Ivory Throne

by Manu S. Pillai

  The first thing Lalitha did was to enrol the girls into the Baldwin Girls’ School that was just across the road from their new bungalow. ‘Our titles were dropped and we became ordinary children,’ recalls Uma. ‘I was Her Highness Bharani Tirunal Uma Bayi Tampuran earlier. Now I became simply Miss Uma Varma, daughter of Mr and Mrs Kerala Varma. In fact we felt it was rather backward to flaunt any royal titles any more, and if anyone asked, we were told to say that our father was an industrialist.’40 This was not entirely surprising an innovation. From the time of her marriage in 1938, even when she was in the palace, Lalitha had been signing letters as ‘LKV’—Lalitha Kerala Varma. No longer did she want to be known as the Second Princess of Travancore, and Bangalore offered her the opportunity to discard an identity she always resented and thought of as alien. ‘She often used to declare to us in jest, “The only thing I love about Kerala is Kerala Varma!”’41 But what Rukmini thought was ‘the most amazing thing’ was that ‘mother did not falter at any of these regular, housewifely things. It is so marvellous how she did this, how a woman brought up in a palace could change like that. We became a very close-knit family of father, mother and children for the first time.’42 Lalitha’s cousins were also astonished by her ability to adapt. ‘If the maids had some trouble or were not available, she was perfectly capable of picking up a broom and sweeping the house herself—none of that ladylike helplessness for which princesses were notorious.’43 During a holiday in Bombay, she would also take all her girls for a commute by public transport with photographs revealing bewildered co-passengers in the background wondering who these clearly upper-class bus travellers were. ‘Mother wanted to educate us,’ Rukmini giggles, ‘but I think we were so pampered that we only looked at it as a joyride!’44

  The public, even in Bangalore, certainly recognised that this new, exuberant family with four daughters were not ordinary, no matter how hard they tried to fit the bill. ‘It was a great sensation at the time that we had come away like this, leaving a whole palace behind. You only needed to disembark at the station and say you wanted to go to Travancore House and they knew exactly where to bring you.’45 Part of this was because Lalitha had a great deal of help in this enterprise to become an ideal housewife. ‘We came away from that artificial lifestyle in Satelmond,’ remarks Rukmini, ‘but some of it came with us! Our favourite servants were brought to Bangalore, and mother had two assistant cooks in the kitchen, where she was breaking new ground as an excellent chef. There were two live-in maids, a gardener, two drivers, an errand boy and a local maid for outside work. But it was nothing like the scores we had in the palace. There must have been ten at most.’46 Clearly, Lalitha had a fair amount of assistance even in her new life.

  Soon the family evolved a very relaxed, westernised lifestyle, complete with two pet Alsatians, Rex and Regina. The girls would go off to school in the morning, which was at first something of a struggle. ‘There was some teasing in the beginning,’ remembers Uma, ‘that we were princesses and all that, but after some time those girls got over the novelty.’47 There were barely any Indians, however, at Baldwin’s in those days. ‘The whole place was run by European nuns and Anglo-Indian ladies, and the city itself was a mini-England. Most of the girls were English or French, and there were one or two Americans. We were among the few Indians in the school. There was only one other Indian girl in my class called Farida,’ remembers Rukmini, ‘and Uma and Parvathi had Sir Mirza’s family in their cohort. Our best friends naturally were also Europeans, with names like Gale and Irene, and I remember a Swedish girl called Brigita too.’48 Some relations mumbled that it was too unorthodox to introduce the princesses to this crowd, but Lalitha thought it was excellent exposure.

  Kerala Varma, in the meantime, began to lead a gentleman’s life, since he had all the time in the world for such indulgences. He would go out riding in the mornings and was a popular member of the Turf Club where he played polo and owned a much coveted, award-winning racehorse at one time. His musical interests were pursued with great diligence, as was a new-found hobby for gardening. ‘I have never met,’ laughs Rukmini, ‘any other man who knows so much about flowers and gardening or who can arrange flowers in such a wonderful style. Father consistently won awards for the best garden at neighbourhood competitions, and there were these haughty old Englishmen who huffed and puffed and always resented losing the prize to this young Indian man!’49 He also spent a good amount of time at the Bangalore Club, where his friends included some of the leading businessmen in the city. ‘They also often went out for receptions the Mysore Maharajah had when he visited the city, or for parties organised by Vittal Mallya and other industrialists.’50 By the 1960s, Kerala Varma himself would venture into entrepreneurship, and establish a number of small concerns: a cables factory, a mechanical tools enterprise, a ceramic tiles unit and so on. ‘I also remember father playing a lot of tennis and golf,’ tells Parvathi, ‘but it was he who ensured we did our homework everyday, and his steward Hariharan taught us mathematics. Till he started his companies, he was very much a house husband just as mother was a housewife!’51 Lalitha, all along, was en route to becoming a prominent socialite in the city.

  There were three famous Lalithas in Bangalore in those days: Lalitha Varma, Lalitha Mallya, and Lalitha Ubhayakar. The second was of course Vittal Mallya’s wife, and the third came from the Ubhayakar family who were called the ‘merchant princes’ of Bangalore. But it was mother’s parties that were truly legendary. Nothing like the way people do it these days. The house was full of gaiety in those days. The food never ran out, there were special waiters and others brought in if it was a big affair, tables and chairs put out in the garden, and streams of visitors. The fare was always vegetarian but there would be pies and cakes and many delicacies, the recipes for which she picked up after coming to Bangalore. And the regular guests included people who could never, in the old ‘royal’ days, have socialised with mother so easily. Lots of prominent Muslims, Christian planters who had houses in Bangalore (including from Kerala who were technically mother’s ‘subjects’ at one time!), members of the Mysore and Jaipur royal families, and a lot of that sort of crowd. Mother was the driving force behind it all, and everyone loved her.52

  But these were her large parties. Smaller parties happened every few days; as Lalitha’s nephew put it, ‘If someone sneezed on Richmond Road, aunt would declare that it was time for a party!’53 Characteristically, then, she wasn’t especially particular about the guest list and believed in the old saying of the more the merrier. ‘I remember,’ tells a sister-in-law, ‘how one afternoon, before a party she and I went shopping on Commercial Street. And every other person we ran into was a friend of Lalitha’s. She invited all of them that evening—and they all showed up! They loved her energy and joie de vivre. They loved spending time with her.’54 Sometimes the results were a little disturbing, though Lalitha took them in her stride with a laugh. ‘So many people, scores of them literally, ate at the Richmond Road house everyday,’ recalls a cousin, ‘that once some absolute strangers, a weird group of men, came in, sat down in one of the verandahs, and were served hot meals from the kitchen. Lalitha played the perfect hostess and was so gregarious that we presumed she knew them. After they left when we asked her who they were, she came back with: “Haven’t the faintest!”’55 Rukmini explains, however, that ‘mother had a rule that anyone who came home, no matter what their background or purpose, had to be given a meal. So these men were probably told by someone to sit in the verandah and mother happily served them.’56

  The children, as they grew older, were welcome to join in the perennial party that was life at No. 9 during those early years. ‘Our friends from school loved coming to meet mother, because she enjoyed pampering them, and if it weren’t for pieces of antique furniture and all those paintings of our princely ancestors, they could never have guessed we used to be “royal”.’57 It was Kerala Varma of whom everyone seemed to be in awe. ‘We used to think he looked like a film star,’ laughs a
cousin, ‘with his suits and the horses and all his other sports. He was a very confident person and Lalitha allowed him to develop a personality of his own.’58 While the girls were younger, they were brought out only for half an hour to meet the guests, before returning to their rooms. But as they grew, they were allowed to party too. ‘Mother loved to give all of us a great time, but father was always concerned, since we were girls, and there were always boys trying to flirt,’ laughs Rukmini. ‘In fact at one time there was this menace of local boys on bicycles throwing love letters and notes over our walls. Father posted guards all around, so the silly chaps were caught if they were up to any mischief!’59

