce, and there was no limit on marriages- although the due maintenance of wives and stepmothers was an inescapable obligation. But even among rulers Rama`s single marriage was always cited as the ideal.

The general impression needs to be corrected that Indian rulers all had several wives. For example, the late Maharajas of Kashmir, Mysore, Gwalior, Jodhpur, Nawanagar, Bhavnagar, and Porbandar - to mention a few that come to mind were married only once.

As well as plural marriage there was concubinage, widely accepted as a form of patronage which rulers and jagirdars of high estate bestowed on women by accepting them into their harems. Both the physically unprepossessing Seventh Nizam of Hyderabad, Osman Ali Pasha, and the magnificently robust Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala maintained such harems - but were very much in a class of their own. In addition to his four legal wives the Nizam maintained forty-two other Begums in the zanana quarters.

The offspring from these unofficial relationships were always well supported but never recognised as legitimate. In the Rajput states the sons were given the title of Rao Raja, a jagir of land and an allowance from their father but 'they could only marry at their level and not proper Rajputs', other Jagirdars' or Thakurs' children, nor eat from the same dish or drink from the same glass as the ruler's other children'.

For rulers without sons of their own there was always adoption, a time-honoured custom much practised at all levels of Hindu society. There was hardly a state in India without its share of adoptions, although in every case the adopted child had to come from the same family, even if it meant going back several generations to find a suitable relation.

Any house in which the ruling family of state lived was always the Rajmahal or palace, whether it consisted of four rooms or four hundred. It could be a medieval fort full of dark corners and narrow passages built up over many centuries, like most of the palaces of Rajputana, or an ultra-modern building designed by European architects.

During their early years of childhood both boys and girls lived in the part of the palace known as the zanana, reserved exclusively for the women of the household who lived in a state of purdah or seclusion. Only close male relatives and the most trusted of male servants had access and guards were always posted at the entrances.

During the day the royal infants would probably spend their time in a separate building outside the zanana looked after by nurses, ayahs and attendants, seeing their parents only for a brief period in the evening, for while there was the comfort of growing up "in a huge big family knowing you were protected", there was also the inescapable fact of which they very quickly became aware that they were the children of a ruler. They were growing up into a world where 'a maharaja was a maharaja even to his children' and where they themselves could never be regarded as anything but royal.

The servants would also be there along with the pattakars, so we were at least sixteen people going out and, of course, with all these people surrounding us we were caught if we tried to run. It was great fun trying to break away but there was this feeling of being closed in, like claustrophobia. I couldn't understand it then but I realise it now. There was no freedom. You couldn't go from one room to the next without having people following you to see what you were doing. There was not a moment to yourself recalls a princess.