Passage royale
Time is a great aggrandiser; a tribute to change; a metaphor for travel. As the pages of history turn, few episodes reflect the churn of time with as much nostalgia and drama as the stripping away of royal titles and privy purses. We record the passage of time, with four millennials from some erstwhile royal families, using journeys, both literal and metaphorical to document how travel has transitioned over generations.
Journeys were once more of a spectacle than about discovery and liveried retinue, monogrammed luggage, state carriages and private jets exemplified travel that was swaddled in rolls of etiquette and protocol. In contract, royals today enjoy spontaneous travel, flying solo for a skiing getaway, backpacking across Europe, waiting endlessly in the jungle for a leopard to be shot on a GoPro rather than on elephant back, to be mounted as a stuffed head on the wall. From Padmanabh Singh of Jaipur, who is promoting polo tourism to the royals of Mayurbhanj who have opened up a section of their 200-year-old palace for an artistsin-residence programme to
