Ivory Throne

by Manu S. Pillai

  The next morning a wire came in from their staff in Kodaikanal asking them to delay their arrival by one day, as everything was yet to be readied. But because it was so hot in Madurai, the Valiya Koil Tampuran decided to proceed anyway. En route their driver took a wrong turn, causing them to wander unplanned around some parts of the Tamil countryside, which became quite an adventure for the Senior Rani. But a local guide led them to the village of Vatalagundu where their two escort cars had arrived and where their meals were planned. After lunch they set off again but somewhere on the way the Senior Rani and her husband overshot the escort cars again, with the result that when they arrived in Kodaikanal by dinnertime, none of their luggage or personal attendants had reached. And in spite of sending so many things from Trivandrum in advance, the house wasn’t at all what they imagined it would be. Rama Varma wrote:

  The first look around the house intended for our reception had a most disheartening effect upon us. The rooms were tiny and contained little that deserved the term of furniture and the whole house presented the appearance of long neglect and disuse. It was besides extremely cold, much more than our worst fears had pictured.93

  This disappointment was short-lived, however, because Sethu Lakshmi Bayi immediately got down to improving their holiday home, instructing the servants to fix up and arrange the articles brought from Trivandrum according to her taste. Although the house was, in Rama Varma’s words, ‘small and undignified’, its location offered a brilliant view of the valley below and hills in the distance. They quickly got used to the climate also, and every morning the Senior Rani would go for long walks while her husband went out riding. Miss Watts’s sisters were in town at the time along with some other British acquaintances from Travancore; so very often she had company for tea. In the evenings prominent locals would come to pay their respects as well. Things were much freer and she felt a huge sense of relief as she enjoyed this break from Trivandrum and all its troubles. Her husband didn’t miss this development, happily informing her family:

  During the day Her Highness walks not less than 6 miles. She is decidedly the better for the change. Her colour has returned to her and she no longer has that feeling of not being up to the mark. She is quite cheerful and likes her way of life here immensely. Though she looks more or less thin, still she is stronger and healthier.94

  The Junior Rani had also arrived in Kodaikanal in the meantime and taken a house at some distance, which was a better place, but without a very good view. Sethu Parvathi Bayi’s arrival had been rather more glamorous and through her ‘triumphal progress’ (in Rama Varma’s sneering words) across south India that summer, she attended many reception parties. Soon after reaching Kodaikanal, then, she fell ill and the ever-caustic Rama Varma ascribed this to all her public activities en route: ‘to have given thoughtful, relevant, and learned replies to the legion of addresses would tell upon the strongest of constitutions.’95 His wife was more appropriate in her response when she heard of her cousin’s indisposition and paid her several visits, which were not returned, although Kochukunji came once, complaining about the cold and giving her niece the bizarre information that as a remedy she covered herself in bed with her own hair.96

  There were also many social opportunities during the season in Kodaikanal but the Senior Rani was happier visiting local schools and convents to interact with children and see the way these establishments were run. On 26 April, though, she attended her first ever Western-style party when the local club organized a fancy dress dinner. The brother of the Rajah of Pudukkottai, known as the Dorai Rajah, had even announced a prize for the best-dressed couple, but nothing could induce Sethu Lakshmi Bayi to appear in anything but her regular orthodox garments. Curiosity did take her to the party, however, but she doesn’t seem to have enjoyed it much because she thought the Dorai Rajah behaved ‘rather cheaply’ for her standards. The Senior Rani and the Valiya Koil Tampuran then left the party by 11 p.m., early by standards in princely circles, and then heard that Sethu Parvathi Bayi had only reached by midnight, fitting much better and more smoothly into fashionable high society.97

