Title: A Year with the Gaekwar of Baroda. By the Rev. Edward St. Clair Weeden of New College, Oxford, M.A. Sometime Minor Canon of Chester Cathedral and Vicar of Canon-Ffrome, 1911, Boston, New England.
Place: Baroda
The following are excerpts from this book. For some reason the year is never specified more precisely than 190-.
Page 29: Baroda, October 190-
The two chief meals of the day - breakfast at eleven and dinner at half-past eight - which I always have with the Maharaja, are very much what you would get at a first-class restaurant in London - Prince’s or the Carlton; they are prepared by a French cook and served under the experienced eye of an English maître d’hôtel, Mr. Pluck, a very imposing person in a fine dark-blue coat with a velvet collar and gold buttons, with a ribbon in his buttonhole, who was butler to Lord Ampthill when he was Governor of Madras. I was rather frightened of him at first, but he has now set me at ease, and generally makes a point of pouring me out a glass of water, bringing me the mustard, or showing me some other little attention.
Pages 57-58: Baroda, November 190-
Our dinner-table is now graced almost every night by the presence of the Maharani and Princess Indira. The men of the party assemble first in the library, where all the Indian and several of the English daily papers and most of the English weekly illustrated and monthly magazines are placed as they arrive, and there is usually some interesting piece of news which is being eagerly discussed when Mr. Pluck appears to say that dinner is served and that Her Highness has left her apartments.
Page 71: Baroda, November 190-
I found that my tray was divided into a dozen little compartments, each containing a different kind of food, and the servants went busily about replenishing them from larger dishes. The food was excellent, and I was able to enjoy it, as I had been provided with spoon and fork, all the others using their fingers. Half-way through dinner Mr. Pluck brought me the wing of a partridge with cauliflower and salad, so I did very well.
Pages 261-262: Ootacamund, June 190-
When it was announced that [the maharaja] was to give a garden party instead, there was a great deal of grumbling, and still more when invitations were sent out for a party at the Gymkhana instead of at “Woodstock.” I thought myself that this was rather a pity, as so many people would have been glad of the opportunity of seeing the beautiful gardens.
The event, however, proved that His Highness was perfectly right; everything went off splendidly and even the malcontents had to allow that it was one of the most successful events of the season. The tennis-courts were crowded, there were not enough croquet lawns to go round, and long after the dinner-hour the pavilion was full of people playing bridge. Mr. Pluck presided over the arrangements in the refreshment tents, so that part of the business left nothing to be desired; and from first to last the Gaekwar was untiring in moving about among his guests and assuring himself that all were amusing themselves in the way that most pleased them.
The Wikipedia entry on the Gaekwad dynasty is interesting, with a lot of information about this particular Maharaja of Baroda.