Remember that amusing story, worthy of a Richard Gere and Julia Roberts double act, about the Indian Maharajah who walked into a Rolls Royce showroom in London in 1920 dressed in ordinary clothes, only to be refused service and simply shown the door…

Remember that amusing story, worthy of a Richard Gere and Julia Roberts double act, about the Indian Maharajah who walked into a Rolls Royce showroom in London in 1920 dressed in ordinary clothes, only to be refused service and simply shown the door? He then changed into royal attire and paid a ceremonial visit to the very same showroom, where everyone bowed and scraped before him, and this time the Maharajah bought six Rolls-Royces at once, shipped them to India and ordered the municipal services to collect rubbish in them, thereby disgracing the luxury marque before the whole world. Everywhere people began to laugh at the splendid cars: in Delhi they cart slops around in one of those! In the end Rolls-Royce wrote tearful letters to the quick-witted Maharajah, begging him to take pity on their reputation, and presented him with six new cars to soothe the rajah's wrath. And he forgave the English.

Of course, the first question we ought to ask on hearing this charming parable is this: did Delhi in the 1920s really possess a centralised system of refuse collection? The second is that Maharajah Jai Singh Prabhakara, the hero of this picturesque tale, apparently never existed: every mention of him is connected with this very story, and there is no other evidence whatever. As for the photograph that accompanies the story, it does not show India, and the car in the picture not only is not carrying rubbish but is not even a Rolls-Royce.

Have a good day, and do not believe everything you read on the internet.