  The stay in Kodaikanal continued until July when the Senior Rani returned to Trivandrum where considerable changes were afoot. By this time, the Dewan was none other than Sir M. Krishnan Nair, a ‘thorough bred aristocrat’ from Malabar with a reputation for ‘moral uprightness, correctitude and industry’.98 He was introduced to Sankaran Tampi by the famous author C.V. Raman Pillai before being appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Travancore in 1910. In 1914 he was promoted as Dewan, succeeding P. Rajagopalachari and initially serving the Maharajah (and Tampi) well. More importantly, it was he who steered Travancore’s administration and finances during the difficult times of the First World War and in spite of tired global conditions ensured a time of ‘great prosperity’ for the state.99 But by 1919 his relations with his monarch soured and T. Raghavaiah, a civil servant from Madras, was selected as his successor. Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, who carefully observed the state’s politics, didn’t agree much with Sir Krishnan’s policies or even personality and looked forward to his replacement, writing to her father in Kilimanoor, ‘we can find comfort in the thought that it is a great thing that he who was here has gone.’100 Little did she imagine then that they would become relatives in a few years’ time when her brother married Sir Krishnan’s daughter, Meenakshi.

  The next few years were quiet but fairly eventful for Sethu Lakshmi Bayi. She had given up hope of having children of her own by now because her miscarriages had, according to doctors, had adverse and lasting effects on her chances. Throughout the 1910s she had tried all types of medications and even made religious offerings to remedy her condition, including at well-known Christian churches; in the late 1920s the Viceroy, on a visit to Trivandrum, would be astonished to find a large cross made of solid gold and silver donated by the Senior Rani to the Syrian church in the city.101 To the goddess in Attingal she promised a golden flagstaff if she were blessed with a child, much to the consternation of her mother at that time. Only ruling sovereigns could, according to tradition, dedicate kodimarams (flagstaffs) and it seemed quite presumptuous to assume that Sethu Lakshmi Bayi would one day sit on the throne and fulfil her pledge. But after Mahaprabha’s death, the Senior Rani’s manner of devotion changed and a more personal form of worship replaced this outward-oriented religiosity of donations and vows. She had always been fond of the god Krishna and accepted him now as her personal deity. A silver figurine that belonged to the late Rani became her object of worship and she started dedicatedly spending hours every day in japam and prayers to Krishna. ‘She loved him and had Mukundan Tampi do a series of paintings that hung everywhere in the palace,’ her granddaughter remembers.102 Rama Varma, for all his English manners and overtly Western outlook, also remained deeply religious, with his personal deity being Mahadeva. His japams were never, however, quite as long and elaborate as his wife’s tended to be.103

  In the early 1920s, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was also doing new things occasionally. On a holiday in Ponmudi during the summer of 1921 she learnt target shooting from her husband who noted that although she would shoot only with a small rifle, she had very good potential in the sport. At this hill station the otherwise introvert Senior Rani was also having little soirees with the families of local English planters and other acquaintances like the Lights and the Prides, on one occasion also going down to visit a Mrs Marshall’s tea factory to observe its working. By 1922 she showed considerable eagerness to accompany the Valiya Koil Tampuran and his friend, H.C.H. Robinson, the Land Revenue Commissioner, into the forest for a shikar where a wild leopard was frightening local tribes. ‘If only I could see it once!’ she wrote to her father, thrilled at the prospect of coming so close to a magnificent animal.104 She also visited the Periyar reserve that summer, recording the experience:

  Yesterday we had been to see the Periyar dam. We started out at 3:30 in the morning and returned only at 8 in the night. It was about 23 miles from here to the lak
e. We went by car up to this point and then by steamboat to the TB [Travellers’ Bungalow] where we had lunch and rested for a while. We started back in the evening. Though we could not see any wild elephants as expected we saw deer far away and I was satisfied. It was altogether a very enjoyable trip.105

  In 1923 the annual holiday was spent at Munnar where they visited the ‘Bison Valley’. Rama Varma shot one of the animals, his wife matter-of-factly reporting to family that it had a body ‘not as proportionately large as its head’.106 The Senior Rani was doing things that she would not, and most likely could not, have otherwise done if it weren’t for Rama Varma. She definitely enjoyed these outside activities but a nudge from her husband was always welcome to really get her down to it; her own natural inclination was to read and read more all the time. For some time, in 1915, she had also kept pets in the form of deer that were gifted to her by her husband. But she got so attached to them that every illness or ailment they suffered would destroy her peace of mind, not helped by the fact that one of them was handicapped. And so Rama Varma decided it was better to take the animals away. The experience with the handicapped deer remained with Sethu Lakshmi Bayi forever though, and while she could understand the great thrill of hunting, she convinced her husband to engage in the sport only when he heard of wild animals troubling village settlements in the fringe regions of the state and otherwise not to go after them for the cruel pleasures of game alone.