  The Bangalore Club became a favourite haunt of the family. ‘In earlier days they did not welcome Indians unless they were princes, but by the 1950s this was relaxed and businessmen were also allowed. So, father made many Indian friends there too, and mother also would go and spend time at the club.’60 Relations visiting from Kerala or even from Madras were amazed by the ambience and culture of the Bangalore Club. ‘See,’ explains a cousin, ‘we grew up in a big city too, but it wasn’t anglicised the way Bangalore was. We were even well off but not royal like Lalitha and family. I still remember going to the club with Rukmini for a party in the 1960s. It was magical—an aesthetic experience, with all these handsome men and lovely, uninhibited women. Rukmini was a phenomenal beauty and all the men were eager to dance with her. She was the life of the party. And there was a lot of champagne, though we ourselves behaved like country cousins and didn’t touch anything, sitting tight with wide eyes, trying to digest this glamorous world! We always wondered whether we would ever be able to live like this even after we grew up and married.’61

  As the girls grew into their teens, they began to evolve minds of their own. Rukmini was excellent at school, winning awards, participating in numerous activities, becoming captain of Watson House and so on. Uma inherited much of her mother’s rebelliousness. ‘I still remember one morning,’ chuckles Rukmini, ‘father waking up and seeing Uma with her hair cropped short. Tony Curtis, the Hollywood star, was a rage at the time, and all the girls were taken up with him. Uma decided to cut her hair, and standing before a mirror chopped it all off into what was meant to be Curtis’s hairstyle! Father was livid. She used to be a prankster, like grandfather, and every now and then her teachers would send notes to father that she had teased a certain girl or played a practical joke on someone.’62 Parvathi, on the other hand, ‘had a frightful temper, though she loved machines and things like that. She also became a very good driver and had this mechanical bent that quite impressed everyone. She also took to playing the veena very well, like father.’63 Lakshmi was still young, but in due course would prove to be just as determined as her mother and older sisters were.

  Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, in the meantime, became very curious herself as to how her grandchildren were faring in their modern avatars and lives in a whole new city. ‘I think,’ tells Rukmini, ‘I was the only one who had some trouble adjusting, and that is why I became very competitive at school. Uma and the others were raised by mother, but I was raised by grandmother in that royal style and it took me a while to adjust to life outside the palace.’64 To study this first-hand, in March 1950, the Maharani arrived in Bangalore with ten servants. ‘The whole place was overrun with servants, but what we did was that five rooms in one wing of the house were set aside for grandmother to use, while all of us used the other wing.’65 The new lifestyle of her family was an eye-opener for Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, but she quite enjoyed the breath of fresh air that was freedom in this alien city. Some things, however, horrified her. ‘Grandmother just couldn’t get it into her head,’ laughs Parvathi, ‘that we crossed the road to go to school. She was so alarmed that her grandchildren were doing something “so dangerous” that for all of her stay, we had to come out of the house, get into a rather imposing car, and we’d be driven across the road to school! Uma hated this and the moment the car halted, she would jump out and run away, salvaging her reputation before any of the other girls saw us arrive this way!’66

  By May, the Maharani returned to the palace, delighted with Bangalore but unhappy to be away from her family who seemed to be doing so well there that Sethu Lakshmi Bayi felt a little left out. ‘Life goes on here as usual, though it is hardly worth calling it life,’ she wrote to Lalitha later that year. ‘Kutty Amma comes here every morning so I don’t even go to the nalukettu [old house] these days. I spend most of my time in prayers and so the days go on.’67 She was soon to return, however, for in 1951 it was announced that Lalitha was pregnant with her fifth child. Promptly, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi arrived at Richmond Road, and in September the newest sister in the line, Ambika, was born. She was the first member of the royal family to arrive not in a palace, but faraway from the old principality, and for whom Travancore and all the old stories from Satelmond, Lalindloch, or Halcyon Castle, were just that: stories.

