Placa a Anita Delgado

On Calle Peña in Málaga, a small plaque marks a doorway into one of the strangest and most glamorous stories the city has ever produced. The Placa a Anita Delgado honours the Spanish dancer born Ana María Delgado Briones, a girl from this very street who went on to become the Maharani of Kapurthala, one of the princely states of India. She remains the only Spanish woman ever to marry a prince of the Indian states, and the plaque stands where she once lived as part of the city council's 'Málaga Hace Historia' initiative, which keeps the memory of figures like her fixed in the streets they came from.

The story behind it is worth the detour. Anita began her career as half of the duo 'Las Camelias', performing with her sister in a café in Madrid. Her life pivoted during the wedding celebrations of King Alfonso XIII, when the Maharaja of Kapurthala noticed her, and she left Spain for a court in India. Málaga never quite let her go, though: the Museum of Málaga keeps her portrait, painted by Federico Beltrán during her Paris years, and she is remembered for the mantle she gifted to the Virgin of Victory, keeping a promise made during a difficult childbirth.

Stand at the plaque and you have the whole arc of her life in one glance: the street where she started, and a story that carried her from here to a palace thousands of kilometres away.