Tara Devi of Kapurthala

Tara Devi, also known as Nina, was born Eugenie Grosup to actress Maria Eleanora Grosup (1889-1945) in Munzwardeingasse, Vienna.[1][2] The Viennese Catholic Church registry baptism records of 1918 document her date of birth as 22 January 1911 and describe her as an illegitimate female.[1] The National Archives of India hold a registration document with her name misspelled as 'Engenie' and records her year of birth as 1914.[3] The Embassy of the Czech Republic in New Delhi name her father as the Hungarian Count Karatsonyi.[4] Her guardian was Leon Pistol.[5]

In 1935 she was selected to play Anitra in Henrik Ibsen's drama Peer Gynt at the Burgtheater in Vienna.[4] According to Pistol, it was there that Maharaja Jagatjit Singh first saw her.[4]

Livia Sambuy, in her biography of the Maharaja's daughter, Amrit Kaur, writes that the Grosups, including the grandmother, left Prague in 1937.[2] In May 1939, the 28 year old 'Eugenie Grosup', her mother 'Maria Grosup', and the 66 year old Maharajah, are named in the passenger list of the Tatsuta Maru going from Yokohama, Japan, to San Fransisco, US.[6]

In India, the Grosup's resided in the women's quarters at the palace in Kapurthala.[7] Persuaded by her mother, in 1942 Eugenie Grosup married the Maharajah and became Tara Devi of Kapurthala.[8][9] According to Sambury, she was far from being in favour with the British in India, or with the Maharajah's household; they saw her as a commoner.[2] Both her grandmother and mother died in 1945, during a trip to Mussoorie.[2][4] There, Devi became convinced that they were poisoned and she suffered a nervous breakdown.[8] Subsequently, the couple separated and she moved into a hotel in Delhi.[2] Plans to allow her passage to her Austrian friends in the United States failed, as British authorities denied her a British passport.[2][8]

Grave at the Nicholson Cemetery, New Delhi

On 8 December 1946, she left the Maidens Hotel, where she was residing, and was driven to the Qutb Minar, from where she fell to her death, along with her two Pomeranian dogs.[2][4][lower-alpha 1] Newspapers of the time reported her death as occurring on 9 December, that state schools, colleges and offices in Kapurthal closed as a mark of respect to her memory, and that an inquest into her death was to take place.[8][11] Pistol, then living in New York, had suspected "foul play" and told the press that Devi's letters to him "told of a constant fear of death, and that she planned to come to the United States".[5] She is buried at the Nicholson Cemetery, New Delhi.[4]