  In the meantime, in the year of 1922 two other important events had taken place. As far as the royal family was concerned, this was the birth of the third child of Junior Rani, namely Uthradam Tirunal Martanda Varma Tampuran, First Prince of Travancore on 22 March.107 Now there were two male successors to Mulam Tirunal and for Sethu Parvathi Bayi, two prospective Maharajahs in her line. But what was closer to the Senior Rani’s heart was the arrival of a son to her sister Kutty Amma in the same year.108 Her letter to her father the next morning was full of questions: ‘Was he born at a good hour? Is his jathakam [horoscope] good? Whom does he look like?’ and so on.109 Another letter she wrote afterwards was more emotional: ‘Though this child will never experience a grandmother’s petting I am sure his grandmother’s blessing will be ever on him.’110 The advent of children into the life of her younger sister must certainly have created mixed feelings in Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s mind, who was going to be twenty-seven that year. But if it depressed her with thoughts of her own enduring childlessness, she kept these feelings to herself and not a word was uttered either to her father or anybody else.

  The year 1923 was ushered in quietly at Satelmond Palace and at the beginning of the year the usual plans were made about how to spend it. But most of these were thrown haywire suddenly when early in the summer the Senior Rani, while at Munnar again, started feeling very fatigued and weary. Initially this was dismissed as a consequence of her outdoor activities, but soon this tiredness began to be accompanied by nausea and her personal physician was summoned from Trivandrum. This was Dr Mrs Mary Poonen Lukose, the first female graduate of Travancore, who had gone on to study medicine in London and Dublin before returning and accepting government service. She had replaced the Ranis’ old personal physician Mrs Austin in 1916 and Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was most comfortable dealing with her. It did not take Dr Mary too many tests after her arrival to determine what the issue was: Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, she declared half astonished, was with child. The news came as a great surprise to the Senior Rani and Rama Varma (and in fact to everyone else connected with the royal house). After her miscarriages between 1909 and 1913, there had been no signs whatever of her ever conceiving, effectively confirming that Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had become, as her detractors pointedly repeated, ‘barren’. Now, a decade later, the news came as a bolt out of the blue, even as the Senior Rani thanked the gods for granting her unrelenting prayers.

  But the mere fact of pregnancy was not particularly reassuring given her history of miscarriages and so she treated the whole thing with an almost surreal blasé, not getting her hopes too high. Draconian care was taken, and Dr Mary was specially deputed to supervise her progress, even as the Senior Rani returned to making a whole new series of religious offerings across Travancore so that the gods would not let her down at a later stage. A heavy consignment of medical books was ordered from Europe so that she could prepare herself professionally, just in case the gods did decide to dash her hopes yet again. But more importantly, she missed her mother terribly at this time and felt highly vulnerable as the pregnancy progressed into its seventh month. If this failed now, it would be more than she could bear.

  On 30 December 1923, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi went into labour and was carried into her palace in the fort, where for many days special ceremonies were being conducted in anticipation of the royal birth. These had not been completed in fact as the baby wasn’t expected for another month, and so it was quite unexpectedly that the chants of the priests were replaced by the cries of a baby girl. The delivery had not been easy at all but if that were worrisome, what happened after was positively frightening. In the moments following the baby’s birth, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi suddenly suffered a powerful eclamptic fit. Watching the Senior Rani’s weak body shake and turn so violently, her nurses felt a momentary sense of dread. But then she fell still, almost as if a curse had been lifted off her; and upon regaining consciousness, in spite of her great discomfort, felt a tremendous sense of relief: her baby was alive. Nevertheless, over the next few days, on the one hand she was severely indisposed by body aches and oedemas while on the other her mind remained full of fear.111 The baby was premature and underweight and although she trusted Dr Mary’s abilities, there was a worry that she might not survive.

