Ivory Throne
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In the palace, young Ravi Varma ‘wandered the halls and corridors, studied the artists paint, observed their paintings, saw colourful processions, and pored over albums of European art, which the Maharajah collected’.2 The royal library and manuscript collection were at his welcome disposal and he read and absorbed with an enthusiastic voracity. He had seen tales from Hindu mythology depicted on the walls of temples and in the murals at his family home, but what he really wanted to do was to bring them to life himself in paint; and specifically in oil paint. At the time, the chief durbar artist was Ramaswami Naicker of Madurai who alone knew how to mix and paint in oil, a technique he jealously guarded from rivals at court. Ravi Varma was no exception and consequently found himself kept at a watchful distance. ‘Despondent,’ one account goes, ‘he marked his time, with none to initiate him into the mysteries of perspective and chiaroscuro, of compositions and complementary colours’ with ‘all the encouragement he received being the occasional advice of the Maharajah that perseverance is the best guru’.3
The young painter seems to have taken this royal counsel, probably given out of impatience than with pregnant meaning, to heart. For by the time he died in 1906 he would become one of colonial India’s great artists, a celebrity whose life the press followed keenly, and whose paintings collectors vied to obtain. With typical panache and style, he would divide his seasons between Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, Agra and other urban centres of the British Raj, entertained by one fawning patron after another. He was paid not only in money but also with more prestigious gifts of jewels, gold, robes of honour and even elephants. His social circle included Congress leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji and Gopal Krishna Gokhale; the crème de la crème of Bengali intelligentsia such as Surendranath Banerjea and the Tagore family; pro-imperialist statesmen like Sir Sheshiah Shastri and Sir T. Madhava Rao; alongside an impressive assortment of opulent Maharajahs and zamindars. Everywhere he always found ‘opened for him the gates to the rich and powerful’, although, ultimately, ‘it was his personal charisma that enabled him to hold on to this milieu’. For he was also by this time ‘a likeable socialite, equal in status to most of his clientele, with a gift for being able to flatter with his art even the least attractive features of his customers’.4
Indeed, Ravi Varma’s success came not only because of his innate talent and hard work, but also because he had the advantage of high birth and social cultivation (not to speak of canny networking skills) that made him seem an exotic catch to many of his adoring patrons. He spoke several languages in varying degrees of proficiency, such as English, Tamil, Hindustani, Gujarati, Marathi, and even some German. His close links with the royal house of Travancore distinguished him from the legions of nameless artists and painters in India. To his credit, Ravi Varma did not rest idle with the rewards of his fame. He succeeded in taking his art into the homes of millions of Indians through a popular lithograph press, despite grave financial losses, and gave dignity to the profession of painting. Unlike Indian artists before him, whose identities are largely lost to posterity, he signed his name on his work with pride and confidence, imbuing the entire craft with those qualities. That is also why, when he died in 1906, people from many walks of life mourned him with creditable sincerity. He was not exceptionally wealthy (‘Had brother taken care to save the money he had earned by painting, he would have been one of the richest men,’ a sibling regretted),5 but left behind, in the admiring estimate of a contemporary, a name and legacy on ‘fame’s lofty pinnacle’.6
Yet this path to glory and greatness was not easy for Ravi Varma, and in his marriage to art much else had to be sacrificed. For a few years after his arrival in 1862 at the durbar, he was engaged mainly in self-study as the other artists, with all their internecine rivalries, refused to guide or assist him in any way. ‘What really sustained him during these years,’ one biographer writes, ‘was his will to break through and excel, and an abiding faith in divine grace.’7 Tenacity was definitely a pronounced feature in the boy, but Ravi Varma did have a few other tricks up his sleeve than entrusting the matter entirely to divine offices. When the proud Ramaswami Naicker refused to initiate him into oil painting, he succeeded, most likely by underhand inducements, to persuade Arumugham Pillai, one of Naicker’s apprentices, to give him secret lessons by the darkness of dusk. With all the watchful distrust among court painters, it was no mean accomplishment for the young boy to orchestrate a clandestine arrangement with none other than the trusted pupil of the biggest notable in Trivandrum’s clannish art circles. An ingenious wit and a perfectly comfortable approach towards manipulation in the attainment of his own artistic ambitions were also, then, unabridged features of Ravi Varma’s fascinating personality.
