I am happy today. I have been able to once again meet my mother the Lady Chongtham, fourth consort of the maharaja. Memories of the vast household of my sovereign father Maharaja Churachand fill my eyes. But the portrait of Tampak, Maid of Chongtham, is yet to take shape. My search for her is not complete. The search for the women of Kangleipak4 is not over. The intimate stories of the queens of the land are yet to be told. So I am not yet done, my story still remains.
When I first became aware of things around me I found that there were six living quarters of the maharaja’s queens, in a single row in our palace, starting with that of my birthmother, Maharani Dhanamanjuri or the Lady Ngangbam. The custom of the land allowed the king to have up to five wives. The five would be women of high birth and approved by custom. I do not know when this tradition started, but I shall find out. The position and titles of the five queens were:
1. Leimarenbi (Maharani)
2. Apambi Ahal (Rani)
3. Leimakhubi Ahal (Rani)
4. Apambi Naha (Rani)
5. Leimakhubi Naha (Rani)
To my sixth and last mother, Subadani, Maid of Meisnam, were extended all rights even though she did not have a title, and she lived in the palace with my sovereign father. And in the reign of my sovereign father, my mother Tampak, the Lady Chongtham, held the rank of Apambi Naha and was the fourth queen.
So my mother Tampak inspires the story I am thinking of writing, called The Maharaja’s Household. In the beginning of the story is Tampak, the fourth queen of Maharaja Churachand. I had even thought of calling the story Upon Seeing the Photograph of Tampak, the Lady Chongtham. And so I ask, in the vast and splendid household of Maharaja Churachand, Who was Tampak? What was her place?
Dumbrasingh, the scion of Maharaja Narasingh and the grandson of crown prince Bhubonsingh, was the eldest brother of Maharaja Churachand. Among the five siblings, which included two girls, Churachand (Amusana) was the youngest. When the British put him on the throne at the age of eight, the elder prince, Dumbrasingh was a strapping young man who was already married. He took care of his little siblings. He looked after their widowed mother, Numitleima (Lalitamanjuri), Maid of Moirangthem. So it was said that the child king was king in name only, and it was Raja Dumbrasingh who ruled over the land of the Meiteis5. Even after Maharaja Churachand came of age and assumed full powers as the king, his older brother never stopped watching over his younger brother. It was said that all the royal princes of the land trembled in fear at the mention of the elder prince. We also saw this. We were very frightened of him.
One time the child king went to a dove fight in some Brahmin’s house at Bamon Leikai and he stayed out carousing the whole night, forgetting to come home. My mother, the Lady Ngangbam, reported the matter to the elder prince. He set out immediately, truncheon in hand, for the Brahmin’s house by Thanga Moat. When they heard that the elder prince had come, everyone fled, scattering every which way. The child king went into hiding. I wonder, did he perhaps hide in the bed of the Brahmin’s wife? It was said that some of the slower attendants got a good beating. So that was Raja Dumbrasingh.
The consort of the elder prince Dumbrasingh was a Maid of Chongtham. She was the older sister, born right before the Lady Chongtham. So surely the Lady Chongtham must have been familiar with the palace from an early age. She must surely have met the child king, the younger brother of Dumbrasingh, her brother-in-law. Dumbrasingh’s consort, the Maid of Chongtham, died early, leaving behind three children. The widower Dumbrasingh did not take another wife for a long time. And so the Queen Mother took his children Noyonsana, Bhaskar Manisana, and Sanatombi, these three, into the palace and brought up her motherless grandchildren. It was said that they even called their grandmother ‘Mother’. So Tampak might have been closer to the child king through her sister. We did not know much at the time as we were children then. It is only now that I understand this.
Of all our mothers, we were drawn most to our mother the Maid of Chongtham. What we admired most about her was her black tresses that reached below her knees. The Lady Tampak was famous in the palace for her beauty. She was fair like a champak flower, tall and well proportioned. Had she been alive today, Tampak might have been crowned a beauty queen for the Longest Tresses, Best Complexion or Shapeliest Figure.
Today my efforts have borne fruit. The inspiration my mother Tampak has given me has become the prologue to the stories of Maharaja Churachand’s vast household.