The Princess and the Political Agent

by Binodini

  Sanatombi had said to Maxwell after she listened to his words, ‘Mesin, we had nobody in those days.’ And saying this she had burst into tears. ‘Don’t cry,’ and saying this Maxwell stroked Sanatombi’s head. Then he had left on his horse. He did not gallop away. He had wanted to comfort Sanatombi more. And so, he left. He left slowly upon his horse.

  Maxwell felt wretched ever since the other day when Sanatombi had asked if it was true what they said about him killing Koireng. He had felt the direct blow of the words of this young woman from this singular mountain-land. He, too, had many dissatisfactions. He did not even feel up to doing his work properly. Koireng had been killed. His crime—starting a war against the British Empire. None of the three men in the court set up to judge him were men of law. Ordinary soldiers had sat judgment upon him as if he were a common soldier. But no court had been appointed to look into the firing of shots late at night at the house of the crown prince of an independent land, into how many people died that day. Kulachandradhwaja had shouted out, ‘What are you going to do—the two young girls who were beheaded and thrown into the fire, their hair tied together, those whose hands were cut off, whose houses were burnt down … … … What are you going to be doing about them?’ It had not been an honourable battle of men against men, this underhanded war of murder and oppression was not honourable for any civilized people. The world had cried out: ‘What are you doing? Civilized England, give an answer.’

  The hapless Maxwell had been used as an instrument when imperial Britain tried to cover it up. He was ordered: ‘You must do this, but do it carefully.’ His late assignment of an earlier incident whose threads were now lost, whose footprints had been erased, was his duty to fulfil. He had to look for it with his eyes closed. He had stood up for his country as an obedient servant. He had answered the harsh questions posed by the world: ‘There had been casualties in the crossfire … … … .’ But it was his hands that had strangled justice. Lord Lansdowne, the patriotic Viceroy of India, had said, ‘Bravo Maxwell!’ Had Sanatombi known of all these things? Had she suffered the blows that he was feeling a hundredfold? Did he disgust her? When they had first met at Kangla Fort and she had spoken harshly to him he thought of Sanatombi as a sharp and bright spark. Her second strike was even more dangerous. And so, he did not come for a long time. But he could not forget that spark for even a single day, and he felt it unceasingly upon his person. He had found these last few days hard to endure. He had thought, ‘Shall I say it or shall I not?’ He decided to say it; she of all, at least, should know: ‘I may be your enemy but I am not that kind of cowardly man who cannot say he is sorry.’

  Even though he could not say it openly, he wanted to cry out into the emptiness, ‘We wronged you. We, the mighty and advanced, have wronged you, weak and small Manipur.’

  He felt a relief that day at having clumsily confessed this regret buried deep inside him to this maiden of his enemies; he felt light as if he had put down a burden. But he did not tell her everything because he did not know how to say everything. He did not know if Sanatombi had understood the little that he had said. He only felt the pleasure of having made a clean breast of it.

  His horse walked slowly. Maxwell headed home slowly, thinking. He saw before his eyes the wounded woman he had left weeping behind. He could not quite remember, but he had seen one day, somewhere—a butterfly caught in a large web. It flapped its wings as it tried to escape the web. In a far corner of the web a hideous spider waited for its chance to grab it. Maxwell had seen this sight one day. He was repulsed by it. He slowly disentangled the butterfly and set it free. Maxwell did not know why he saw this incident before his eyes today and all of a sudden, he feared for Sanatombi.

  Sanatombi also felt lighter that day. She felt a pleasure in exorcising a burn that she had nursed inside her for a long time. She wanted to weep over it at leisure but her thoughts raced in all directions all night through. Today she remembered her Sovereign Father very much. Now that Manipur had become a conquered land she too heard the loose talk of the people—that fellow Surchandra had lost the country by siding too much with his birth brothers, the problem was that he had not been very smart, and so on. Sanatombi could not bear to hear these words—and she wanted to tell someone about her grief. Today, having revealed her inner thoughts to a foreigner, her enemy, she felt relieved and rested. She had wanted to say many other things too but she also did not know how to say it all so that Maxwell could understand.

