One time, my father was said to be seriously ill. All the court physicians and doctors of the land attended to him. They rushed to get any physician who was said to be good, even if he was from a far-off place. Silence prevailed in the palace; no one talked loudly. But my sovereign father did not send for the big-shot British surgeons to look at him. He never had an injection in his lifetime.
I remember an episode with Mukta from this time. It was a drama staged by none other than Maharaja Churachand. The word was that Maharaja Churachand was dying. My stepmothers and my maiden sisters all wept quietly. My birthmother, the Lady Ngangbam, never left my father even for a moment. Sovereign Father, too, would call for her, crying, Ibemcha, Ibemcha, if he did not see her even for a little while. I do not remember everything, though by this time, I could grasp a little of what was happening around me. I remember one day Sovereign Father called for all his children and my mothers. We stood by silently, uncertainly, at a distance. In particular, he called for my birthmother, the Lady of Ngangbam, and the firstborn, our eldest brother Crown Prince Bodhchandra. In a very weak voice my father said, ‘My time is now up. Both of you, mother and son, look after the kingdom. Do not think you are stepmother and stepson.’ Everybody sobbed. I still remember it clearly though I do not remember all that was said. But this I do recall. He called very feebly for Mukta who was weeping at the foot of the bed, ‘Where is Mukta? Listen, mother and son, take good care of my Mukta.’ Ta’ Mukta cried out, ‘My Sovereign Lord, your humble servant cannot leave your side’, and he bawled. End of drama.
I do not recall very well what followed. I followed my mother back to the house. The rest of my mothers also gathered at our place. I remember them talking among themselves. They were doubled up in laughter. I was surprised, Why were they laughing when they had been crying just a while back? Were they laughing at Mukta crying? No, it was not so. My sharp mother the Lady Ngangbam said, ‘Did you see his comedy performance?’ In this way, my sovereign father would pretend to be ill every now and then. This was his practice, the maharani said.
Ipu36 Sabitolen was a famed doctor from a village located way over in the foothills of Nongmaijing. In those days all doctors of renown lived at the royal palace in service to the king. I do not know about the others but Ipu Sabitolen was kept in the maharani’s quarter. The Lady Ngangbam gave him a nice bed in a small bungalow and took good care of him. One day, he lay down on the mattress on the palace bed and sighed, ‘How comfortable this palace bed is! I wonder if the Political Agent sahib gets to lie down like this?’ My sisters laughed upon hearing this.
There is another interesting story that the Lady Ngangbam used to tell about this simple, short, bald maiba37. Sabitolen’s turn to give a belly massage to the maharaja was scheduled towards daybreak. He was to take over at a precise hour from Doctor Aseiba. Sabitolen did not know the ways of the palace. A minor servant would take the doctor up and lead him into the dark room. And he would send him in to attend to the maharaja’s belly. But it was not too long before Sabitolen came groping his way out. He said to a minor servant, ‘I don’t know how to massage His Divinity’s belly! All I hear is liquid gurgling; I can’t locate any innards for the life of me!’ Another replied, ‘Eh! Uncle Doctor, that was not his belly. You were massaging the hot water bottle that maharaja is cuddling.’ But Sabitolen never did understand what a hot water bottle was.
The stories whispered about the impish nature of Sovereign Father were legion. Tomalbabu, father of Laisram Birendrakumar and the poet Laisram Samarendra, was the pharmacist at the infirmary at that time. I have not met anyone better at comedy and as funny as he was, in all my life. He recounted stories that showed a different side of Maharaja Churachand that had everyone in fits. One of those instances was when Sovereign Father was feigning a bout of illness. He was very weak; he was carried to the southern verandah where he looked out onto his cricket ground.
Tomalbabu told me this episode of how he went in with medicine and waited, but the king pretended not to notice him for quite a long time. Pretending not to see who was present, it was said, was a common practice among kings. When the king noted his presence, the young Tomalbabu was thrilled and stepped a little closer. In a very faint, very weak voice, the king asked, ‘How many moons have gone by?’ Tomalbabu was flustered. He answered, ‘There is only one moon, sire.’ The king yelled at him, for what he meant was, what month is it?
Many were these stories, the tales of my sovereign father’s incorrigible nature that my mother told us. My Tada Khelchandra also used to remark, ‘That sovereign father of yours, he was quite a character’. I am inclined to think a life story of Maharaja Churachand, a biography that includes what is not recorded in official documents, a narrative that embraces what lies beyond the realm of history, needs to be written. I am not up to this task and so I am thinking I should turn over this life story I would love so much to have of my father the king to a historian like Professor Gangmumei38. He, too, knows a lot about my father.