In 1868, however, a new chapter began in his life when a sensational character arrived at court in the form of Theodore Jensen. He was a Danish painter of no great ability but whose flawless white skin opened him many princely doors in the East. ‘It was not,’ says E.M.J. Venniyur, ‘uncommon with European portrait painters of those days, who were probably none too successful at home, to come to India and extol in gold and velvet … the Maharajahs wreathed in oriental splendour.’ The Maharajahs, for their part, were equally enthusiastic to entertain Europeans, ‘for these were times when the elite of the country cultivated British tastes most assiduously’.8 Jensen got down to business and Ravi Varma promptly sought the honour of becoming his student, no doubt eager to learn from a bona fide ‘master’. The Dane, predictably enough, was no less unwelcoming than Naicker and the others, aware, as he was, that he too came only with the dubious distinction of oil painting with a white hand. At the Maharajah’s insistence, though, Ravi Varma was reluctantly granted permission to watch Jensen at work. And as it happened, the boy, now aged twenty, decided he would one day give these haughty artists, Indian and foreign, a run for their money.
By 1870, Ravi Varma was able to acquit himself in oil painting with much promise and intuitive flair. But a new set of problems arrived as friends and relations realised he intended to make a living out of art. The Varmas in Kerala were an aristocracy steeped in meticulous ceremony and endless ritual that built around them an aura they much enjoyed. They were once a ruling class and even in the late nineteenth century controlled vast swathes of land, keeping memories of bygone times alive through their traditions and antiquated way of life. There was, in 1870, no precedent of any of them having worked at all, leave alone working as a painter, which was seen more as a profession of lowborn artisans. In the face of opposition, however, the Maharajah came to Ravi Varma’s rescue. Declaring that art was divine, he gave the painter his blessings and wholehearted encouragement. Reinvigorated by royal support (and the attendant silencing of the conservative faction), Ravi Varma went on a forty-one-day pilgrimage to Mookambika and propitiated the goddess Sarasvati. On his way back, in what was seen as a good omen, he received his first paid commission from a High Court judge in Malabar, the northern portion of Kerala, once the domain of the Zamorin and now under direct British administration. He was hereafter officially a professional painter.9
Back in Trivandrum the talented Ravi Varma now commanded the complete attention and support not only of the Maharajah but also of his singularly attractive consort, Kalyani Pillai. This was a woman of tremendous personality, and a mind of her own, that often upset more orthodox sections at court. Born in 1839 as a subject of the neighbouring Rajah of Cochin, she was the only daughter of a former minister there, and a consummate mistress of all the cultural refinements of her class. She arrived in Trivandrum quite unexpectedly sometime in the 1850s, with scandal in hot pursuit. For local gossip has it that she had eloped, in a rather unladylike fashion, with a famous actor called Easwara Pillai, a member of the palace drama troupe.10 At some point the Maharajah became acquainted with her and fell in love, so that in 1862 she dissolved her marriage to Easwara Pillai and became the ruler’s consort.11 Slowly a coterie of young intellectuals, artists, musicians, and others began to revolve around her, a fine
poet and composer of Sanskrit plays herself, and her obliging husband. She went on to learn English, even interacting with Christian missionaries and reading the Bible, with an urbane irreverence that at once attracted and infuriated less liberal souls outside her ring. Ravi Varma, now a member of the elite inner circle of the Maharajah and his enigmatic consort, became so close to her that some even hint at a romantic liaison.12 In any case, after his return to Trivandrum in 1870 he executed a portrait of the royal couple, which was close to such remarkable perfection that he was instantly elevated as a favourite. The Bangle of Honour (called Veera Srinkhala) was awarded him, no mean distinction for a painter, and for the next decade the Maharajah and Kalyani Pillai unstintingly championed Ravi Varma and his art, giving him the wings he needed to flourish.
