As the youngest children, we never got to spend much time with our father. He may have held, teased and played with the children he first laid eyes on like Bodhchandra and Tamphasana, but we were much closer to my birthmother. The story that I have decided to write today is mostly what I heard from my mother the Lady Ngangbam and my older sisters, Tombiyaima and Angousana. My birthmother was very good at telling stories.
What impressed me when I was very little were the cultural activities that my mother was involved in. It was said that Tamphasana was very delicate and weak from the time she was born. But she was amazingly talented. Not only was she clever with her hands, but she also sang beautifully. She was very fond of music. During the offering of Maha Raas to Lord Govinda, in the episode called The Disappearance of Krishna, Tamphasana would wear ritually pure clothes and enter the enclosed circle of the performance hall of Lord Govinda very early on. Later, at the time of Krishna’s disappearance, she would sing the role of Krishna. I remember the song even today since it was rehearsed often in our house. It went like this:
When you can walk no more
Beloved Radhe
Place your feet upon my shoulder
My dear Subadani28
This is how I remember it. How sweetly my frail sister sang it! I remember how, when she sang, my father would hasten from his royal seat, and weep as he offered his turban and prostrated himself in front of the Brahmin dance teacher. In those days it was not the custom to enter the dance circle in the performance hall to offer scarves or money. It was especially prohibited at the palace. If anyone offered anything, it could only be to Lord Govinda.
Yes, these are stories of years gone by. I am simply telling them since I took part in them and know a little bit about them. Once, my royal mother organized a Gouralila29 at the palace. However, no other play was permitted in the performance hall of Lord Govinda: it was not customary to hold anything but a Raas or other approved functions. So the Gouralila was probably performed at the Raasmandal, an open theatre constructed to her personal design by my mother, with only ironwood trees as its pillars. I played the role of Bishnupriya; my older sister Princess Tamphasana and Iche30 Khetri Tombi played the roles of the mothers. I think a famous teacher was selected with great care from outside to teach us. It was mostly Monoharsai hymn music as I remember. The teacher taught the songs to me, a very small girl playing Bishnupriya:
Here, my beloved friend
Like a garland offering
I offer my heart to the waters of the Ganga
I sang that song and as I sang, I don’t know why, I sobbed and sobbed. Was it out of fear? Or was it from nervousness? I do not know. Yet the audience cried, one and all. It was said that my mother the Lady Ngangbam who was in the audience had a hard time soothing me. The play was taught by a man called Oja Kulabidhu. I still remember him.
And another thing I loved was the music box, the gramophone inscribed with the dog logo of His Master’s Voice that stood in my sister Tamphasana’s room. Sometimes my good-hearted sister would call me in and let me listen to many songs – not only the songs of Indubala, Angurbala, Harimati and so on, but also a serial play based on Nimai Sanyas31. They say sister Tamphasana knew Bengali very well. Later I heard that she had once dreamed of recording Sati Khongang, Uncle Sorokhaibam Lalito’s play written in Manipuri as a serial play. Had she not died young she might have been able to do it. She was, after all, the first daughter Maharaja Churachand laid eyes on. There was nothing that the Maharaja would have denied her. This story was told by our Uncle Shyamkishor, the chieftain of Yaiskul, his eyes brimming with tears. ‘Your sister had started inviting Tada Lalito, Hijam Anganghal and various other people to consult with her every evening. However, your sister left us very early.’ My uncle related this with a heavy heart.
My mother the Lady Ngangbam also told me, ‘Your sovereign father suffered the pangs of losing his children as a young man.’ The two of them bore the pain together. Another daughter was born to the Lady Ngangbam right after Tamphasana – there was a very small age gap. The little girl was called Sanatombi. Maybe she was given the name Sanatombi in the hope that my mother would give birth to a son next32. That child died though when she had turned eight. The king did his best to get her treatment, even calling the English doctor of the time. But he could not save her. They say my sovereign father, who was a young man at the time, was crazed with grief.
The palace was not the one it is today. It must have been the old palace known as Purana Rajbari. I was not born then. Sanatombi was a wonderful child. Sovereign Father doted upon her. And what was the child like? As soon as it was morning she would ride her miniature spotted pony, putting on it a child’s saddle and, led by a soldier from the Manipur police, she would ride around the entire palace compound. There was nobody who did not love her. When that child died, the convicts who were sent from the jail to do forced labour at the palace all cried to a man. She often used to ride her pony to the lawn where they were weeding and cleaning, and the prisoners would say:
‘Little Princess…’
‘Yes. What is it?’
‘We convicts are hungry.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we are working.’
‘I will tell Sovereign Father that the prisoners want to have phola33.’
Sanatombi often reported this to her father. Our way of saying ‘Paonkha’34 (Sovereign Father) too, came from her, since she was not able to pronounce the words properly. They say the king used to have basketfuls of flattened rice, puffed rice, cane sugar, bananas and curd brought over from Moirangkhom market, and Sanatombi would feed the convicts when they were hungry.
And so it was not as if the family of Maharaja Churachand did not have its share of tragedies. It was not as if there were not many untold sad incidents and problems arising from his many children, and scandals in his household. I heard these stories from my mother the Lady Ngangbam.