The Princess and the Political Agent

by Binodini

  Sanatombi continued to ask, ‘Is it true that the sahebs have auctioned off all the horses of the palace?’

  ‘Oh, those were only the horses that are weak or had met with some problems in battle. The sahebs are also very fond of horses. They have kept all the good horses very carefully, Your Highness. I am also looking after the Political Agent’s black horse at my home.’

  ‘Is Uncle Paka’s crazy tamarind still around?’

  ‘Yes, it is, Your Highness.’

  ‘And are they still playing polo?’

  ‘Yes, they are in the inner polo ground. The Saheb said we should play borough polo tournaments and so they have started again. Sometimes they even allow some chere kare games.’

  ‘By chere kare you mean when two boroughs pair up as a team?’

  ‘Your Highness.’

  ‘Does Mesin also play?’

  ‘Your servant Mesin Saheb is also very fond of polo. But it is just saying so really, for how can we see anyone play the level of polo of your royal uncles these days.’

  Tonjao of Moirang’s visit left Sanatombi feeling restless. She also felt good. She could not get back properly to her weaving or household chores. Prince Koireng and Prince Pakasana would play on the borough teams in the outer polo ground. The game of polo was played even before the time of the ancestral deity Pakhangba, the Heavenly Python Serpent. The game had its rules modified in the seventeenth century by Khagemba, Vanquisher of the Chinese. Pakasana played by these rules. Koireng made the play beautiful, a pleasure for the eyes to behold. The princes were as beautiful as a picture upon the green grass. Short-sleeved shirts of velvet, dhoti and turbans of rose pink. They rode before the wind on their ponies, matching polo mallet to polo mallet. Ahead of them, the polo ball struck true, skimming like a swallow upon the green grass. Their supporters did not blink, their hearts thudded in their chests. Manipur’s polo was beautiful, it was very beautiful, it was enthralling. Princesses and noblewomen carried in delicacies, piled high as hills. How manly were the men of Manipur mounted on their steeds.

  Sanatombi wanted to talk more about this with somebody. But there was no Mainu around today. Looking back, she remembered she had not come back since she left angrily the other day. Sanatombi looked about her—her maidservant Tembi was folding her clothes. Her stocky, fit Tembi did not worry about anything at all, she kept folding the clothes with pleasure. One could not talk with her but one could tease her. Sanatombi looked at the simple Tembi with her shiny cheeks, and she smiled a little.

  One day Mainu teased Tembi and said, ‘Tembi, has no man courted you?’

  ‘No courting,’ said Tembi.

  ‘What’s the matter, you are pretty good-looking. No one has courted you at all?’ Mainu played the fool and asked her.

  ‘No courting,’ replied Tembi.

  ‘What’s wrong with these horrid Manipuri men?’ Mainu had joked.

  She thought of sending Tembi for Mainu but she was also angry—I am also not going to call her until she comes back on her own … … … Oh, now Mesin will never come again, he must have felt embarrassed … … … .

  Sanatombi felt empty. Manikchand had been away for quite a long time now. ‘Oh, when would he return?’

  CHAPTER 14

  Manikchand returned in time for the spring festival. He brought with him a great many things from Vrindavan. People came in droves to look and buy the things that had been brought from abroad. The Nongmaithem courtyard was filled with people.

  Manikchand said to Sanatombi, ‘Would Your Highness like to pick out a Jaipur stole for herself?’

  ‘It is quite all right, I have so many,’ replied Sanatombi.

  After Manikchand had been back for about ten days, he came back home late one day and said, ‘Why did you bring the Saheb into our house? Who do you think I am? Is this house a place where the Saheb can take his outings? Why has he been coming so often to my house?’

  Sanatombi was taken aback that Manikchand was already angry when he came home. She did not answer right away, but she said, ‘He came to give news about the paddies.’

  ‘Why would he come so often just to give news about the paddies?’

  Sanatombi did not know what to answer. Manikchand was right. He would not have come frequently just to give information about the paddies. It had indeed been a few too many times.

  ‘Why have you made him so disrespectful? Can he do just as he pleases? You have made this happen.’

  ‘What the royal son-in-law is thinking is mistaken.’