  Even when Sanatombi was but a child her father had discussed many sensitive matters with her. She thought—Who knows my Sovereign Father like I know him? She remembered today too, how she talked to him one day having heard from the Lady of Ngangbam that there was disquiet within the family. But her good-natured father had laughed and said easily, ‘I don’t know what these kids will come to. They are acting spoilt with me. They are getting a little too much though. I will have to spank Koireng and Paka. What do they think they are they up to, they are no longer children after all.’

  But Sanatombi knew her father would never be able to control his younger brothers, he was merely saying so as an older brother. But it was a lie to say that her father took sides, he never took anybody’s side. There had been times when he had sided with his younger half-brothers like Koireng, but no one seemed to have accounted for that seriously. It was like when one is chastised for mismeasuring the rice for a feast but is not commended when the measure turns out to be just right. It was a quicksand one sunk into further with every move. The rivalry between Koireng and Pakasana was personal, and even if Surchandra had not taken sides, it would have blown up one day. On top of that, courtiers adept at whispering campaigns had further confused the princes a great deal. They made them see white as black, and black as white. It was inevitable that the weakling Surchandra would face public censure in the middle of this all. But who would look into this matter in depth—nobody did. He may have been the older brother, but he was the king. Thinking of all of this Sanatombi felt like crying.

  Her father had said to her the last time they met, ‘I would have been so happy if only you had been a boy.’ Maxwell had also said, ‘If a woman could be king I would have fought for you.’

  She drifted off to sleep towards daybreak, thinking all this. But in a few days the Lady of Ngangbam summoned Sanatombi and said, ‘Sanatombi, do not let Mesin, the Political Agent, come to your house often. I am hearing all sorts of things.’ Sanatombi did not answer back but she was angry, and then she thought—Has Mesin stopped coming out of embarrassment? What would he be thinking of me? … … … Oh well, I will stop thinking about him, I am done, that’s it.’ And thinking this, tears almost came to her eyes.

  CHAPTER 13

  Tonjao of Moirang would come to consult with Sanatombi every now and then about paddy fields, and about other matters. He was now married to Sanatombi’s younger half-sister Ombisana. Tonjao of Moirang was an older man and had two wives at home, but when the young Ombisana was given to him in marriage, no one questioned his eligibility because Tonjao was a man who had stood by them. He was wealthy beyond count. With house and estate, stables, storehouses and so on, he lacked nothing. A man who liked beautiful things, Tonjao even festooned the eaves of the four corners of his mansion with bunches of peacock feathers. Tonjao lived well. The weakened household of Surchandra was fortunate to have someone like him as a son-in-law. The Lady of Ngangbam was also a little relieved to have a man who could stand up for them as if their affairs were his own. He visited Sanatombi now and then, he gave her news. He used to tell her what they were thinking on the sahebs’ side, what was going on. She was also the only among Surchandra’s children that he could consult. Tonjao enjoyed talking with Sanatombi very much.

  Tonjao was now Sanatombi’s younger brother-in-law but she could not easily change her mode of address. She called him Ta’Tonjao as before. Sanatombi said, ‘As far as the paddies are concerned it is fine if they give it, it is fine if they don’t. It was just a matter of bringing it to
their attention. What does it really matter?’

  ‘But one has to plan for some contingencies, Your Highness. And the Saheb is very fond of Your Highness so it would be not inappropriate to remind him at some point. You can just mention it by the by. The Saheb is not some thoughtless white soldier. The sahebs are also aware that the foreign government has done a great injustice to the Divine Sovereign. The Political Agent Saheb also knows this.’

  ‘Who said so? Did he say that to you?’

  ‘I did not hear directly from the Saheb himself but I heard it from a reliable source.’

