Ivory Throne

by Manu S. Pillai

  The boy in question was Tosher Hormusjee, the son of a Parsi businessman. Even Uma, who was otherwise remarkably rebellious, was uncertain. But somehow news reached Sethu Lakshmi Bayi of the discussion in the family. So one day, when Tosher came by, the Maharani summoned him for an interview. When he went in, she asked him a number of questions about his career, interests and his parents. ‘At the end of the interview a maidservant instructed him to bow down to her. I don’t think he had ever bowed to anyone before that!’ tells Radhika. ‘Great-grandmother asked me when I went to see her later if I was really interested in this boy, to which I said yes.’111 Promptly, then, Uma and Lalitha were called in and the Maharani commanded, ‘Whatever Radhika wants, you must allow it. It is her decision and her life.’112 ‘It was such a boost of confidence for me. Even Tosher said that at a time when there was so much opposition from all quarters, he couldn’t believe that my great-grandmother greeted him and welcomed him to the family. He was very impressed by her. I wondered how someone so elderly, who had lived all her life in an orthodox palace, could be so broad-minded. But I guess she was just that special lady!’113

  Indeed, it was in this decade that Sethu Lakshmi Bayi truly unhinged herself from the past, taking one step after another towards achieving an almost spiritual peace and detachment. All her worldly possessions were given up by now, and even her jewellery and almost all her money had been divided among family members. In 1971 the Government of India, in terminating the privy purses of the ex-princes, also discontinued the Maharani’s pension. Though it would be restored a decade later, she received the unexpected termination ungrudgingly.114 In the meantime a court case had sprung up with the Maharajah. In 1971, the properties of the royal family were divided, but only the Sripadam was taken into account. Chithira Tirunal claimed the entire set of palaces and buildings in Trivandrum, known as Valiya Kottaram, as his private property. Lalitha and Indira were both incensed that even Satelmond, their childhood home, was the Maharajah’s ‘private property’ and prolonged litigation commenced, though the Maharani herself was personally against the idea. ‘She really didn’t want to fight and have anything to do with Trivandrum any more.’115

  Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s attachment even to Satelmond Palace had now ceased. In 1951, in what felt like a lifetime ago, she had cared about it, and obtained from V.P. Menon an assurance, since the Maharajah was unwilling to give her one, that ‘Your Highness’ rights and those of your children to stay at Satelmond Palace so long as you desire will be respected and safeguarded.’116 But as soon as she had left the palace, Kowdiar Palace demanded the surrender of its keys on the grounds that the Maharani no longer used it, and that it was the private property of the Maharajah.117 Again this assertion was denied as ludicrous and patently unjust. But a few decades down the line her thinking had changed. Sometime in the early 1970s the Maharajah had created, through a generous endowment and with the government’s backing, the Sree Chithira Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Trivandrum.118 The premises were not very appealing, however, and its head, Dr M.S. Valiathan, had for some time been looking for a place with a greater heritage. It was at this time that he met the Maharani’s son-in-law, KK, a friend of his, and was surprised by his suggestion: ‘Why don’t you take Satelmond?’119 By this time the place resembled a haunted house and though there was a permanent caretaker, it was rather run-down. Occasionally, the younger boys in the family took city friends there to camp and party, but the family had no particular use of the property. Dr Valiathan, therefore, promptly explored the possibility of acquiring this as the headquarters for his institute. ‘One great asset,’ he remembers, ‘was that the Maharajah and his mother as well as the Senior Maharani and her daughters had a lot of goodwill for us.’120 An agreement was drafted that pending court proceedings between the two families, a government-allotted compensation would be reserved, and later claimed by the victors. By 1976, the paperwork was drawn up and all Dr Valiathan needed was signatures.

  But that is when the Junior Maharani changed her mind and decided against giving the palace over. Her secretary, Vaidyanath Iyer, informed Dr Valiathan that ‘the Maharani says there is no need for this transaction, and we cannot ask her any questions’.121 The Chief Minister of Kerala even suggested another location, but the doctor was determined to have Satelmond, with all its beauty and majestic history. Luckily for him, this was the time when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi proclaimed the Emergency, and fear of the government was on an all-time high. One evening the caretaker at the palace called to inform Lalitha that the police had arrived at Satelmond and forced their way in, with plans to convert the palace into a police camp. Dr Valiathan promptly rang Vaidyanath Iyer and appealed to him that a medical research facility was a nobler alternative to letting the palace become, of all things, a place for trainee policemen to drill around in their undergarments. That very evening the Maharajah agreed to sign the papers. Along with KK, Dr Valiathan then flew to Madras and obtained Indira’s signature, leaving immediately afterwards for Bangalore. All that could go wrong on the way did—the plane was delayed and their luggage was misplaced—and it was nearly 11:30 at night when they got out of the airport.

