Ivory Throne

by Manu S. Pillai

  But if this never-ending cycle of princely ceremonial seemed formidable and glamorous from the outside, all the protocol was quite insufferable for those within the royal household. It had to be kept up in order to preserve that aura of romance and mystique around the dynasty, but, ‘as bewildered transplants’ from Mavelikkara,62 it did take Sethu Lakshmi Bayi and her cousin some time to imbibe the proper etiquette and rigorous discipline. Daily life at Sundara Vilasam was governed by an incarcerating ‘Palace Manual’ that ran into twelve fat, wholly despised volumes, the diktats of which encompassed even the most mundane affairs. Starting with the ‘brushing of the royal pearls’ (tirumuttuvilakku) in the morning under the supervision of court dentists, and concluding with slumbering in the right posture at night, there was no escape from the tyranny of exaggerated custom for members of the royal family.63 The words ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ were irrelevant and not even the Maharajah had the authority to alter these longstanding habits. Even taking a walk around the palace meant accepting a company of kowtowing household guards, called pattakkars, and as late as the 1940s, on the eve of India’s independence, these customs remained untouched, as a princess recalls:

  In the evenings we would be taken out for a walk around 4 o’clock. There would be two pattakkars in front and two at the back and two on either side so that we couldn’t run off, and we used to be taken like this round the compound. It was a great ceremony. The servants would also be there along with the pattakkars, so we were at least sixteen people going out, and of course with all these people surrounding us we were caught if we tried to run. It was great fun trying to break away but there was this feeling of being closed in, like claustrophobia. I couldn’t understand it then, but I realise it now. There was no freedom. You couldn’t go from one room to the next without having people following you to see what you were doing. There was not a moment to yourself.64

  There were rigorous rules about everything. Audiences were often granted to Europeans in the capital but always early in the morning around seven o’clock ‘so that Her Highness can wash off the contamination of shaking hands with an outcaste before proceeding to other business’.65 Caste, in fact, enjoyed a constant presence and meticulous following in the palace, where menial servants were selected from respectable Nair families while personal attendants, including nannies (called ayahammas) were Brahmins or ‘twice born’ castemen. There was at court, in fact, a most farcical situation since the chief physician, a Dr Lakshman, despite his eminent medical qualifications could never touch members of the royal family because he was of low caste; a Brahmin assistant would conduct examinations and convey symptoms to him, following which the doctor, who had collected his degrees from England’s most prestigious institutions, would prescribe remedies.66 Ritual purity commanded a high premium, and in a day it was quite normal for the Rani and her royal relatives to bathe more than once (with the result that it was height of mischief to ‘fudge baths’).67 On days of particular religious or ritual significance, even the bath was an elaborate affair, frequently lasting hours before its supervisors deemed it properly concluded. Attendants would carry silver bowls with varieties of oils to the bathhouse, while large copper vessels with herbal waters were heated and moved by sturdy servants in advance. Their personal staff would then escort the Senior Rani and her cousin, now the Junior Rani, to commence the pallineerattu (‘the royal frolic in water’) in all its methodical fullness:

  Your hair was washed first, using green thali paste made from freshly-plucked leaves [and flowers], then washed and oiled with coconut oil and dried with a thin porous material called tortu. Then your body was washed, powder gram (chick peas) was applied and removed with a circular sort of sponge called incha, made from a fibrous bark, and you were washed again with warm Nalpamaravellam water, absolutely red in colour and made by boiling the bark of forty different [medicinal] trees. Your body was oiled and massaged, and your face, taking great care that the oil did not get on the hair because it contained saffron, which prevents hair growth. Finally, your hair was slowly dried over fragrant smoke from a karandi, an iron pot filled with live coals with all sorts of herbs in it. After your hair had been combed, a powdered herb would be rubbed down the parting in the middle, which was to prevent colds.68