  Tonjao told Sanatombi that the Saheb had said so to Bamacharan at some point. Tonjao had another gift, and that was he was good with languages. He who spoke Burmese like his mother tongue also spoke Bangla very well, and so Bamacharan enjoyed talking with him very much. He relayed various bits of discreet information. He had heard from Bamacharan who had pieced together the information from what he gleaned piecemeal from the Saheb at different times. He had said, ‘If it was the British policy to recognize Kulachandra as the king after expelling Koireng, then it would not have hurt either to keep Surchandra on as the king after Koireng had been banished. That in fact would have been better, and it would have looked better as well. Kulachandra would never have delivered Koireng who had stood by him, nor would it have been proper to ask him to do so. But Surchandra might have agreed because the force behind this revolt was Koireng, not Kulachandra. It stood to reason that he would not have extended himself to save Koireng.’

  And this also he said, ‘The British had acted too precipitately; they had exercised their power wrongly. It was a shameful incident.’

  Sanatombi listened closely to these words. She questioned the points she wanted to know about in detail. At last she said, ‘Ta’Tonjao, let me ask you one thing. According to the Dowager Queen, Mesin Saheb wrote to the Viceroy on behalf of our Lukhoi. Is that true?’

  ‘It is true, Your Highness.’

  ‘Why did he do that, did he know our Lukhoi?’

  ‘These sahebs are not to be taken lightly. They come after researching everything about Manipur, every single one of them. Whether it is because it is the right thing to do, or whether it would be in accordance with the treaty between Manipur and the foreigners from the time of the royal reign of your great-great-grandfather Bhagyachandra, the foreigners should have supported your Sovereign Father. If a king were to be appointed according to royal descent, the Divine Majesty’s descendant should have been the rightful king. It seems that Maxwell had felt this way.’

  Tonjao continued to relate many confidential matters to Sanatombi, inside information that most were not privy to. He said that back when Chandrakirti had strong and friendly relations with the British, he had written to them that after his death they should recognize his oldest son Surchandra as the king of Manipur. Even though Manipur had a custom of younger brothers being the king in turn, and even if Chandrakirti wished to follow it, the British had advised that it would be better if Surchandra would be king as they had seen many destructive complications that came from this practice. So, if it came to appointing a king for the subjugated Manipur, it was natural that they would wish to apply customs that they themselves believed in. And that was why Maxwell wrote to the higher-ups to recommend that Lukhoi be made king … … … . So Tonjao related to her. Sanatombi did not know of these internal matters in such detail and the only one who knew it was the queen, the Lady of Ngangbam. Tonjao said, ‘It was a watertight case that after the Divine Majesty’s death, his progeny should be king. It was just only because we had no allies and Your Highnesses were all daughters. Even if Prince Lukhoi is no more, it would have been good had there been even just two male offspring.’

  ‘One more thing. I have wanted to ask you for a long time. When Sovereign Father died in Calcutta, how did that happen?’

  ‘I am not following you.’

  ‘I mean, did he die from an illness, or—’

  ‘What are you saying? What have you heard?’

  ‘Nothing, just that I have a suspicion,’ said Sanatombi. Her young face clouded with these weighty thoughts.

  Sanatombi shared her suspicions with Tonjao of Moirang. The two of them discussed it. The younger brothers of Surchandra rose up in arms against him. All of a sudden someone climbed the brick walls of Kangla Fort and fired at it. When Surchandra came out towards Sanjenthong Bridge after hearing gunshots from the directions of the palace, he ran into his younger brother Pakasana who had come running with his soldiers. No one could tell which soldiers were whose in the pitch-dark night. The battle could not proceed. Even though Surchandra sought refuge in the bungalow of Political Agent Grimwood, he said he would be going on a pilgrimage—but he went to stay in Calcutta instead. Sanatombi had known why her father had left for Calcutta. Tonjao and she dissected her father’s actions from every angle, analysed them in great detail. Had her father who spoke no English been deceived? Or was it true that they did not want her father? Even if one thought of Surchandra as an unfit king, Kulachandra was no more able a king than her father. Kulachandra did not even want the throne: when it began to get ugly among his brothers he had fled and stayed away, saying he could not bear to see it. He held his older brother Surchandra in very high regard, and even thought of him as his own Sovereign Father.

