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No member of the Scindia family is in residence in Gwalior at this point, but an enormous crowd has collected around Jai Vilas, the official residence of the Scindias.
People have been pouring in not only from Gwalior but also from nearby towns like Bhind and Morena, as news of their Maharajah's death spread like bushfire.
This makes the second time this year that such scenes have been witnessed outside Jai Vilas. In January this year, Scindia's mother and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Vijayaraje died after a prolonged illness.
People thronging the region speak of how members of the ruling family of Gwalior have a tendency to die young. Thus, when Madhavrao Scindia celebrated his 50th birthday in 1995, there was widespread jubiliation throughout the region, with people believing that perhaps their 'Maharajah' was exempt from the curse.
The district administration has gone into overdrive, to make arrangements for crowd control. Officials told this correspondent that huge though the crowd at this moment was, they expected far more by morning. "The body will be brought here, the family will come, every important political leader will turn up for the funeral, it is going to be a very big job for us to coordinate and control everything," a senior district officials said.
Gwalior collector Waseem Akhtar has declared a local holiday on Monday, in anticipation of the funeral.
"He is the only Congress politician who, today, can draw people, who can make them believe in India's destiny," mourned an obviously heart-broken Vittalbhai Patel, Madhavrao Scindia's close aide and the man who penned the lyrics for the Rishi Kapoor-Dimple Kapadia superhit Bobby. "It is an irreplaceable loss, not just for the party but also for the people who saw in him a faint glimmer of hope."
Patel had just recently toured the Malwa region with Scindia who, according to him, had finally decided to take his destiny as a politician in his hands and had decided on a series of hectic tours designed to help him meet as many people as possible.
Patel talked of how Scindia had in course of discussions talked of the need for him to shed his regal image, which he felt had created a certain distance between himself and the people. "People responded to the new, accessible Madhavrao wherever he went," Patel recalled.
Balendu Shukla, who was Scindia's classmate in Scindia School and among his closest friends, was prostrated by grief.
One of the very few individuals who could call the Maharajah 'Madhav', Shukla said, "The feeling of loss is immeasurable, it is greater than I can express. I have lost everything, so has a whole generation of people in this state," said the 55-year-old, weeping freely.
Shukla's wife recalled how 'Maharaj' would ask her husband to sit alongside him on the same palanquin during the annual Diwali procession in the city. For a people who still rever the royal clan, this was the ultimate honour -- and it fell to Shukla's lot every year.
Meanwhile, district officials indicated that Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, now in London, is likely to return in time for the funeral. Singh's own hometown, Raghogarh, is a small principality of Gwalior. The chief minister, thus, is expected to perform all regal honours to the departed Maharaj, as he has done in the past on state occasions.
Death in the Afternoon: The Complete Coverage
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