Even though I had some degree of independence when I first went to Shillong to study, my father and mother did not neglect to provide the right and proper care for a princess going to study or live abroad. It is amusing now when I think of it. I did not live by myself in the large bungalow called Redlands. There was a housekeeper to care for and live with me. As Tolchoubi, the wet-nurse who had held and breast fed me, and looked after me as a child, was not keeping very well by then, a smart royal nurse called Ibungomapi from the palace was deputed to the task. A Brahmin cook was also sent to cook for us. Apart from this, they gave me a small car to help me get around. But they did not send a chauffeur from Manipur. Instead they retained a driver from Shillong, and they arranged for a local guardian to look after me at this time. At first, a certain Lourembam Ibungoyaima, whom we called uncle Mayai, who was already working in Shillong at the time, although I am not sure exactly what he was doing, was my local guardian. But after taking care of me for a while, uncle Mayai was transferred elsewhere and left. It was at this time that my sovereign father brought in my uncle Paramananda, together with his wife Aunt Subhashini, to be my guardians and to live in a mansion on the Redlands estate. Uncle Paramananda held an important job at the Shillong Secretariat.
At that time the couple had only three children – all girls. Their names were Usha, Jotsna, and Bijaya. It was said that uncle Paramananda was closely related to Sovereign Father. In Manipuri history’s great defeat meted out to Manipur by the British in 1891, Subedar Khelendra, who came to capture Tikendrajit81, was uncle Paramananda’s father. Subedar Khelendra was among those who had advanced into Manipur as British soldiers. But I heard Subedar Khelendra had taken as his wife a maiden from the lineage of Maharaja Narsingh and fathered uncle Paramananda. Uncle’s wife, aunt Subhashini, was the daughter of a Meitei called Kaminikumar who had been a minister in the neighbouring state of Tripura, also known as Takhel. It is said that the prince called Sachin Dev Burman from the royal family of Tripura, and famous now in the field of music, was also a relative of aunt Subhashini. And so the household of uncle Paramananda that I came to know when I was young was civilized and well bred with a family that was dignified and worthy of emulation. The family of uncle Paramananda whom Sovereign Father had called in to be my guardian when I was a young girl, still lives in Shillong’s Redlands today and looks after it.
I realize now that in the few years I spent studying in Shillong, I met many kinds of people as I matured and began to become my own person. Among those I met were a great number of teachers. I remember them today all over again. And how carefully my uncle Paramananda and my beloved aunt Subhashini looked after me. How gently my uncle and aunt held me back at moments whenever I, as a young girl, was on the verge of running a little wild.
My best friend Sougaijam Sorojini came and stayed with me at Redlands during her school vacations, though we did not go to the same college. For uncle Paramananda was also Sorojini’s local guardian. Sorojini has been one of my closest friends my entire life and she is with me constantly when I recall my life at Redlands. She was not a crazy, foolish young girl like me. She was very calm and bright. But only I knew that my friend Sorojini was a young girl with a great sense of humor, a tremendous storyteller who knew how to have a good laugh. We talked so much when we were together that my nurse Ibungomapi used often to scold us saying, ‘How the two of you talk! And whatever is there to talk so much about?’ The more she scolded us, the more we laughed. What a wonderful woman! Today my friend Sorojini is no more. How many stories, how many events could we have recalled and chuckled over today had she been alive.
Sorojini must have gone to the Bengali school, as she also knew Bengali. Sometimes we read Sarat Chandra’s banned novel Demand for a Pathway82 together secretly. Sorojini was a young girl who excelled at her studies, so she could have been a writer if she had chosen to be one. Instead she married early and died young. She suggested to me some time before she died that all our old friends should get together for a meal and have some fun. But most of our friends had died early too. When I recall the stories of Redlands today, all my friends seem to jump up before my eyes. But let us put a stop to these stories here.
As I remember, my sovereign father and my birthmother the maharani the Lady Ngangbam seem to have indulged me in my every whim and desire when I was in Shillong. I met two unforgettable teachers when I was studying at St. Mary’s College. One was Professor Majumdar, and another, a woman teacher from Kerala we called Miss Joseph. At one time, when our Miss Joseph came to know that I had a dislike, an aversion to economics, she waited for me outside the class and said, ‘Binodini, you don’t like my class?’ I answered quite simply, ‘Miss Joseph, I can’t follow.’
‘Change to a subject to your liking while it is still early. I will help you’, she said to me. And so I have not forgotten to this day how Miss Joseph helped shape my studies. The other person who influenced me was Professor Majumdar who, it was said, held a double M.A. He taught English. I recognized him to be a very good teacher. Once in a class while he was teaching I playfully drew a sketch of him in the margin of my book. He asked me to bring it to him to see and I handed over the book. He looked at the dark, bespectacled Professor I had drawn in the notebook. After looking at it for a short while, he gave it back to me without showing any anger. How I laughed with my friends after coming out of the class. But the Professor never once scolded me. He also taught me Sanskrit. Sanskrit was the subject I had changed to as I had no liking for economics. After taking it up I listened, engrossed, when he taught us classical literature like Kalidas’ Kumar Sambhav, Shakuntala, and the like. He taught them very well. So some time later, Professor Majumdar called me over and said, ‘Binodini, your father is the king. Let me give you a list of books with which to build a personal library. Ask your father to buy these books for you.’ I took the list with me and my uncle Paramananda afterwards bought them for me from Shillong’s Chapla bookstore. From then on, a small room at Redlands became my library. I spent a lot of time on my own in this place. I started writing short stories. It was here that I read Mulk Raj Anand’s novel Coolie, and in this room that I came to know the works of George Bernard Shaw. Here, too, I started to read the books of Bibhuti Bhushan83. It was in this way that my teacher Professor Majumdar bestowed upon me the swell that carried me on to read books beyond the prescribed textbooks. A long time later, Mulk Raj Anand, who wrote in English, came to Manipur. I invited him to my house. When it was time to leave, he walked right up to my pavilion and said, ‘Never demolish this pavilion’.
In this way, I met many different people at Redlands. Once I whined to my sovereign father, I want to play the esraj84. Buy me an esraj. And so my sovereign father bought me a beautiful instrument inlaid with ivory and engaged a teacher from Shillong called Isad Ali, to teach me. But I did not study it any further and later, after a long time, I entrusted my esraj to Tiken, a student at the Academy. He is now a musicologist.