If I were ever to write the story of my life, I would first take up the happy days of my childhood. Even if we did not know it very well, as we were but small children, we understood that Sovereign Father was the monarch of Meitrabak66. And that we were royalty. We were conscious of someone who guarded over us like a colossus. We cannot forget the time we spent in Shillong in our childhood days at Sovereign Father’s place known as English Bye. I remember it even more clearly today. And so now I reflect how and what I was thinking when I began to write this story called The Maharaja’s Household. I had thought at the outset to write it as a short fragment of a story inspired by a photograph of my beautiful mother Tampak, the leiren leihao blossom of Chinga Hill. But I did not realize at the time how great was the life of Maharaja Churachand. It was also very controversial; people viewed it in many different ways and still write about it today. But to a writer, it might come across as the story of a most delightful and entertaining man. If I were to write my own story, it would be so filled at this moment with the presence of my royal father that I would hardly know how to go about it. I would go out of my mind, not knowing where to start and where to end.
Shillong occupied a large place in my life as a child. I do not remember the privilege of being close to my father and mother when I was in the palace. They were the monarch and the queen of the land. l did not inhale their fine, warm aroma as they held me in their arms or carried me on their backs. Instead, it is my wet nurse’s bed I remember and the herbal fragrance of her hair, and the lines of her lullabies I carried upon my lips. And so I thought my mother was Tolchoubi, not the Lady Ngangbam.
But how wonderful it was when we were older and spent long times in Shillong, with more access to our father and mother. Our estate adjoined Shillong’s Ward Lake, the beautiful lake also known as Shillong Lake. We heard how Sovereign Father had sold his first home, Rose Cottage in upper Shillong, as it was too remote, and bought English Bye. Life in those days was very happy. We played and ran around freely. We never had even one soldier on guard, standing behind us. We were mere children of a household. Formerly we had never once been allowed to enter the quarters of my beautiful older maiden sisters in the palace. Now we spent days and nights with them. We lived all together in the large bungalow, sometimes bathing together, laughing happily, in its spacious bathroom. My older sister Tombiyaima, especially, would tell us many, many stories.
I remember an incident that took place in those days when we were studying at Pine Mount School. We went to school after breakfast every morning but the school provided us with lunch. One day, one of the servers asked us, ‘Are you Meiteis? I am also from Manipur, from Ukhrul. Tell your parents that there is beef in the food they serve here. Ask them to give you something else.’ We brought this matter to my birthmother. Summoning people immediately from the office, my birthmother wrote to the school.
What fun it was to be at English Bye. The large bungalow was a mansion with a long house next to it for other personnel. On top of this was one of our kitchens, probably an addition made by my sovereign father. The Brahmins cooked there. All the elders ate there and even my sovereign father took his meals there. We children just ate in the bungalow. One thing I liked around this time and which I saw every now and then, and which I remember even now, were the two silk pheijom that my father donned before his meals. One was lily-red with a moirang border67, the other was maroon, also with a green moirang border. I don’t know who might have these two pheijom now. Might Tamo maharaj have taken them? I do not know who I can ask.
There was one wonderful moment when we were staying in Shillong. Suddenly one day, our second eldest brother Sanayaima, who was in college in Allahabad, dropped by Shillong on his way home for his holidays. We children were excited beyond words. He was very fond of films; he would take us to see them now and then. Going to the cinema in Shillong was not the first time we ever watched films. I often watched films when they were shown in the living room of the big palace when we were very little. I do not know who brought them. They were silent films, in black and white. That I do remember. I realize now that they must have been in 8 mm. But I must say it was in Shillong that, for the first time, we watched films properly in a cinema. Sometimes I saw Indian films such as Raja Harishchandra and Amrapali. The woman who played Amrapali was absolutely beautiful. Later I came to know she was India’s famous Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya. She came to Manipur once many years later and we screened My Son, My Precious for her. This was the film that I had scripted and Syam68 had directed. The main roles were played by the child Lekhendra, Rasi, Mangi and Jamini. When Kamaladevi saw it she said it was a live film.
In those days, whenever he was staying with us, our second older brother PB69 would tell us many, many stories in the evenings. I realized later that these stories were most useful to us in our formative stage. Most of the stories he told us turned out to be from Shakespeare. And there were many frightening tales as well. Once he told us – I have not forgotten even to this day – a story that was set back in the days when large ships with sails travelled the seas. It was before the age of engines. And among the large ships going to and fro, was seen a ship floating on the vast expanse. As it was sighted regularly, some four or five curious young men took a small boat, and set off for the ship floating out there in the middle. They climbed aboard but there was no one there. Though there were signs that people had been on it, there was no one to be seen. A meal that had just been prepared, clothes hung out to dry and so on, but no one was to be seen. There were no signs of violence or anything. So where did all the people go? This story remains one mystery among many.
PB was very friendly with his younger sister Tombiyaima. They talked by themselves a lot. I often saw him hold Tombiyaima in his arms and carry her into the open, into the sun on the shores of the lake. My older sister Tombiyaima had come down with tuberculosis at this time. One reason Sovereign Father stayed in Shillong for long spells was so that his precious daughter, a maiden so fair of face, would receive medical treatment and get fresh air and sunshine. And so it come back to me now, seeing PB often carry her out in this manner. In the film The Cloud-capped Star by the famous director Ritwik Ghatak,70 the younger sister, ill with tuberculosis and knowing she is about to die, holds on to her older brother and cries, ‘Dada, I do not want to die – I do not want to die. I want to live….’
At other times PB would go off, taking trips to who knew where. But in the evenings there were tales as we waited for dinner. There was a beautiful house a little way off from English Bye. It was called Lake House and had a thatched roof. It was said to be haunted. We children were not allowed to play there. But we really wanted to.
And then one day…