Shivraj Singh, the Yuvraj (prince) of Jodhpur, on the May 2002 cover of Outlook Magazine. The most eligible bachelor, avid polo player, and heir to the riches of Jodhpur royalty, suffered a serious head injury during a 2005 polo match. For a month he remained in coma, after surgery in Mumbai. It took two and a half years for Shivraj to walk unaided, but he can now climb stairs with a handrail, sign his name and write short emails, though reading remains difficult. The experience prompted his father, Maharaja Gaj Singh, to launch the Indian Head Injuries Foundation.
Telegraph
Working with British and American neurologists, for whom India’s injured could provide an invaluable research resource, Gaj Singh hopes both to prevent head trauma, and improve care at every stage. While India’s private hospitals are world-class, there is widespread ignorance of elementary safety measures – helmets and seat belts. Nor is it generally understood what needs to be done in the critical “golden” hour or two after an injury when airways must be kept clear and wounds staunched to maintain the brain’s oxygen supply.
Shivraj had good treatment during these first “golden” hours, when secondary damage often occurs. From hospital in Jaipur, he was flown to Mumbai. None the less, the initial injury to his left frontal lobe, which controls speech, was compounded by a build-up of pressure within the brain, and he almost died in transit.
Home was deemed more helpful to his recovery than hospital so he returned to the Umaid Bhawan in Jodhpur, the vast palace, now partly a hotel, which is home to the royal family of the once independent princely state of Jodhpur, an area larger than Scotland. There, his father arranged an intensive programme of physio-, speech and occupational therapy to encourage new areas of the brain to take up the functions of the damaged parts. Despite improvements, Shivraj’s personality seemed lost. “Then one day, just after a neuropsychologist had reported that he showed no expression, a cousin visited. Listening to him, for the first time Shivraj laughed and smiled.”
Shivraj now plays Scrabble and chess, and has helped design a garage for his father’s 12 vintage cars. Speech has returned, though it is often inaudible. He can even drive himself, on the miles of private roads within the estate. “And he shoots,” says his father, alarmingly, “even though his hand shakes.”