  ‘We thought we would never see the Senior Maharani that night, but when we rang Mrs Kerala Varma she said, “No, no, mother is waiting for you.”’ And so the two men called at Shrinivas late that night. ‘I had seen her last as a boy of ten,’ Dr Valiathan, who was related through his father to the Maharani,122 now tells, ‘and she was there again that night, and her daughter, and Kerala Varma, were all around her. She took the agreement and smiled. She said to me, “Valiathan, you must have come to Satelmond several times.” I said yes. And she said to me as she signed the papers, “Aah, this is freedom at midnight!” It was a joke based on the book by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, and everybody had a laugh. That was the amazing thing. There was no sorrow or anger or regret at losing the palace. She had lived there and ruled over millions of people from there. But there was no bitterness at losing it. She was so cheerful. She had a complete sense of detachment by then. It was a mark of her greatness.’123

  What pained Dr Valiathan in due course was that the Supreme Court in 1991 accepted the Maharajah’s contention that all these palaces were his private property and that other members of the royal family could only claim what was left of the Sripadam.124 ‘I had a moral dilemma, because I knew the Senior Maharani had lived there and her family were in physical possession; it was from them that I received the keys to the palace, but here I was giving away the money to the Maharajah’s side. I feel morally guilty to this day about that moment, but I could not do differently since it was a court order.’ Dr Valiathan then made ‘a feeble attempt to set up a Satelmond International Symposium for Biomedical Technology in the Maharani’s name, but nothing came of it in the long run.’ Today, other than a painting with a plaque presented by her family, there is nothing to commemorate the fact that she had reigned over a kingdom from that very palace, just as there is no monument to Sethu Lakshmi Bayi anywhere in Kerala to this day. ‘It is a regret,’ he concludes, ‘that will be with me for the rest of my life.’125

  But Sethu Lakshmi Bayi herself did not mind all this, nor that Satelmond now housed an institution named after the Maharajah. ‘She never blamed him at all, you know,’ tells Rukmini. ‘She thought of him as a very gentle soul.’126 On the contrary, she was delighted that her beloved palace was now once again cared for by its new owners and maintained in all its glory, while serving the public cause. Around the same time that she signed the palace away, permanently and decidedly severing her connection to the past, the Government of India also passed the Urban Land Ceiling Act by which no person was permitted to own more than a certain extent of property in Indian cities. Under its clauses, the Maharani’s home in Bangalore was too large for single ownership, and she was compelled to cut up and divide even the compound of Shrinivas among her grandchildren. Rukmini inherited the house she lived in, Ambika the
wing at the back, Devika the kitchen buildings, while other grandchildren received shares of land. Similarly, property she owned on Miller Road and Spencer Road went to Indira’s children. Shortly after this, when some visitors called on her, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, never one given to emotional demonstrations, showed herself as having accepted all these travails of her life with a smiling forbearance. Looking extremely fragile and shrunken, nearly bedridden by now, in a very tender voice she said: ‘Once I had a kingdom. But that is gone. Then I thought Satelmond was mine, but that is gone too. Then I thought this house was mine, but now I can only say this room is mine.’127

  The Maharani smiled as she said this, but the hearer was moved to tears.

  In December 1975, when Rukmini was on a visit to London, she received news that the Valiya Koil Tampuran was gravely ill and admitted to hospital. ‘I knew it was serious the moment I heard that grandmother had gone to see him there, because she never, ever went out.’128 Rama Varma had, for many years now, had a very delicate internal constitution and he used to take great care, therefore, of his food habits. But in the winter of 1975 he suffered a serious attack of indigestion, and one by one his organs began to fail until he lapsed into a coma. ‘I still remember him in his hospital bed, unconscious and with all sorts of tubes and wires on him,’ recalls Shreekumar.129 Devi Prasad and Rukmini landed just in time, for on 29 December, the Valiya Koil Tampuran died at the St Philomena’s Hospital in Bangalore aged eighty-six. A letter he had written, addressed to ‘Her Highness Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’ was delivered to his wife shortly afterwards. Its contents are not known, for the Maharani had it destroyed after she read it, but it was apparently a final expression of fealty and a last message of gratitude from him to the woman he owed everything.130 In death also, Rama Varma had been meticulously prepared, leaving behind not only this letter but also an exhaustive, detailed will with a codicil running into sixteen pages.131

  ‘It was a great loss for all of us, but particularly for grandmother. For a long time after this she did not speak,’ recalls Rukmini.132 Others too noticed the dramatic effect her husband’s death had on the Maharani. ‘She suddenly aged. I had never thought of her as frail until then, but slowly she began to fade away.’133 Indeed, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was terribly affected by the passing of the man who had been her companion from the time she was a girl of ten—from those merry games of hopscotch through to the Regency and beyond. Through thick and thin, she relied on his support, and though they did not always agree—whether during her reign or afterwards on matters of financial prudence—he had been the Maharani’s most faithful, even if somewhat unromantic, well-wisher. His death was also a sombre confirmation of the fact that the world she represented and had once presided over with such aplomb was truly gone forever. By the 1960s, most of her brothers had died (as had Miss Watts), and in 1978 Kochu Thankam, her long-standing companion, would retire to Kerala. Some years later the Maharani’s other sister Kutty Amma also died. With the Valiya Koil Tampuran’s passing away, even his faithful attendants departed to enjoy his bequests to them. One by one, everyone associated with her court disappeared, leaving Sethu Lakshmi Bayi behind, all alone. She was defined by these people and that grand old world they populated together. In 1982, even her youngest brother, seventeen years her junior, passed away suddenly. When informed about this, she asked, ‘Before me?’134