  ‘How am I mistaken? Why were you walking around with him in the evening?’

  ‘We were looking at the new road.’

  ‘Why would you go look at roads with a man in the evening? Does he not know you are a woman with a husband? This household is where men go in and out it seems.’

  Sanatombi was stung. Even though she was a princess and had been brought up pampered and spoilt, Sanatombi had known no man other than Manikchand. She had accepted Manikchand as her husband according to custom. She had not done Manikchand any wrong. Sanatombi lost her temper. Anger mounted between the two of them.

  Annoyed, Manikchand finally said, ‘Princesses behaving arrogantly like when we were under the king cannot happen any more. And we men of the Nongmaithem are not milquetoast. The man who married your aunt Thadoisana was also a Nongmaithem clansman. She acted arrogantly as a princess and got her back shredded.’

  It was true. It had been a scandal in the land. Princess Thadoisana, the daughter of Chandrakirti, had been beaten by the Nongmaithem man until her back was ripped, for coming home late from the palace. The Nongmaithem son-in-law had been severely punished by the king for beating his daughter. Manikchand reminded Sanatombi of this incident.

  Manikchand continued, ‘Your father is no longer the king. Even if you are a princess you are the daughter of a deposed king. Do not do as you please, it will not be good for you.’

  ‘You have no right to talk about my Sovereign Father.’

  ‘And you have no right to bring men over to my house.’

  ‘I did not bring over any men.’

  ‘Other people have eyes and ears too. I am telling you to stop it.’

  A deposed king! These words truly stung her. Manikchand should not have said this. The deposition of her father was the thing that had wounded Sanatombi the most deeply. That Manikchand had never brought back news of her father even though she had asked him every time he went abroad had always filled Sanatombi with pain. She looked at Manikchand as he changed out of his clothes and walked about the house.

  She looked hard at him. For the first time in her life she felt that Manikchand had never loved her, that he had never made her heart race. Manikchand suddenly became distant to Sanatombi.

  Their troubles began from that day on. The house was disturbed. Manikchand got new information every day. Every time he heard something new he could not wait to come home to fight over it. The people in the household found it unbearable. The Dowager Queen, the Lady of Ngangbam sent word, ‘I hear Manikchand is back. Would the couple come over for lunch?’ But Manikchand responded, ‘I am not free.’

  Sanatombi was miserable now, she was truly unhappy. She thought all sorts of things, every which way. She could neither eat nor drink. She always stayed in bed; she began to lose weight. And she saw Maxwell’s calm, cool eyes of blue. His quiet manner of speaking. Mainu also stopped coming, having heard of the trouble in the household, though she sent her mother and got news frequently. She wanted to come very much but she never did. Sanatombi had no one to talk to. She was all alone. Sometimes she thought she heard Maxwell come riding his horse—What now, what would she do! But it was only that she imagined he was riding in.

  The dishonoured Manikchand came home late every day. He did not talk as before. He did not try to make up with Sanatombi, and Sanatombi too did not try to appease him. An unbridgeable gulf seemed to separate the two. And Sanatombi wondered—Why have I stayed here in this house for so long? What should I do
now, where should I go? There was no place to go. What would the Saheb think when he heard of this? What wrong had he done? Did he really love her? Did she love him? He had said one day, “Sanatombi, I am happy you exist”—what did he mean by that?

  Why am I happy when he comes? Now what am I to do?

  … … … She reviewed her life up till then. She could not wrap her head around it. She was afraid. She was afraid of Manikchand. She could not reflect on her life. She wondered—Then what shall I do? Shall I leave? Where to? If only Grand Queen Mother were around I would have gone to her. The Dowager Queen, the Lady of Ngangbam; her birth mother Jasumati … no.

  She secretly endured the fire that consumed her. Sanatombi fell ill.

