This memoir The Maharaja’s Household has come to an end. These essays were written leisurely, in fits and starts, as memories came back to me. It is true that I could have ended the story the day my sovereign father so suddenly left Manipur. But I did not do so. I do not know how, there was always something I had left behind somewhere, something missing. But now I have to finish it.
As I brought it to a close, I suddenly remembered a large part that I had forgotten in the last day or two. How unhappy I was, how disturbed; a feeling of disquiet came over me. And I thought, how priceless an incident in my father’s life was this omitted portion that he now seemed to be urging me to write. I was beside myself. So, impatiently, I began to think about telling this story.
Sovereign Father never returned to Manipur. He moved directly to Nabadwip and took up residence in the Grove of Gopalji that he had so lovingly built and established. Neither did he take the suggestion of the British government but called for his own doctors in Nabadwip and began their treatment. My weak father lived for quite a long time in Nabadwip with his children and servants. Dr. Anukal of Nabadwip looked after him and he was moved with great care into the large room on the top floor of the Grove of Gopalji. As for me then, I have to say that it was a very unsettling time. I had passed my Intermediate exams and was studying for my Bachelor’s degree at St. Mary’s. And so my clever mother sent me back to school thinking it was not right for my studies to be interrupted. This time, though, I was quite troubled and could not pay attention to my work. So I came straight back to Nabadwip again. My friend Sougaijam Sorojini who was studying at Lady Keene in Shillong also came with me. Her guardians took her out too. One reason for taking us out seems to have been the disturbance as World War II began. So we had to go back and live in Nabadwip when there was anxiety in our lives and in the lives of our sovereign father’s household, and when the land also seemed to be in turmoil. It was a great disruption to our student days.
My father resided in Nabadwip as an ailing man for a fairly long time. But even then Maharaja Churachand did not stop being the king. He did not give up the reins of power in Manipur. I felt deep inside that a big change had come over our lives though I did not know then the details of the incidents and events that took place. I was among father’s children and retinue most of whom, including my other older sisters and our mother, lived in the Grove of Gopalji in Nabadwip. Some would go back to Manipur, and others come back. There were a lot of people going back and forth. I realized that my sovereign father was weak and seriously ill. We would often enter the large room that he had moved into discreetly, on tiptoe, stand around for a while, and then quietly withdraw. That was our life in those days, and we felt that our weakened Maharaja Churachand was merely waiting out his days in his large, beautiful room.
I regularly saw my sovereign father setting forth for the river Ganges every day on a palanquin to worship there. Though he was weak, he showed no signs that there was anything wrong to the public. Around this time, I went into his room, as I had done before in Shillong. On this day too, he told me, ‘Wangol, your father is a little tired these days, a little weak.’ I came to know only today, that in his last days Sovereign Father accomplished some big tasks of governance. My eldest brother Bodhchandra often came to Nabadwip in those days, but always left right away again. My older brothers PB, Lokendra and other men, would also come regularly but also go straight back again. I heard that when my father had become very frail, he consulted with his closest sons and staff about whom to hand over the burden of governance of Manipur. I also heard that as Sovereign Father ran a fully staffed office, even though he lived in Nabadwip, his private secretary Oja Huidrom Birahari, Oja Arambam Ibotomcha the aide-de-camp, the official Yendrembam Chaoba, and others must have taken part in the discussion. The capable PB and Lokendra and others from among his six sons were also there. They must have been under father’s consideration. My mother was not in on the discussions at this time. This must surely have been because she did not want to be – perhaps because she had no right to be in the race for ruler of Manipur: she was the mother of daughters. It may also have been that this was the reason why father did not allow my mother to participate in these talks.
When Sovereign father approached the end of his days, we learnt that, after much deliberation, he entrusted the responsibility of governing Manipur to his eldest son Bodhchandra. I now think that it was a correct decision. If Manipur had not been entrusted to Bodhchandra, the good-natured poet and the eldest among us, there might have been a big uproar.
One day Maharaja Churachand, the child king who became a monarch at the age of eight, passed away on the banks of the Surodhoni, the Ganges at Nabadwip. It was in the evening of the 17th day in the month of Hiyangei, a Thursday95. We felt fatherless for the first time that day. I looked at Ngangbam Ibemcha, so close to Sovereign Father from the days of his youth; but what she was thinking when her husband died I do not know. My mother Maharani, the Lady Ngangbam, calmly and quietly called over a trusted servant, and indicating the gold bracelets she wore on her wrists, said, ‘Come here. Come take off these bracelets.’ And this I remember with sadness: unable to remove the bracelets someone had to clip them off with a pair of scissors. I saw that she held in all her emotions; she did not show anyone anything. I could not contain myself and I wept, silently.