  Tonjao said all this was useless to think about, just water under the bridge, but not long after Kulachandra was defeated by the foreigners and after a completely different child was announced as king, when news arrived that the king called Surchandra Ruler and Victor of the Hills had died, Sanatombi was filled with suspicion. Being his daughter, she had staunchly refused to accept it. She had said this to no one, but today she revealed her thoughts to Tonjao. This was a matter she could never forget. Her suspicions only mounted. A month after this incident, a group of people coming back from Vrindavan also reported to Sanatombi that they had visited Calcutta on their way to pay their respects to the Divine Majesty. How they had wept when they saw the state they found their king in. They look leave of Surchandra Ruler and Victor of the Hills and left him very calm and composed. That very day in Calcutta, they heard the news of his death. They attended the funeral of the Divine Majesty at the grove at the Pool of Radha in Vrindavan. And that raised Sanatombi’s suspicions all the more—What was that about? Who witnessed it, who knew of it? What illness did he die of? Who from our side knew of it? Was he silenced …? Sanatombi mulled it over and over. She thought about it when she lay down, she thought of it when she walked, she thought about it when she sat for a long time on the steps down to the pond as she went to bathe. She wept quietly. Her father had cherished her immensely, had loved her greatly. ‘Sanaton, Tombi, daddy’s little girl … … ...’ he would say.

  It would have been good if she could have had at least one person she could have talked to about it. Her husband Manikchand did not pay much heed to these intrigues; he did not want to be bothered by matters uselessly. But she had wondered—Did they kill my father? Koireng had been killed, Kulachandra had been chased away, so killing Surchandra would have been expeditious. No one would be around then to criticize them. And this she also heard: that her Sovereign Father had lived with a queen called Swarnamayee. So, who was she? How could she get to the truth? She was but a young girl.

  She said, ‘Ta’Tonjao, I suppose we can’t find out how exactly Sovereign Father died now, can we? I really want to know, I will never be happy until I know it. I’ll ask Mesin Saheb, do you think it would be all right?’

  ‘Don’t bother asking him, Your Highness. These sahebs are very tight-lipped. He will not tell you. And also, do not trust these interpreters too much. … … … It is all in the past. It is so because Lord Govinda did not favour us, or how would the foreigners’ flag fly over Kangla? Don’t think about it too much, it will only affect your health. I have been noticing you have been looking a little peaked these days.’

  Sanatombi was a little embarrassed. In truth, she had not been very reg
ular with her sleep and meals lately. She knew she had lost a bit of weight.

  Seeing that Tonjao was about to start talking again about paddies and salt wells, Sanatombi diverted him and said, ‘Forget the rest, Ta’Tonjao, whatever happened to the palace horses? And what became of all the horses that they had rounded up?’

  Sanatombi knew the horse-loving Tonjao did not care if he went without eating for five days as long as he could talk about horses. He did not just love horses, he loved them with a deep knowledge. Even in Tripura and India people talked about ‘The Black Steed of Tonjao of Moirang’. Black as a beetle and as shiny as a mirror, Tonjao even kept his black pony shaded under a canopy. People came in droves to look at ‘The Black Steed of Tonjao of Moirang’. The horse-loving noblemen of Manipur all kept a great many horses. A man who could not ride a horse was not deemed to be a man. The Meiteis studied their horses avidly and in great depth. They even knew which colours embodied a good temperament, a spirited temperament, a bad temperament, and which were timid, unruly and so on.

  Tonjao of Moirang very happily talked to Sanatombi about horses and their colours—the white sanabi, karu the black, the off-white mora, tamarind bay, the tamarind seed black-kneed bay, the black-maned bay classified as tamarind pulp, the black-legged khongdei brown, copper, kona brown, the spotted blue vanda orchid, the cotton boll of pure white, raw silk beige, the golden natrang with its white mane, the pale-eyed songu, burnt mora with dark tail tips, speckled sparrow- egg brown, and so on … … ….

  ‘The white speckled sanabi cannot be ridden by commoners but only by the king, Your Highness,’ he continued.

  Once they started talking about horses, the conversation went on. Tonjao forgot about the sahebs. People like Tonjao who knew deeply about horses were a rarity in those days. Tonjao, who frequently associated with the Burmese, studied the differences between the Manipuri pony and the Burmese pony. He took pedigrees that could be interbred and tested them out.