  Compared to this elaborate bathing ritual, dressing up was a relatively simple affair. The traditional Malayali mundu, a length of soft white cloth, would be wrapped around the waist, with pleats down the front. There were in Travancore old families of weavers specially commissioned to manufacture these for the royal family, with special gilt edges and a thin coloured border, giving the garment an appearance of neatness that bordered on the austere. Silk or velvet brocade bodices of colour would be worn over these, with a minimal number of ornaments on ordinary days, but including heavy, peculiar anklets worn only by women of the royal house. Another mundu would be wrapped around the torso like a shawl, and, thus draped entirely in white, with hints of colour peeking out from underneath, the Ranis would sit to get their hair done. This was perhaps what made them stand out the most; as a baffled Henry Bruce admitted when he arrived for an audience one morning, ‘I had not been prepared for the arrangement of hair.’69 After having it dried over the karandi, special attendants would comb the hair and then tie it up over the forehead in a peculiar, tight knot, shaped like ‘an exaggerated pompadour roll’.70 And, thus, dressed and ready, the Ranis would go about their commitments in the morning, before changing for lunch, and then dinner, with every day of their lives governed by this ‘code of outlandish and antiquated court etiquette’ that had to be followed without a lapse.71

  The result of all this was that Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s early life became one of isolation. It was a splendid and celebrated isolation, but isolation, stark and definite, nonetheless; as her grandson would later remark, ‘Being a member of the royal family was like being a favourite bird in a golden cage. You were watched and humoured and spoilt and loved. It was only when you were alone with yourself that you remembered the cage.’72 How any other child in her position might have reacted to being denied the legitimate aspirations of a normal childhood and being conducted through each day by an infuriating manual of royal conventions, it is difficult to say. Perhaps she might have turned recalcitrant or unusually rebellious, or alternatively, reconciled to her new reality and lived with it. In the case of Sethu Lakshmu Bayi it was the latter, and she adapted herself quietly to the enormous changes that had arrested her life. Even before the adoption she was noted to have a ‘reserved and serious disposition’ being ‘seldom vicious, with a wistful and rather melancholy look’.73 Naturally, now, she attuned herself towards introversion rather than any other forceful expression of unhappiness. As she would later tell her grandchildren, the lesson she learnt from her mother (whose stiff upper lip could give most stony Victorians an inferiority complex) was ‘to grin and bear it, and never show what you feel’.74

  So when her old playmates and friends stood before her quietly, saluting her as they were now taught to, she met them with a regal silence of her own, and learned to behave like the queen they saw her to be. When the grandmothers and aunts who had petted her as a baby now bowed before her, she learned to acknowledge them with a little nod of her royal head. To a serious extent her mother encouraged this, for Mahaprabha laid considerable importance upon notions of dignity and stature, and wanted her royal daughter to epitomise these qualities to perfection. It was essentially a highly conservative view that Mahaprabha imbibed in Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, dinning into her that no matter what happened she should always control her feelings and patiently carry on with her head held high. She was to inspire and command, and grow into a Rani of whom the state, its people and the dynasty could be proud. It did not matter whether any of this made her personally happy. The little girl, faced with a domineering mother on the one hand, and the tethers of royalty on the other, accepted both but secretly retreated into a quiet, private world of her own inside, one that she hid from the world at large for
all her life. In fact even into her late thirties, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s most revolutionary act of rebellion against the establishment went as far as having her hair bobbed. ‘Everything being so formal, and leading a life of strict protocol, when stepping out of line in the slightest was simply scandalous and unthinkable,’ her granddaughter would later tell, ‘she wanted to break out somehow, without, of course, deviating too much from the straight path! She thought it a refreshing change, without causing a dent in her image, so to speak.’75

  Quietness would, in fact, go on to become a hallmark of her character into the future, equipping her with very interesting ways of dealing with and studying things. It would gift her a great deal of forbearance in the face of adversity, and her name would come to acquire a very stoic quality in the minds of her people. Part of this may have been the result of undiagnosed ill health; decades later the Rani would be found to suffer from tuberculosis, which probably contributed to her subdued personality. But gentle reservation did not mean she was weak. On the contrary, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had a mind of her own and was more than capable of demonstrating displeasure and disapproval where it was needed. Her general tendency towards restraint meant that little things did not unduly ruffle her (or at least so she acted). But if her larger calculations floundered, she would fight with a determination to have her way. All this came out early in life through little episodes where the Rani waged war against her tutors. While she was normally a ‘mild, law-abiding and attentive student’, she did occasionally challenge her teachers, as an early biographer describes:

  She liked holidays and the tutors were unfortunately ill disposed to grant as many as she wanted. The result was sometimes disastrous. There would ensue a tussle between the teachers and herself, and once her equilibrium was disturbed, no parleying afterwards would be of any avail. The thing was that Her Highness would have hopefully calculated upon using a certain day as holiday and would have provided herself with a programme of entertainments for the day, and when her teacher or asan, as she used to denominate her English and vernacular tutors, mercilessly called her off to business, it was no wonder that she was in a temper. The idea more galling than to have to study was that she would sink in the estimation of her prospective participators of the entertainments, when, either of the tyrants, unmoved by her reason or entreaty insisted on instant attendance to school work.76

  Mahaprabha seems to have instructed her daughter well enough, for it was not the prospect of studying that so affected the Rani as much as the purported loss of dignity. In fact, insofar as education went, she was a model student. From the age of seven, she is said to have risen at three o’clock every morning in order to work on her English.77 Over the years she developed an impressive vocabulary with perfect diction and the King’s accent. She was a diligent pupil (‘gifted with a good memory’ and ‘a young mathematician’),78 did her homework properly, and scored proficiently in examinations. Some years later a report submitted to the Maharajah about her progress would happily note that she had ‘been a source of great pleasure to her teachers. In emerging out of her childhood, she is giving promise of an intellectuality, a strength of character, correctness of judgment, appreciation of duty, respect for authority, and a gentleness of manner that endear her to all who come in touch with her and ought to ensure her growing into a truly noble woman and worthy daughter of Travancore.’79 It was a review that would be repeated throughout her life.

  Not surprisingly, she never went to school and was tutored in the ‘school house’ within the palace by a carefully chosen academic staff instead. The tutors first selected by the court for the girls’ education were not, apparently, up to the mark and after a ‘wild outcry in the press’ a better set was commissioned at greater expense.80 Instruction had in fact commenced shortly after her fourth birthday, with initiation into the Malayalam alphabet and then Sanskrit. A Karunakara Pisharody was appointed Sanskrit master while one Venkateswara Iyer, who also taught history, geography, arithmetic and other subjects, introduced English into the curriculum in 1902.81 Their lessons began at eleven o’clock in the morning, with English classes first, followed by a break for lunch. Sanskrit and Malayalam lessons were then taught until four o’clock, after which the Ranis were taken for music concerts, drives or perhaps a game of tennis or croquet, always a curious sight in their traditional costumes. Visits to temples were also made daily, and in the evenings they read and embroidered, in a silly imitation of what the young ladies in Europe were instructed to do.82 They also took piano lessons, and Sethu Lakshmi Bayi is said to have been able to ‘sing and play with charming effect’, although she gave it up in later years.83 Henry Bruce witnessed the Ranis at work one day in 1908, writing about it as follows:

  The Ranis speak quite firm good English, having been at it for at least six years. They also study in Malayalam and Sanskrit. In the last language they do not try to speak, but read easy stories. I inquired about their dolls. The Senior has five dolls and the Junior, as is but right, seven. Two magnificent dolls were given to them by Lady Ampthill. The Ranis are just starting a stamp album. I heard about their little lives; how in addition to a great deal of pious ceremonial, they go out driving in the afternoon, or play badminton …They are evidently strong and healthy. It was pretty to watch their drawing books and others marked ‘Sr’ and ‘Jr’ respectively. I saw them playing on big veenas seated on the floor. I also heard them, in the schoolroom, playing the piano with a good touch.84