Naicker, of course, did not appreciate his own fall from royal favour and the introduction of Ravi Varma, with all his personal rapport with the monarch, into that coveted spot. In 1873, both sent their paintings to the Fine Arts Exhibition sponsored by Lord Hobart, the Governor of Madras. Ravi Varma not only won the Gold Medal, but his Nair Lady at the Toilet was ‘much admired’ and is said to have become ‘the talk of the town’.13 In the same year he sent the painting to an international exhibition in Vienna, winning another medal that brought him coverage in all major newspapers of the day. In 1874 and 1875 he won Gold again in Madras, and his work was offered as an official present to the visiting Prince of Wales, a serious honour at the time for so young a ‘native’ artist. By 1876, the Governor of Madras was collecting his work, and his Sakuntala’s Love Letter was sought by Sir Monier Monier-Williams as frontispiece for his famous translation of the Sanskrit Abhijnana Sakuntalam. Soon after this, in what a bitter Naicker only viewed as another testament to Ravi Varma’s audacity and arrogance, the star artist declared that he would no longer compete for prizes and would only exhibit his work at public platforms. By now he was a popular member of Madras society, and an established painter with very pleased royal patrons in Trivandrum. Nothing could, it seemed, halt the meteoric ascent of Ravi Varma into the towering heights of history.
In 1880, however, all this began to unravel and Ravi Varma was to shortly be cast adrift. The reigning Maharajah, Ayilyam Tirunal, died unexpectedly after a brief ailment only to be succeeded by his staid, colourless brother, Visakham Tirunal, who was more a botanist than a connoisseur of the arts. For years there had been no love lost between these siblings, and one of the first acts of the new ruler was to dismantle the palace establishment, comprising his late brother’s favourites, replacing them with his own loyalists. Naicker, interestingly, was one of the new Maharajah’s partisans, and Ravi Varma realised his position was now untenable. In 1881 there was a public falling out between him and the Maharajah during a state visit by the Governor of Madras. Lord Buckingham considered Ravi Varma a friend and asked to see him during his meeting with the ruler at the palace. Visakham Tirunal had the artist summoned but was livid when he saw the Governor receiving him with a warmth and familiarity that he had not shown him. When Buckingham invited Ravi Varma to join them, the meeting turned awkward, for according to the dictates of court etiquette, the artist could not sit down in the presence of the Maharajah. The entire discussion had to be conducted with all three men standing, and the protocol-obsessed Visakham Tirunal became more and more incensed with every passing moment. He was furious that a subject of his should be seen as an equal and that he should have the temerity to publicly act friendly with a visiting dignitary, demeaning the Maharajah who could but swallow his pride. The story goes that the very next day Ravi Varma left Trivandrum, never to return during the reign of the hateful Visakham Tirunal. This may well be apocryphal but there was certainly a quarrel followed by the artist’s unceremonious departure from court in 1881.14
But the ever-resourceful Ravi Varma only turned calamity into opportunity as usual. Determined to continue his work with or without royal backing, he now left for Bombay. Making full use of the many contacts he had made in Madras over the years he found new vistas of patronage and help. The Maharajahs of Baroda and Mysore gave him important commissions and soon he was able to build up a formidable reputation across India that brought him only more acclaim, while old Naicker and the wrathful Maharajah continued to fret and fume in Trivandrum. His stipend from the durbar was cut off and attempts were made by Visakham Tirunal to have him ostracised from his caste. Again Ravi Varma, who knew he was in a different league now, managed to foil this through his influential friends.15 By 1904 the Viceroy of India, on behalf of the King of England, awarded him the Kaiser-i-Hind, a distinction that his first patron Ayilyam Tirunal had once received, truly elevating the artist to equality with his royal sponsors, no matter how much the latter resented this. He was now known popularly as Raja Ravi Varma and, to add to his prestige, in 1903 he also succeeded as head of the Kilimanoor family, making him a leading figure of the Malayali aristocracy. By his fifties, thus, Ravi Varma, the country boy who had come to Trivandrum with oil paint on his adolescent mind, was firmly at the pinnacle of worldly success, while those who stood against him faded into history or respectable oblivion.