  Word got around as the illness bore on and people from her family started visiting her. The Lady of Ngangbam came one day and said to Manikchand, ‘My dear man, why didn’t you come to me first? If there is anything you want to say you can say it right out to me. … … … These royal women have terrible temperaments, and are impossible to deal with. … … … I would take her with me for a day or two to look after her but what can I do, I am but a woman in reduced circumstances.’ The Lady of Ngangbam knew what Sanatombi’s ailment was. She had heard secretly from Mainu’s mother the Brahmin that the trouble began when Manikchand had referred to the demoted king and the matter of Maxwell’s visits, and so she also hinted at her displeasure. After staying a while, the Lady of Ngangbam left, but she was also worried. She left worrying.

  As Sanatombi continued to take to her bed, the members of the household began to suspect—Had there been spells and black magic involved? There was something strange going on.

  The witch doctor that the Dowager Queen sent made his preparations. He called out to gather her soul and spirits. But Sanatombi did not recover, nor did she show signs of recovering. She kept thinking of her Sovereign Father: how they had ganged up on him and deposed him, how they killed him. Her good-natured father who never did anyone wrong. He had said, ‘“Sanaton”, my dear, how you wander about all the time. Can you not stay at home with Daddy just a little bit? Let us all three sleep together tonight, you, Lukhoi and me.’

  The three of them slept together. Surchandra was not yet king at the time, he was still the crown prince. The two of them held their father’s cool body. They fought over him. They said, ‘Turn towards me, no, turn towards me.’ How they fought, how they cried.

  ‘All right then, I will carry one and the other can ride on my back.’ Saying this, he hoisted Lukhoi upon his back and carried Sanatombi in his arms.

  How the people in the crown prince’s colony laughed as they watched this little spectacle.

  My father, a deposed king. She saw Kangla before her eyes. No one had ever treated her badly. No one had ever slapped her on her back. She remembered the Grand Queen Mother—Isn’t this all your fault, isn’t it, isn’t it, Grand Queen Mother, wasn’t it you, didn’t I marry him because you told me to?

  She got up and came out in the evening. She headed north. She saw her Grand Queen Mother in her mind’s eye. She would confront her Grand Queen Mother today. She walked right on, her eyes looking straight ahead. She was weak, she was very weak, but she walked on. When she got to Sanjenthong Bridge she groped once for a handhold and she almost collapsed. When she got to Kangla Fort, Sanatombi went right in, into her childhood home. The guards did not stop her but were left looking at her. But she did not see anybody; she saw only her Grand Queen Mother—She will answer me today, let me see what she says for herself when I confront her … … … .

  Sanatombi did not head to the ancient mansion. She did not go to the crown prince’s colony where her father had lived. She headed straight for the residence of her Grand Queen Mother, to the home of her dearly beloved great-grandmother. There were guards there too. The Meitei guard was left murmuring, ‘Your Highness.’ She sat down on the tall steps of the large adobe porch of the mansion, lit brightly by petromax lamps, of her Grand Queen Mother.

  When Sanatombi came to, the first things she saw were the large, heavy girders carved with flowers. Yes, this was the room of her Grand Queen Mother, but this bed was not her Grand Queen Mother’s large bed of khousa wood. The person sitting beside her was not her Grand Queen Mother either. It was the man who was involved in the scandal with her—it was Maxwell. She looked at him in surprise. Sanatombi did not understand, she did not know, that the foreigner Maxwell lived in her Grand Queen Mother’s residence now. She truly had not known.

  Sanatombi raised herself. She did not know what she was going to do. She kept looking at Maxwell. He drew up to her and said, ‘Please relax,’ but Sanatombi’s body shook, she was covered in a clammy sweat. She collapsed into Maxwell. Maxwell held her and said, ‘My goodness, she has a fever.’

  Sanatombi sobbed into Maxwell’s breast. She let go of her tears with pleasure. Maxwell gently lowered her back into the bed. He sat by her and said, ‘What is the matter? What happened? Manikchand is angry that I came? Manikchand beat you because of me?’

  Maxwell had been very distressed to learn that wife-beating was a practice in Manipur. He truly was very upset to learn that women who could not hit back were being beaten. He was worried for Sanatombi because he also knew that Manikchand and Sanatombi were fighting on his account. The Dowager Queen, the Lady of Ngangbam, had called Tonjao and said, ‘Tonjao, Manikchand and Sanatombi are having some trouble. Tell Mesin Saheb not to go to Sanatombi’s … … … Tell him to think on it.’

