When the Maharaja of Jodhpur was forced to earn a living, he turned his castle into a hotel and opened his fortress to the world.
When his father died in a plane crash in 1952, four-year-old Maharaja Gaj Singh II inherited more than most toddlers do. There were those five palaces, the four medieval fortresses, and orchards. Not to mention the thousands of rooms filled with priceless antiques, carpets, jewelry, and artifacts. The 38th member of his family to consecutively rule Jodhpur, an area in western India roughly the size of England, the new maharaja inherited what his ancestors had been building and collecting for more than 500 years.

For the next two decades, the maharaja and his family lived in fairy tale opulence, and at the time, his family was far from alone. Dozens of Indian maharajas held sway over vast territories. On passports, their occupation was listed as "Ruler." They ate off gold plates and used diamonds as paperweights, decorated their wives with emeralds the size of eggs, lived in marble palaces, kept armies of elephants and staffs of thousands. They lent their own government money and subsidized the war chests of the Western world. Visiting European royals and U.S. presidents dropped their jaws and stared at English nannies rocking cradles made of gold.

Then, in 1971, with the stroke of a pen, India's socialist leader, Indira Gandhi, abolished all monarchies. With the 1971 Deregulation Act, the maharajas didn't just lose their titles, they lost their privy purses - the annual allowance they received beginning in 1947, in return for handing over sovereignty to India. But what really crippled the royal families were the property taxes levied on their previously tax-exempt assets. Suddenly, they faced multimillion-dollar bills.

Some auctioned off their historical collections and watched their palaces be dismembered and sold. A few fell into alcoholic­ despair. Others rode off into the sunset.