This story is about the time our respected royal great-grandmother the Rani of Dhaka came to Manipur to ask for the hand of my elder sister Tombiyaima for her grandson. I remember very clearly how the old woman called the Rani of Dhaka came and stayed in our palace for a few months. We children – some of us were very little then – were thrilled without really knowing why. The event seemed very unusual. We were called in and told, ‘Come on in, kowtow, kowtow’, and we were made to kowtow to her. We had no idea how she had come, whether by train or car. But we did know she came accompanied by a large number of people. I saw some women in her retinue who stayed in the palace with her. They said some men also accompanied her but we did not know where they were put up. Our sovereign father Churachand may have made arrangements at some other appropriate place.
I saw that my respected royal great-grandmother, the Rani of Dhaka stayed in the small tin covered house known as the Small Bungalow that had been built beautifully and carefully as a guesthouse by English engineers. Right next to the west of the guesthouse was a lovely spot called the Raas Mandal, circled by pillars of ironwood trees. I heard that my mother, maharani, the Lady Ngangbam, had very lovingly had that Raas Mandal built. So it must have been made long before I was born. I learned later that except for the three correctly performed kinds of Raas – Maha Raas, Kunja Raas and Basanta Raas – no other could be performed in the hall of Lord Govinda and that holds true even today. My clever mother often offered different kinds of events at appropriate times, whether Gourlila or Nitya Raas, in that Raas Mandal surrounded by ironwood trees. My mother maintained it very well with many kinds of flowers. I always played in this garden.
I remember only now that among the four or five maidens who came as attendants to our lady great-grandmother were Surangini and Hemolata. They giggled noisily and stayed in the palace; I can see them vividly today. They were all Manipuri maidens. They spoke Manipuri but they did not wear sarongs; they were wrapped in saris. We followed them everywhere. We liked Surangini and Hemolata above all. We did not know what work they did for our great-grandmother the Rani of Dhaka. There was certainly no dearth of people to wait on great-grandmother in the palace of Manipur. I remember seeing my mother the Lady Ngangbam and my other mothers go to our royal great-grandmother every day and wait upon her. I heard them talk among themselves. I also heard them say that our respected royal great-grandmother became very spoilt when she came to her homeland of Manipur. It was said that Sovereign Father made arrangements for her to be taken wherever she wanted to go and to see whatever she wanted to see on any given day. The people of Manipur loved her dearly. They would say, ‘How sweet! She’s behaving like this because she considers this her birthplace.’
One time Surangini and Hemolata and the other Meitei maidens made posies of spiked ginger lily and Arabian jasmine and spent a long time tying them up painstakingly and making them look like they were blossoming on the creepers that climbed the Raas Mandal of ironwood trees. I followed the maidens everywhere and saw them tying the posies to make them look as if they were in flower. One day I came across Surangini, the prettiest maiden of them all, crying in anger. I heard it was because the other maidens had gone off somewhere without asking her along!
Actually the reason for the Rani of Dhaka’s visit was said to be a proposal for the hand of her great-granddaughter, a Maid of Manipur and the daughter of Maharaja Churachand, for her grandson Bir Bikram. I was not privy to the confidential matters they discussed behind closed doors. I did hear that when respected royal great-grandmother called our sovereign father and asked him, he prostrated himself before her and said, ‘Your servant hereby offers his daughter to your grandson.’ And over on the other side, I remember seeing my mother the Lady Ngangbam talking discreetly with my maternal uncles, and Princess Tamphasana – who was then married to Sinam Krishnamohan – and many other people, late into the night. Our father was not part of this discussion. Great-grandmother stayed on in Manipur for quite a long time. I do not know whether it was a time when there was no Raas at Lord Govinda, for they organized the dance called the Nitya Raas where I was made to dance the role of Krishna and maternal uncle’s daughter Ibemhal danced Radha. My older sister and next sibling Angousana led the dance as a young maiden. After staying a long time and being entertained in this manner, I do not why, our sovereign father later did not consent to the marriage to Bir Bikram and the proposal fell apart. We never knew the reason.
I understood this after reading the book by Pannalal. As Bir Bikram was the first king of Tripura to go frequently to foreign lands like Europe and America, orthodox Manipuris considered him unclean, and the proposal went nowhere for this reason. At the time I knew nothing of this. I only knew that my mother the Lady Ngangbam talked regularly with my older sister the Lady Princess Tamphasana and my maternal uncles and they all seemed to be greatly disappointed. At father’s unexpected about face, great-grandmother returned to Tripura in disappointment. I heard that she did not live much longer after returning there; she passed away soon after. This is why, much later, when I was living in Shillong, I was very embarrassed when our monarch of Tripura teased me about this.
The saddest part of it all is that when I was grown up my mother maharani the Lady Ngangbam told me with great regret the story of how plans for the wedding had fallen through. ‘How much I resented your sovereign father at the time I cannot begin to tell you. Since I only had daughters I knew my children had no claim to the throne of Manipur. But I had hoped that I would give one daughter of mine to Tripura to become its maharani, and it upset me greatly when his Divine Highness changed his mind without even giving a reason.’ She was in tears as she said this. She went on to say that father had initially agreed to give my older sister to the Maharaja of Tripura in marriage, but that some people had sabotaged the plan. Apparently, some people close to Sovereign Father told him, ‘Be careful, child king. Your wife the Lady Ngangbam is very arrogant. If her daughter becomes the Maharani of Tripura, you will never be able to control her.’ Later, someone told my mother this in confidence. On occasions when this story came up, my mother talked very unhappily of how much Sovereign Father had hurt her. I don’t know, all this could also be a story of palace intrigues or perhaps some people just made it up.
It is only now when I think of including the episode in the stories of The Maharaja’s Household, that the questions come up. I think that the man I met in Pannalal’s story, Bir Bikram, the Maharaja of Tripura, seemed to be a very civilized and knowledgeable man, as well as being a poet. My older sister Tombiyaima was a very erudite woman, a great reader who could read Shakespeare and Wordsworth. She was also a literary woman who wrote short stories and the like. The two might have been quite compatible if they had married. They might have made a rather becoming couple.