Art in the Afternoon.

It was about time to give the Indians a second chance.

Having been bested by VMFA's new show "Maharaja: The Splendors of India's Great Kings," here, it was time to finish seeing the rest of the magnificent exhibit.

Because I'd already seen the first three galleries, today's foray centered on more recent times.

Not so recent (1790) that Indian emperors didn't still have enormous households.

In "Process of the Mughal Emperor," the imperial household crossed the plane of the canvas left to right no less than five times.

That's a lot of people and elephants.

One thing that fascinated me in the images I saw today was how frequently the paintings portrayed a false reality.

Rulers and families were shown with higher status, more authority, greater power than what they had at the time they were painted.

Wishful thinking or delusions of grandeur?

I was appalled at a metal "tiger claw," a sort of brass knuckles with ferocious looking hooks attached.

It was a handy device when you wanted to disembowel your enemy.

The ostentation of these royals was clear with the palanquin pole handles of gilded silver shaped to look like tiger heads.

It wasn't enough to use a human-carried conveyance to move royals around, the handles had to be elaborately decorated, too?

Oh, that's right, money was no object.

Everyone takes in art differently and obviously there are no right and wrong reactions, but, one visitor's made me laugh.

As I walked into a gallery to see the enormous (I'm going to guess 10' by 18') "The Delhi Durbar of 1903," a monumental oil on canvas showing the week-long Indian celebration marking Edward VII's ascent to the British throne (and thus ruler of India), I overheard a woman's take on it.

"This is a nice picture," she said after three seconds of scrutiny. She then moved on.

It was such an epic work that you could look at it for an hour and still be discovering things. And yet...

As the British influence in India grew stronger, the effect on Indian art became clear.

Indians looked less, well, Indian and more like Europeans with brown skin and black mustaches.

Conversely, as their taste for Western objects and lifestyles grew, it showed in their objects, like an elaborate pair of cut glass and steel occasional tables.

Cut glass tables?

Probably my favorite items were the Reverso wristwatches, notable for their ability to flip the watch face180 degrees (thus revealing a beautiful image) to protect the mechanics of the watch from being damaged during polo play.

The ultimate rich man's accessory.

When we got to the 20th century in India, there was film showing marriages and celebrations and, best of all, inspections of the camel corps.

Of course there was a camel corps.

Once we got to the Jazz Age Maharaja, Yeshwant Rao II Holkar, things got opulently modernistic.

His Art Deco desk was almost as long as my car. And then there was his red library chair.

Fit for a king, it boasted a neck roll, a silver ashtray set into the arm of the chair and two built-in reading lights on either side of the chair's back.

Nearby, a series of three photographs of Holkar and his wife were absolutely stunning.

It's impossible for me not to be taken with photographs of a man so obviously in love.

Showing him and his beloved wife, they oozed with his affection for her.

In one, a sideways glance was longing (and telling), but the most striking was with her head backwards on his shoulder as he was shown in profile looking at her.

Had there been a thought bubble coming out of his mouth, it would have said, "How did I get so lucky?"

One of the descriptions of an Indian ruler said that he should be a "patron of the arts and possessor of the rare and wonderful."

From what I could see in the pictures of Holkar, no material possession (and he had the best of everything) compared to this woman whom he so clearly found rare and wonderful.

Forget tiger claws and palanquin handles.

It looked like she qualified as a splendor of one of India's great kings.

That's romance.

Always Dance First

There were myriad things I learned at the new VMFA exhibit, "Maharaja: The Splendors of India's Great Kings."

That a king fulfills his duty through patronage of poets, musicians, architects, artisans, craftsmen and, unfortunately, religious foundations.

If only we could work arts patronage into a democracy, we'd be all set.

That some people are so wealthy that they have tent hangings.

Because what maharaja out on a military expedition could be expected to sleep in a tent with no hangings on its walls? 

It's simply not done, my dear.

That the ancient Indian custom of "being fully adorned" made rubies and emeralds on a dagger or dice seem necessary and not ridiculous.

That a dervish was a wandering mystic who taught Islam and lived on alms.

And here all I thought dervishes did was whirl.

That widows were excluded from auspicious events.

Because, I guess, with a dead husband you might as well be banished to your home.

That there is no bathroom in the "Maharaja" exhibit.

Fortunately, when I asked a guard he took pity on me.

"Well, you're not supposed to leave once you're in, but come with me. I'll take you and get you back in."

And damned if he didn't wait patiently at the bottom of the steps while I used the facility and escort me back.

That if the royal army is being attacked at the fort, the women will decide to commit mass suicide to join their doomed warrior husbands in death.

But they will dance first. Surely there's poetry in that.

That instruments were to be decorative as well as functional, like the bowed string one that resembled a standing peacock.

No wonder music flourished.

That for Indian women there were sixteen adornments (sixteen!) that she should always wear, including things like rings, necklaces, hair ornaments, bracelets, perfume and kohl.

Epic Indian womanhood fail for me since I employ none of those, unless you count eye pencil as kohl.

That Indian royals were serious about their board games.

One elaborate piece housed eleven games with two storage drawers. Almost makes me want to pull out Parcheesi.

And the number one thing I learned at the "Maharaja" exhibit tonight?

That you can't see it all in one viewing. 

My fellow art lover and I gave up after three rooms so as not to have to rush through the hundreds of artifacts of Indian royalty.

I can't wait to go back, but by that time our stomachs were in control.

Upstairs at Amuse, we joined the lone couple on the patio and put on the VMFA sunglasses we were offered.

With the sunset making our faces glisten, we savored the amuse bouche, a vanilla turnip with beet confetti. 

The former beet hater actually moaned at its simple perfection.

I noticed that the menu is looking very Indian-inspired right now, so we took advantage of it.

Cava provided the bubbles while we began with a summery-tasting salad of Manakintowne greens with mango, papaya and Caromont chevre with strawberry vinaigrette.

Suddenly we'd gone from two occupied tables to six or seven as the sun sunk behind the Pauley Center.

The Indian  theme kicked in with the curried lentil croquettes with yogurt and harissa, dense little crusty balls that were also showing up on multiple tables near us.

Ditto for the naan bread pizza with pork belly, buffalo milk Parmesan, green scallions and a mound of arugula on top.

The red pepper and harissa sauce complemented the pig to perfection, making it as good a pork belly pizza as I've ever had.

But, yes, it was my first.

Now that the sun was a mere glow and our new lime green sunglasses superfluous, we decamped to the bar, where a small vase of pink roses added a charming touch.

Our purpose was twofold: dessert and a couple of absinthe drips.

The lovely bartender had been alerted to our presence and the drip was well-filled with iced water when we took our stools.

Still running on birthday week fullness, I voted for the orange crepes with lemon mousse to accompany our visit from the green fairy.

Because if you're going to try to get away without the sixteen adornments of womanhood, and I am, it's best to be with someone drinking absinthe, in hopes they may not notice.

But you never know. It's really just a roll of the ruby-encrusted dice.