While Ravi Varma earned himself a place among the great personalities of India, in Trivandrum, Ayilyam Tirunal’s glamorous widow was fated for a joyless eclipse from public imagination. With the death of her husband, the bewitchingly beautiful and talented Kalyani Pillai was disengaged, in keeping with tradition, from all society, and prohibited further unorthodox cultural pursuits.16 A ‘liberal provision’ was granted from the state treasury for her ‘maintenance in comfort and dignity’,17 but she was for all real purposes restricted in her residence as was conventional with royal widows in Travancore. Occasionally her irresistible appetite for life saw her mildly breaching the rule, as witnessed, for instance, during Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee celebrations in Trivandrum in 1887, when she sent felicitations to be read out at a public durbar. But for the most part she had mellowed, and disappeared prematurely into the twilight of her life, which came to an end at two o’clock on 18 January 1909, nearly thirty years after her beloved Maharajah had died.18
Kalyani Pillai, for all her inner magnetism and strength of personality, always knew her life was destined to conclude in this manner. For under the matrilineal law of succession prevalent in Kerala, even though she was married to the ruler, she was not his queen. On the contrary, she was merely his consort, whose status was by no means set in stone. She lived at the Maharajah’s favour, and could easily be discarded if he tired of her or preferred a new candidate as his partner. Indeed, Ayilyam Tirunal, while highly regarded for his perspicacity and for laying the foundations of modern government in Travancore, was personally ‘notorious as a moral wreck’, with ‘a flood of local stories prevalent about his perversions’.19 It was to Kalyani Pillai’s credit that she not only retained the official position of consort for herself, but also succeeded in adopting children with the Maharajah when she could have none of her own. But this pre-eminence was still enjoyable only during his lifetime, and after his death she had to invariably reconcile to uncomplaining anonymity, making way for Visakham Tirunal’s preferred spouse. Even her official title as the wife of a Maharajah of Travancore was not Rani but Ammachi, which as a 1912 feature in London’s The Lady pointed out, merely meant, ‘The mother of his children’. Nobody could have stated the fact more succinctly:
Whenever a stranger goes to Travancore, one of the largest and most picturesque native States, situated in south-western India, they always tell him not to address her as ‘Your Highness’. They think this word is too dignified to apply to her. No doubt she is the Ruler’s spouse; but that does not make her the Maharani or even the Rani. She is only Ammachi, just the mother of His Highness’ children, and they believe that word is good enough to express her relationship to the man who is autocrat of more than 2,950,000 people, inhabiting [over] seven thousand square miles of territory, yielding an annual revenue of about £700,000.20
The author of t
his piece captured the simple essence of matrilineal society in Kerala. For here, a family did not take after the patriarchal model of man, wife and their children. Instead, it consisted, to put it simplistically, of man, sister, and her children. The crown passed not from father to son but from maternal uncle to nephew, and the Rani was never the Maharajah’s wife, but his sister or niece or great-niece. Ayilyam Tirunal, for instance, did not inherit his title or throne from his father, who was only a glorified nobleman, but from his mother, the Rani, and her brother, the previous Maharajah. His heirs too were, first, his younger brother, and then the son of their sister. And thus the crown passed in this somewhat topsy-turvy fashion down the ages. The Maharajahs’ own children were merely nobles with the consolation of certain exclusive titles and estates, fated as they were for oblivion after the lifetimes of their exalted fathers. ‘I have seen standing unnoticed in a shop,’ Henry Bruce wrote with surprise during his travels in Kerala, ‘the son of [a] highly distinguished late Maharajah.’21 And he was not exaggerating. For ‘The Ammachi [like her children],’ confirms Samuel Mateer, was ‘not a member of the royal household, and is in nowise associated with the royal court. She has neither official nor social position at court, and cannot even be seen in public with the ruler whose wife she is.’22 ‘Her sole interests in life,’ The Lady concludes, ‘[were] to anticipate the wishes of her royal husband and amuse herself.’23 In this Kalyani Pillai was a greater success than most Ammachis, whose very names were forgotten the moment their illustrious spouses left this world.