  The little one was wrapped in layers and layers of cotton and flannel sheets to keep her warm. Special nurses were appointed to handle the child and her nursery was kept scrupulously germ-free and soundproof for more than a month, and again the doctor’s efficiency proved successful. The baby thrived and flourished and when the doctor was satisfied that special nurses were no longer required the tension was diffused but not quite removed. The Senior Rani and more so the Valiya Koil Tampuran were constantly worried about the child’s state of health. The slightest whimper from the nursery would send them both running into the room to see what the matter was.112

  As per tradition, the baby was kept within doors for the first six months, and by March 1924 Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was reassured that this time she would not lose her child. In spite of the persistent body aches, she posed for a photograph at this point with her child because her sisters could not come down from Mavelikkara to see her. ‘I look awful in it,’ she self-consciously complained to them, ‘so please don’t show it to anybody.’113 Six months later, Mulam Tirunal conducted the naming ceremony of his new great-niece and, for his own reasons and to general surprise, deferred to the wishes of the Senior Rani in giving the baby an unconventional name, even though it meant straying from custom. Perhaps he was finally satisfied now that Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had fulfilled the terms of her adoption. Or it might have been the look of pure happiness that had engulfed the otherwise melancholy-looking queen that caused him to be unusually gracious. Either way, he made it known that she now enjoyed his complete approval at those ceremonies.

  Traditionally, female members of the royal house were named Lakshmi, Parvathi, Rukmini or Uma, but Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had selected an entirely new one for her child. And the obliging Maharajah, thus, proclaimed to their subjects the birth of Her Highness Uthram Tirunal Lalitamba Bayi Tampuran, Second Princess of Travancore.114 That day Sethu Lakshmi Bayi posed for another photograph with her baby. Dressed all in white, with her hair in a bun at the back of her head and adorned with white flowers, a minimal number of ornaments on her person and with only the trademark gobipottu (long tikka) on her forehead for make-up, the Senior Rani looked down and smiled radiantly at her sleeping child as the camera flashed. And for the first time in years Sethu Lakshmi Bayi looked genuinely happy.

  A month after the ceremon
ies, the Senior Rani and her husband went on their maiden holiday as a family with seven-month-old Princess Lalitha to Varkala. The baby had a slight fever so she was not brought out too much, lest proximity to the sea aggravate her condition. But the child recovered steadily, although back in the capital someone else’s condition wasn’t quite so agreeable. Sixty-seven-year-old Mulam Tirunal had become rather unwell and disquieting reports were arriving daily. The matter was that he had a decayed tooth that his dentists were prohibited from extracting because of his orthodoxy, resulting in a predictable infection. By the end of July his doctors identified septicaemia but it had become too late to do anything. The Senior Rani and the Valiya Koil Tampuran hastened back to Trivandrum, while the Junior Rani who was sojourning in Ooty also rushed back. The Legislative Council was adjourned sine die and crowds from all over Travancore flocked to the fort to await news. Finally, on the night of 7 August 1924, His Highness Sri Padmanabha Dasa Vanchi Pala Sri Mulam Tirunal Sir Rama Varma Kulasekhara Kiritapathi Manney Sultan Maharajah Raja Rama Raja Bahadur Shamsher Jang, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., etc. etc., Maharajah of Travancore died.115

  The funeral ceremonies took place on the morning of 8 August and the body was draped with silk cloth that was used to adorn the image of Sri Padmanabhaswamy. The flame that lit his pyre also came, in keeping with tradition, from the shrine of the great temple.116 As his mortal remains were consumed by the blaze, with a sixty-six-gun salute booming in the background, the story of a controversial sovereign who was respected as Ponnu Tampuran (‘the Golden King’) as much as he was loathed as a debauchee came to an end. And with it closed a nearly forty-year chapter in Travancore’s history. The Dewan proclaimed a period of mourning and all public establishments were shut while the royal family retreated into the twelve-day period of ritual seclusion. Those few days were solemn and quiet, and to many it seemed like the grim peace that signalled a terrible storm.