  For a while now in princely circles it was felt that in addition to any traditional instruction, princesses ought to also be trained in aesthetics and other aspects of that variety by cultivated European ladies. In north Indian royal families this had been taken up with gusto, and it was a regular sight to see matronly women in dull dresses marching alongside their highborn Indian wards. In Travancore the situation was somewhat different. Unlike in other principalities, here, due to orthodox views on caste and purity, foreigners could never have round-the-clock access to the royal children. As a later Resident remarked, ‘none of the Tutors may stand on the same carpet’ as their royal students, nor hand them books, ‘nor at recreation times touch golf clubs, tennis rackets etc. at the same time as [Their Highnesses]’.85 And a lady freshly imported from Europe could hardly be expected to fully comprehend the intricacies of local custom and the punctilious phobias about caste entertained by the royal house. A compromise between modernity and tradition would have to be found.

  The choice, then, fell on a Miss Dorothia Henriett Watts, a local Anglo-Indian spinster. Described as ‘a graduate of the Madras University, possessing suavity of manners, polish and great talent’, she also had the advantage of being the daughter of Frank Edwards Watts, who had been Chief Secretary of Travancore during the reign of Ayilyam Tirunal.86 Cultured, pretty (‘with strawberry blonde hair’), appropriately conservative, with a thorough knowledge of the state and its ways, she seemed ideal and was appointed ‘tutoress’ in 1904. She would initially train the girls for three hours a week in music, painting and other ladylike skills, besides honing their English. A smattering of Latin was also added to their syllabus, and under her able stewardship, the Sethus would develop, in addition to their daily rigorous rooting in tradition and religion, the refinement and class that characterised Edwardian high society, intended to make them perfectly at ease during soirees and interactions with Europeans. Miss Watts’s appointment, however, was particularly significant also because she would go on to become the only friend Sethu Lakshmi Bayi ever had in the world outside royal confines. Other teachers employed for the children, such as a Miss Yardley and a Miss Light did not enjoy the same rapport.

  There were also practical aspects that were covered in the Ranis’ instruction. ‘The necessity,’ writes one observer, ‘of giving social and political as also moral and religious education was not lost sight of.’ Great importance was placed on this and the Ranis were often taken out to ‘visit the public institutions in the metropolis, with the object of knowing the general
character of the work done at each, as knowledge thus acquired will be of practical utility in their future life’. Periodic tours were organised by the government to ‘develop and strengthen their powers of observation’ and ‘for deriving first-hand information of the country and its inhabitants’.87 In 1903, they went for their maiden excursion within Travancore, which was officially a religious visit where they showed themselves to the public in temple towns like Varkala, Quilon, Ambalapuzha, Alleppey and Vaikom. This was all very arduous business. At every stop the local authorities, competing for royal favour and promotion, would put up grand receptions, with Sethu Lakshmi Bayi having to preside, cutting ribbons, receiving flowers, saying a few wise words and so on. Some events were great fun, whereas others were an invitation for pandemonium, as in Harippad where one of the government elephants decided to run off in the last minute. In good grace the Rani presented the usual dupatta to the local administrator anyway, probably lifting his spirits after all his carefully organised pageantry went awry at the whim of a mutinous pachyderm. Similarly, in 1905 the girls visited Courtallam, the ‘Spa of South India’, taking their first railway journey to get there, returning very excited with the whole experience.

  While a generally wholesome education, was thus, imparted to the children, it was still full of restrictions, as might be expected in the case of princesses. They had no classmates because outside influences were frowned upon at court. ‘It was a time of great intrigues and conspiracies,’ Sethu Lakshmi Bayi would later remember, ‘and they feared the influence of other factions.’88 Every contact was carefully regulated, even within the palace, which was a hotbed of underhand machinations. No servants were permitted to get close and the children were constantly protected and cocooned. Occasionally, girls from noble families would come calling, but as the royal aura of the Ranis preceded them, there was no equality in the relationship that is necessary for the establishment of a healthy friendship. Playmates of the same age, thus, were never available to Sethu Lakshmi Bayi. ‘But I had my brothers and sisters,’ she would later shrug, ‘so it was not a barren or lonely childhood.’89