  Growing up, then, Ambika, who never experienced that old lifestyle, had a different view from her older sisters. ‘This whole palace thing was very distant from my upbringing,’ she would say, ‘and with my mother underplaying it so much, there was never any reason to explore that past. Whatever I heard was from my sisters, but given the way I grew up, I still can’t imagine them in a scenario like that.’68 To begin with, the whole family spoke barely any Malayalam any more. ‘It was mainly because of our schooling with all these European girls, and we only used Malayalam with our household staff. I can read the language with difficulty but I cannot write it. I remember classmates at school teasing me because we had lots of servants and attendants all over the place, but mother gave us the feeling that we were no different from them. She dinned it into us, and actually even gave me the impression that we were not well off at all!’69 On visits to Kerala, Ambika found the palace ‘regal and all that’ but it never made an impression on her. ‘As far as I was concerned, Bangalore was home.’70 She would go on: ‘I remember being taken to meet the Maharajah once in Trivandrum and I was told I had to bow to him. I had no intention of doing any such thing. Grandmother was a queen and I had never bowed to her, so I saw no reason to bow to this man. Grandmother’s sister, Kochu Thankam, was shocked at my refusal. I never met the Junior Maharani, but I had heard stories about her. I was always close to mum, and I think some of her influence rubbed off on me. She balked at being called a princess, though she respected her mother’s work. I vividly remember visiting grandfather at Harippad once with mum, and he received her with fireworks and this enormous shiny banner that screamed, “Welcome Home Princess.” She almost cried! He was trying to give her a warm reception, but she felt awful and embarrassed. So this royalty tag is not for me, thank you. It doesn’t fit in anywhere, except in obscure stories, which I can never relate to fully.’71

  Many years later, Ambika’s son would study medicine in Trivandrum. ‘Now you can imagine that if I didn’t understand it myself, Ajit, a generation later, barely knew anything about this royal past. He got a bit of this “prince” business and some of his local Malayali batchmates would talk about it. He then became eager to learn about his heritage and culture, but as an objective interest and not to form any lofty opinions about being “royal”! He’s a doctor now, living in England, and working like any other professional. And that is how it should be, don’t you think?’72 Lalitha’s older girls had lived in and knew the palace and the gilded world around it, but Ambika began with a clean slate of her own. And Lalitha ensured she provided her a lifestyle and upbringing that was as ordinary as possible. Mission Housewife appeared to be successfully under way.

  Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, in the meantime, was enjoying her stay in Bangalore that lasted nearly a year on this occasion. ‘I think grandmother had a lot of fun after a very, very long time,’ remarks Rukmini. In the old days in the palace, going out to the movies, for instance, was a complicated affair. ‘One had to decide a week in advance, then inform the manager, who would seek permission from the Valiya Koil Tampuran, who then com
municated this to the Maharani. Then the manager would call the cinema and a balcony would be reserved. But the royal family could not be seen at a public venue, so they could enter only once the lights were out. Of course the Maharani never went for these, and it was mainly Lalitha and us cousins.’73 In Bangalore now, however, it was a less bureaucratic affair. A balcony would still be reserved ‘and we would start from home in a few cars,’ tells Rukmini. ‘We’d all enjoy a historical film, of which there were many in the 1950s, covering Greek or Roman history. Years later I remember watching Ben-Hur with her. There were only a few theatres in Bangalore in those days, like the Plaza or the Rex, and one called the Globe. She used to sit with her feet up on the seats in front of her, and really enjoyed the freedom. She could never do these things in Trivandrum, where if she stepped on to the streets people would be bowing and falling at her feet with all that traditional reverence! I think she really understood what mother meant when she said she wanted to be liberated from the weight of heritage. She was personally orthodox but she was able to understand and condone our choice for a different lifestyle.’74