  Maxwell had been deeply embarrassed when he heard this, but he could not forget Sanatombi even for a single day. And today Sanatombi was lying in his bed, looking at him with her two black eyes. But her look said—I am not angry with you.

  Maxwell asked her fondly, ‘You hungry?’ Sanatombi nodded—Yes, she was hungry. Sanatombi was really hungry; it had been a long time since she had had food or drink properly. Maxwell called his peon and said in Hindi, ‘Tell the bearer to bring milk.’

  But even so, the Meitei peon stood there with his sacred clay marks on his face, looking at the Saheb.

  ‘What are you looking at? Tell bearer to bring milk.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He kept standing there.

  ‘What is it, what are you saying? Princess is tired. Go tell him to bring milk.’

  ‘Saheb, she won’t drink it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Meiteis do not eat of saheb kitchens.’

  ‘Do as I say, won’t eat even if dying?’

  The peon scurried off in fear. Taking the milk from the bearer, Maxwell held Sanatombi up and made her drink it. Seeing Sanatombi drink the milk from the Saheb’s hands without any hesitation at all, the Meitei peon was astonished beyond words. He stood there.

  Sanatombi was resting. Her eyes closed. She was resting happily in Maxwell’s bed. Maxwell turned down the glass lamp and left, closing the door softly behind him. He called for the more sensible Chonjon and said, ‘Princess Sanatombi is ill, she is here with me.’ Chonjon looked at the Saheb in surprise. Maxwell went on, ‘Princess Sanatombi, she came by herself. She fainted on my porch. You go to the queen and tell her. … Chonjon, take the horse carriage. If possible, please ask her to come for a little bit.’

  The Dowager Queen arrived. She came in the horse carriage with Chonjon and just one other person. She brushed past Maxwell pacing the courtyard without even a glance and went straight in. She touched her forehead as she entered the mansion that had been the dwelling of the queen, the Lady of Meisnam, and went inside. She closed the door and mother and daughter talked for a long time. No one was allowed to enter. But Maxwell still paced the large courtyard of the mansion, sometimes with quick steps, sometimes with slow, sometimes he stood still. Finally, the Lady of Ngangbam called the Saheb in, saying to Chonjon who was sitting on the porch, ‘Chonjon, tell Mesin Saheb to come in.’

  The queen said, ‘Saheb, I am taking my child with me. She is very ill. If possible, please do not mention this matter to anybody; instruct your people too. Let
us go … … … What did you say, Sanatombi?’

  Sanatombi did not say a word but kept looking at the Dowager Queen. She did not get up either. Maxwell looked down. He did not know what to say, he did not know what to do.

  The queen said, ‘That is out of the question, Sanatombi. I know everything, but even so, no. I am telling you, no. Saheb, this woman is a daughter of a king, she is a woman with a husband, there must not be any scandal. There cannot be any scandal with you. Let’s go, get up, Sanatombi.’

  The queen, the Lady of Ngangbam, put her daughter in the horse carriage and took her away. Chonjon the peon also went with her. Maxwell did not even remember to salute the queen. He quietly went inside his room and closed the door. He came out late at night and ate some soup.

  After they reached her residence, Chonjon said quietly to the queen as he was leaving, ‘Royal Dowager Queen, please call some wise and skilled men and have her looked at. Your servant has some suspicions.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your servant the Saheb associates with all sorts of people. He keeps the company of a lot of shamans and witch doctors. I have seen Serei the Tribal go in every now and then. I have a feeling that perhaps some spell may have been cast.’

  ‘Hm.’ The Lady of Ngangbam had only this to say. She went no further.

  Maxwell was an unfortunate man. It was his misfortune to have come to Manipur. It was his misfortune to have met Sanatombi. It was his misfortune that he had been curious about the similarities between African witchcraft and the spells and spirits in Manipur. The Meiteis believed that he had ensnared the princess of Manipur. Though they did not say right out that he had ensnared Her Highness, they were very angry with him. They hated him. If it had been during the reign of the king, the fate of Chingakham Meri would have befallen him for driving the princess crazy. So said the people.