SHE reminded me, a little sadly, of a lioness in winter. The Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, at 82, has grown beyond being one of Time magazine's most beautiful women of the world. And the handsome face has grown with the body, almost leonine in its looks, the hair still thick and lustrous, but now silver-grey and pushed back. Barefooted, she softly padded around the Lily Pool, her apartment block in the Rambagh Palace of Jaipur, and led me to the dining table where lunch and her step-grandson, Vijit Singh, waited.

It was a Rajasthani lunch, half Marwar, half Rajput, prepared by Chef Sandip Kalia of the Rambagh Palace. He is a Taj man, so I was confident the food would be good, even if I were to regret its richness later on. Apparently the Rajmata dislikes rich, oily food too. Delicately she broke a piece of roti, dipped it in Papad Ki Sabzi, and nibbled. Then she scowled, and ticked off Chef Kalia who was standing respectfully behind. "Chef, jyada tel dala hai Papad Ki Sabzi mein! Kaun sa tel hai? Vegetable oil! Kiya nam kai? Vital! Pahle bar suna!"

"Would you say you are a gourmet," I asked, coming to the poor man's rescue. "Not a gourmet. I'm no longer interested in food. Or what I eat. Any old thing the cook in this house makes will do," she replied. This is the Princess who in 1969 brought out a compilation of royal recipes called the Gourmet's Gateway to raise funds for Indian soldiers wounded in wars against Pakistan and China. I reminded her about it.

The Rajmata clicked her tongue irritably. "Of course, I enjoy a good meal. I'll tuck into it! But I'm saying, I don't eat as much as before. As you grow old, food does not matter. And if you're going to ask me whether I like cooking, I don't! I cannot cook. I learnt how to cook at this Lausanne finishing school in Switzerland, but I'm hopeless. I'm not gifted."

Perhaps she could not cook. And maybe age had robbed her of her interest for good food. But the Rajmata had happy memories of the royal banquets and shikars she had attended in the past. I guessed she was a colourful raconteur. Only this was not the proper occasion to get her to open up. There are some members of Indian noble families who love to talk about themselves and their royal habits, and will do so happily anywhere.

And there are others who will give Trappist monks a complex if the decorum is not correct. So I asked the Rajmata about her favourite cuisine. "Bengali," she replied promptly. "Why Bengali? Because my home was Cooch Behar in West Bengal, that's why, and Bengali cuisine is good. It's not just hilsa and bekti, that's uppercrust, there's so much more."

She made a valiant attempt to recall the menus of her youth. "There was this dish of tiny, tiny prawns (she held up her little finger to show how tiny) that used to be cooked in mustard oil... can't remember what it used to be called." After crinkling up her her eyes and staring into the distance, the Rajmata had a brainwave. "I know," she told her step-grandson Vijit. "Get your mother on the 'phone!" We left the dining room and trooped into the Rajmata's office.

When you dine with royalty, you do as Her Highness does, I thought sourly. A phone call was made to Cooch Behar. Fortunately, the connection came through and the line was clear. "Devika," the Rajmata said, coming to the point, "what's that fish we used to have at what-you-call-its house? Ilish something in mustard oil? Paturi Macch... no! That's different. This is made out of dal, its nice and crispy, dal ka banta hai... You don't know! What else we used to like, Bengali mein? Sandesh, yes that's it! Thank you, my dear, you've done my interview for me!"

I had heard enough not to quiz her further on her eating habits of the past. Or to want to have too intimate a look into the extraordinary life of one of the world's most fascinating women. Looking at her now seated at her desk, a cigarette between her fingers and lunch forgotten, I thought back to what little I knew of the Rajmata. That she was the daughter of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar and the widow of the Maharaja of Jaipur.

She was raised in a magnificent palace with 500 servants and had shot her first panther when she was 12. After she had won a seat in parliament (for the Swatantra Party) in 1960, John F. Kennedy (yes, JFK!) had described her as the woman with the most staggering majority that anyone had ever won in an election. That she has appeared on lists of the world's most beautiful women. And has had to face tragedies as great as her former triumphs.

There was much more, of course, because the Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur is also one of the world's most written-about women. But I brought her back to the dining room gently. Chef Kalia was serving out Murg Mokul and Gatta Curry and the Rajmata looked at the food disfavourably. The chef's heart must have sank. "What other cuisines do you like," I quickly asked, before she could start on him again. "In the olden days, paya in Bombay.

I used to eat so much! But now, hmnnn... let me think, Chinese, no Thai, yes, more Thai. Though I cannot bear coconut in my food. Life was such a whirl of socialising and entertaining earlier. I don't do it anymore. I've become lazy. My cook has also become lazy! Kuch bhi bana dalta hai! I order the food from Rambagh Palace now. It's less of a hassle. And I have fewer guests. A party for Diwali, sometimes not. But I select the menu. I'm particular about that."

The Rajmata's dinners at home used to be the talk of Jaipur. I remember Subir Bhowmik of the Taj Group of Hotels telling me how she planned to have a party at the height of Indira Gandhi's Emergency, when she was not in favour and shortly about to be clapped in prison. Mr. Bhowmik was then the general manager of the Rambagh Palace. Gently, he tried to persuade the Rajmata not to have the party. "It is not the right time," he warned her.

"People are watching you." And the Rajmata had drawn herself up and said scornfully, "These people are watching me! And to think I had the power to send a man to the gallows not so very long ago!" She pulls the grande dame act even now occasionally, she told me. "I slap and kick my cook, Mohan, if there's too much oil in the food," he said with a glint of mischief in her eyes. Chef Kalia was fortunate to get off with only a reprimand, I thought.

I knew this was a silly question, considering she had expressed a loss of interest in food, but I wanted to know what rated as a first class meal in her book. What satisfied her. "I like some Rajasthani food, like 3-Minute Partridge, but few people cook this anymore. That's game food, you know." I said, "Do you miss game food?." And the Rajmata asked back, eyebrows arched imperiously, "Why should I? I can have it anytime.

But partridge, not duck, and certainly not wild boar. Rabbit? I hate rabbit! Am I health conscious? No, I care two hoots! No diets and discipline. What else do I like? Well, I like a peg or two of whisky. Any whisky. I will not go to a party and ask the host, 'Tell me what you've got.' I'm not exactly Khushwant Singh. And I don't like wines and champagnes, either."

This was the stuff I had been waiting to hear, the Rajmata's likes and dislikes about food, her eating and drinking habits, but she had pushed the lunch aside and was standing up to go. Once again I thought, when you dine with royalty... "This is all wrong," she said as she led me out. "I like a light lunch, something European, and I only eat Indian food at night. Besides, I've had breakfast this morning. Boiled desi eggs!

Not my museli with a cup of tea. Would you care for coffee? Ardha cup? No. If you ask me, my favourite drink after a meal is water! Cognac! Whatever gave you the idea! Chalo, chalo, it's getting on. I'll have to get on my bicycle and work this off." And she came to the door to see me off, softly padding in her bare feet, like any other woman might have done in India.