American women trekking far off places for royal men is nothing new
Dumb-ass Harry who’s wed to Me-Me-Me Meghan is suing everyone this side of Bulgaria.
A repeat story is that certain American females knowingly schlep to far-off exotic places.
They itch to meet the cashier of their dreams. Once there they grab onto some nothing princeling. It’s a B movie.
A lifetime ago I flew a one-engine kite from Calcutta to Bagdogra, a clearing that serviced northern India’s minuscule kingdom of Sikkim.
I was going to meet its then-First Lady Hope Cooke, a Yank out of Seal Harbor, Maine, by way of Sarah Lawrence. She had met this prince of a guy on some visit to Darjeeling where — instead of tea — she got him.
A royal equerry — cardboard suit, nail file-pointed shoes, speaking no English, half-bowing walk — met my plane and escorted me to my royal coach. A jeep. With golden flagstaff. No doors.
Eight hours later we chugged into Gangtok, this vertical kingdom twixt India and Tibet, 5,500 feet up the Himalayas. Halfway my mud-logged chariot on its dirt highway got stuck. A clearly super high-class VIP guest like me got locked in some crappy swamp.
Ruled once by the mighty khans, Sikkim is 2,700 square miles. Sheep, goats, elephants. Oxen have the right of way. Huts are houses. Nearest technology is in Rhode Island. Women in nose rings tote burdens atop their heads.
The palace? High on a crest. Salmon-colored. Emerald lawns. Servants approach on their knees. I saw a parked Mercedes. Flags fly. Private chapel. Uniformed adjutants. Military guard corps. Aides-de-camp aiding everywhere. Her visitors book had the name Angie Dickinson in it.
“Gyalmo” means queen. “Chogyal” is king. Listen, beats Forest Hills.
“I have Sikkimese citizenship,” explained this New England Gyalmo. “I have renounced my American citizenship but I return every two years to visit.” Yeah. Lotsa luck.
So where is she now? Back here — minus servants on their knees — in the United States of God Bless America. And unwilling to receive any of us — including we commoners who knew her when. Hey, listen, once a temp semi queen always a temp semi queen.
Lunch in downtown Sikkim back then was some noodle something served on hand-carved coffee tables by barefoot servants. Over my noodle she told me, “My people are not striving.” OK. And then this New Englander explained I was to address her as “Your Majesty.” Yeah.
She told me back then: “We grow flowers, play music. Sikkimese haven’t much money. Most have their own plot of ground, own animals. I’d like to export to United States our Sikkimese relaxedness. Sense of peace. We are not progressive, not striving.”
Yeah. OK. Great idea. May this ex Gyalmo start in Bushwick.
In ’63 she wed Palden Thondup Namgyal, its 12th king. The monarchy began in the 1600s. The marriage ended in ’80. The country is now India’s 22nd state.
I already know how Gyalmo queens eat. I now know how sports types eat. The night before champ Josh Taylor did his boxing thing at MSG he did Denis Morovic’s nearby DK restaurant. The guy flattened a porterhouse bigger than his opponent.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.