  By now the Maharani had little by way of her individuality except her greatly dignified demeanour. The Valiya Koil Tampuran, until he died, had always reminded the family that this gentle lady was a queen who had ruled and controlled the destinies of millions at one time. But Sethu Lakshmi Bayi herself never spoke about it. She must have been proud of what she had achieved, however, for she carefully preserved all her private papers and documents from the Regency in a black trunk under her bed; the work of her lifetime locked up in a nondescript box and tucked away, just like she hid her sentiments from everybody else. Even her grandchildren—the offspring of a new India—did not quite comprehend the scale of her achievements until after her death when that trunk was opened. But none of this seemed to matter any more, and a kind of loneliness crept into Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s mind. Her body had become frail and uncooperative, and she couldn’t get by without the aid of Mary and her nurses. She remained alert and still read a great deal, but slowly began to lose interest in everything. ‘She was always particular,’ remembers her nephew, ‘about her clothes and appearance, but in these final years she lost interest even in all that.’135 She had given up everything she had; in fact when she died there was only some of her pension money left in her bank. For a woman of such famous generosity, she had little left to give away. And once all those principal personalities from her generation too died or departed, she became the last standing woman. Once they had all surrounded her and looked up to her in awe. Now it was her fate to watch them fade away and to be left behind as the last of her line.

  In 1983, news arrived from Trivandrum that the Junior Maharani had died. Sethu Lakshmi Bayi received this information in silence. ‘I still remember telling her,’ states Rukmini, ‘and she had this pensive expression. A look of resignation, really, and she let out a heavy sigh. She didn’t say anything about what she felt or thought.’136 It was the culmination of an epic battle between the two Maharanis, but in the end an anticlimax. The truth was that the world and era they had battled in was no longer relevant; the Ivory Throne that had provoked a generation of quarrels now belonged in a sparsely visited museum. With the passage of time, both women became frail, weak and old, succumbing to that great equaliser, death. There were perhaps regrets, or perhaps there weren’t. In 1979, in fact, the Junior Maharani called on Sethu Lakshmi Bayi unexpectedly. The cousins had not seen one another for over twenty-two years. ‘When we told her that the Junior Maharani, the Maharajah and others were coming,’ recalls Uma, ‘she wasn’t keen at all. She asked, “But why now, why at this time? I don’t want to meet anyone. Can’t you say I’m not well?” It wasn’t because she disliked them. It was just that she had evolved beyond the history she shared with them.’137 Or perhaps Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, who had always been conscious of her dignity and walked with her head held high, did not wish to be seen unable to walk at all. At Lalitha’s insistence, however, she agreed, and the visitors spent several hours with her. ‘Grandmother was very cordial, and received them warmly. The Junior Maharani couldn’t climb up the steps into the house, so I remember it was Venu who cradled her up and carried her in.’138 For all her initial reluctance, photographs of the visit, nonetheless, depict a Sethu Lakshmi Bayi who looked positively radiant and happy at this final encounter with her former nemesis, who ironically looked rather glum.

  With even that great ‘villain of the piece’ from her life and times bowing out, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi moved into a mood of deep contemplation. ‘I remember the small rectangular room where she spent her last days, lonely and occasionally visited,’ Shreekumar would later write, ‘watching the dusk slip in and out of a series of windows.’ And once ‘towards the end, she confessed she was in danger of “forgetting how to talk”. An inherent optimism kept her going. It is frightening to consider such a darkening of life.’139 But this was perhaps an inevitable conclusion to the story of this Maharani. For the first twenty years after she renounced her royal past in favour of a new life in Bangalore, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was extremely content. She was essentially the heart and soul of her massive, doting family, surrounded always by people and finally enjoying unsullied happiness of a kind she had never known when she had lived and acted as a queen. Everyone looked forward to being with her, and compensated for what she had given up in Trivandrum with their love and affection.

  But such pristine days could not last forever, and by the 1980s things began to change. Lalitha and Indira were now approaching their sixties and even the Maharani’s grandchildren were moving towards middle age with their own cares and concerns. The youngest generation, her great-grandchildren, too had grown into adulthood and were part of
an urban crowd, ‘indistinguishable’, as Louise Ouwerkerk put it, ‘from the other charming young things that make up the smart set of Bangalore’.140 ‘The last thing we wanted to do at that age,’ comments Jay, ‘was to stay at home with family.’141 To them Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was a beloved matriarch and grandmother, but no longer did her tales from the epics enthral them like they once had. ‘She lost her regular company,’ Jay adds, ‘and though we tried to spend time with her occasionally, in hindsight I realise we got carried away with our little lives and could have done better. It was only afterwards that we realised her great sacrifice and how much we owed to her. But, alas, it was too late by then.’142 Balan too, in retrospect, entertains similar feelings: