All this angst and worry were soon happily calmed when it was announced in a matter of months that the Senior Rani was with child. Exotic bath oils, incense and fruits arrived from Mavelikkara for the expectant mother, in keeping with custom, and from across Travancore delicacies were sent by well-wishers of the royal family. A great deal of interest was generated among the public also at the prospect of a new prince, and special prayers were offered at important shrines for the benefit of the unborn child. But all this excitement was in vain. For on 18 December 1909, at a little over eight months into the pregnancy, the Senior Rani lost the baby due to some undetermined internal problems. The child was a boy. Disappointment was so palpable not only at court but even among the public that Sethu Lakshmi Bayi went into a state of depression. Nobody said anything to her, but talk began to go around about curses and charms and even poisoning. ‘Had the boy lived he would have been a Maharajah,’ the Junior Rani’s nephew remarks,65 and it was the dashing of not only the natural instincts of mothering the baby she had carried for months, but also of the very purpose, as she had been taught, of her life. An early miscarriage would not perhaps have affected her as much as this one at so late a stage. Sethu Lakshmi Bayi shut herself from the world, only seeking her husband’s companionship. This too was not permitted for some time and Kochukunji, with a hint of sarcasm at the Senior Rani’s growing preference for her husband over all of them, wrote to Mahaprabha: ‘I do not think she is very upset because of the miscarriage. I think she is worried because her [husband] is not allowed to come here.’66
Soon after this, in early 1910 the Junior Rani too consummated her marriage to Ravi Varma, and that fledgling awkwardness between the cousins began to swell rapidly into something of greater and more lasting consequence. While they were children, the business of producing heirs was very much on the backburner. But now it became a contest of sorts as to which among the adoptees would first present to Mulam Tirunal the heir and successor he so ardently desired. As the Junior Rani’s granddaughter would state, ‘Marriage changed the picture [and the] girls became women at a very young age.’67 They themselves may not have cared much for this, were it not for inherited tensions from their natural home, where their respective mothers were engaged in their own squabbles. As Kochukunji’s grandson would affirm, ‘both mothers were responsible to a great degree’ in the alienation that was crystallising now into a permanent feature in the lives of the two Ranis.68 This was, in fact, an eventuality the late Elayarajah had predicted when objecting to their adoption, and indeed, the impending estrangement of historic proportions between Sethu Lakshmi Bayi and Sethu Parvathi Bayi had a great deal to do with the unhappy antecedents of their dominating mothers. The result was, in due course, the dissolution of all peace in the palace and the beginning of years of hateful hostility, reaching an indifferent conclusion only at a stage by when it was too little too late.
Mahaprabha and Kochukunji, it so happened, had never really enjoyed a fond sisterly affection owing to a number of reasons. They were born into a broken home, with their famous father constantly away on his travels and their furiously depressed mother living each day in wasteful misery, until she took to drinking and died young. While they had an extended matrilineal family around them, it was Mahaprabha who had to assume the role of mother and matriarch to her four younger siblings, all when she was nineteen years old. Her natural personality matched this assumption of authority, for she was generally held to have been a most imperious and seriously intimidating individual with an incandescent temper that even her husband took great care not to offend. ‘When she walked into a room,’ a descendant remarks, ‘people would quiver and quake with fear!’69 Even outside observers could see that Mahaprabha was made of stern material, and one writer described her in relatively modest terms as ‘a high-spirited and dignified lady of remarkable personality’.70 Indeed it is even said that her drunkard brother vanished in 1912, dying somewhere in the Himalayan wilderness, simply because she had reprimanded him vehemently for his wretched habits and told him to be gone from her sight.71 He, this story goes on, took it to heart and departed in shame.72
Kochukunji, on the other hand, while equally capable and resourceful, seems to have harboured a degree of resentment towards her older sister, around whom she had never stood a chance. Mahaprabha was always the favoured daughter, with her acclaimed beauty that drew out all their absentee father’s restrained attention, while Kochukunji was the dark-skinned, cockeyed middle sister. Even when they aged, family members, including Kochukunji’s own descendants, referred to her sister as the sundari amooma, the beautiful grandmother.73 While Mahaprabha was the favourite of their father, their mother, who by the end despised her painter husband, preferred Kochukunji, perhaps sharing with her a common feeling of neglect.74 To Kochukunji, the adoption of their daughters and the entitlement of a superior rank to Sethu Lakshmi Bayi seemed a discriminatory repetition of her own secondary status in Mavelikkara. It also did not help that people constantly compared the looks of the two girls—with the Senior Rani, like her mother, winning appreciation generously. The memory that Sethu Parvathi Bayi might not even have been adopted because influential courtiers considered her too ‘black’, along with her own enduring insecurities, most likely left Kochukunji embittered. Even dispassionate officials, like the Residents, highlighted the contrast in appearance between the Ranis, with one remarking, for instance, that the Senior Rani was ‘much more aristocratic in feature and complexion than the Junior’.75 Just as Kochukunji suffered the brunt of Mahaprabha’s dominating radiance, her daughter too appeared to confront a similar fate, and the situation was not a happy one for her to bear.76
In the matter of furnishing royal heirs, however, the two girls and their families were placed on an equal footing for the first time. If the Junior Rani were to give birth to a male child first, he would be the future Maharajah and her status would improve permanently overnight. Time was crucial, therefore, and it was with happiness that Kochukunji received news in 1911 of her daughter becoming pregnant. Indeed as early as 1907, after Sethu Parvathi Bayi’s wedding, Kochukunji had been anxious about her daughter’s future, going out, for instance, to consult mystics and others for their expert opinion. One of them, Ayyaswamy, is even believed to have gone into a minor trance and confirmed that Kochukunji’s grandson would indeed become king one day.77 As for Mahaprabha, this newfound confidence of her sister, albeit through the agency of the Junior Rani, came as an unwelcome development, not to speak of her sinister suspicion of Kochukunji, under whose watch the Senior Rani had unexpectedly lost her baby at so advanced a stage that it seemed unnatural. There were also many in the palace to fan the fire and bring about an estrangement between the two sides. As the Junior Rani’s nephew states, the girls themselves were too young to have intrigued, but ‘people around them began to say all sorts of things to increase mutual suspicion’ until things reached a head and the relationship between the families became irreparable.78
While there is no evidence to show that Kochukunji ever tried to physically harm the Senior Rani, there is, however, proof of her actively conniving through less efficacious but staggeringly dubious means; years later she was discovered performing peculiar black magic against her niece and ‘in this connexion’, for example, ‘had various objects such as a bracelet buried under the threshold of the [Senior Rani’s] door at the latter’s palace’.79 Indeed in the late 1920s the British authorities would issue strict orders for the removal of Kochukunji from the palace because of her role in palace intrigues,80 while relations of the Senior Rani would recall that the latter’s rapport with the Junior Rani improved vastly, and not coincidentally, after the old lady’s death in 1946. By this time, however, there was too much odium in the air for a real rapprochement.81
On the surface, of course, courtesy was maintained but suspicions underneath lurked on as the Senior Rani suffered two more painful miscarriages in the immediate years after the loss of her first baby. Distance and miscommunicatio
n grew and step by step the cousins began leading independent, mutually mistrustful lives. This was partly because their lifestyles were evolving in different directions but most certainly also due to other fears. For one, Rama Varma was beginning to erect a wall around the Senior Rani, evidently for her protection, though many would interpret this as overbearing control. ‘His greatest nightmare was that she would be harmed,’ a relative would tell, ‘and he tried to keep sycophants and admirers off her alike for this reason.’82 In the process even the Junior Rani was cut off. She too built her own walls of suspicion and fear. As late as the 1940s, when the Junior Rani’s family visited Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s palace for feasts, they brought with them meals cooked in their own kitchens.83 Similarly, while the cousins used to go out driving together earlier, since her pregnancy the Junior Rani had been making her outings separately.84 She was already alone at Sundara Vilasam now and rarely met with Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, although Kochukunji paid her respects sometimes. The Senior Rani considered all this eyewash and wrote sarcastically that ‘when she sees me, she is full of politeness’.85 On other days she felt like a colossal failure for having let the Maharajah down and failed in her duty. In a rare moment of abject unhappiness, she admitted to her mother, ‘I have never felt such depression before.’86
This discomfiture within the palace continued until 7 November 1912 when the Junior Rani gave birth to a healthy baby boy and Mulam Tirunal’s heir. The news gave, in the account of a contemporary commentator, ‘unbounded joy and gratification to His Highness the Maharajah and his dutiful subjects’,87 and Sethu Lakshmi Bayi too forgot recent disaffections and immediately went to see the child. It was she who performed the first ritual of feeding the baby gold and honey, after which he was wrapped up in silks and presented to the Maharajah, literally on a silver platter. ‘There was no end to the stream of visitors who came to see the child,’ she reported to her mother,88 and the whole capital rejoiced at the happy event. A state holiday was declared and photographs show streets choked with people celebrating not only in Trivandrum but also in the far-flung towns of the state. The boy was born under the asterism of Chithira and six months later was given his formal name as Chithira Tirunal Balarama Varma Tampuran,89 succeeding to the title of Elayarajah even though he was only an infant. That day, throughout the elaborate ceremonies performed in the palace, for the first time it was Sethu Lakshmi Bayi who stood in the background, eclipsed by the Junior Rani who attracted all attention from everybody present. She sat with pride and discernible joy in the midst of these proceedings, with a supremely buoyant Kochukunji nearby, and it was patent to all that much was about to change in the royal family of Travancore.
The monumental ascent of the Junior Rani had begun.
In December 1913, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi turned eighteen and orders arrived from the Maharajah handing over to her complete and unconditional control over the Sripadam Estate. This was a historic institution that originated when the last of the independent Attingal Ranis surrendered her sovereign rights to Martanda Varma. He amalgamated the region into Travancore proper but under the conditions of the Silver Plate Treaty, income from her 15,000 acres of land continued to accrue to the Senior Rani. The collection of revenue from this tract was conducted in the name of the eldest female member of the royal house, and after deducting an allowance to the Junior Rani and defraying the expenses of their establishment the remainder was placed at the disposal of the Senior Rani. Since the late Lakshmi Bayi’s death the government were ‘managing these lands for Her Highness [Sethu Lakshmi Bayi] as Her Highness happens to be a minor’.90 Now that she had come of age, she was entitled to run the Sripadam in her own name, dealing directly with officials and the government. Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, in other words, had a job, if not an heir.
The taking over of the Sripadam was a significant incident and at Moonbeam the Senior Rani received numerous best wishes for her new responsibilities. She was now Attingal Rani in the fullest sense, with a treasury and a substantial organisation to manage. There were accounts to look into, decisions to be taken about the tenants and their problems, not to speak of the added religious duties she had towards the nine temples she now controlled.91 Many entertained serious apprehensions about whether or not she would be up to the task; as a biographer put it gently, ‘people who had the highest respect and admiration for her private virtues thought, however, that a bookworm like her could hardly be a successful business woman.’92 But to everyone’s astonishment, she took on her role with enthusiasm, and aided by her husband (whose role in her life grew daily as she became more and more estranged from the Junior Rani) began to demonstrate her managerial abilities. Writing to her father, Rama Varma remarked with manifest admiration:
Her Highness takes kindly to the administrative work that has devolved on her. She has such a remarkable grasp of things and has wonderful resources to grapple with difficult problems. Except for sneering cynics we fear no criticism. Her Highness is naturally kind, considerate, and unprevaricating, qualities which are supposed to be necessary adjuncts to one in her position. You may rest assured that she will never be a failure as a woman of responsibility.93
A positive professional diversion from troubles in the palace was a welcome change for the Senior Rani. For peace had not returned to the royal family even a year after the birth of a son to her cousin. It was no longer about competing to produce a future ruler, for Sethu Parvathi Bayi had already succeeded in this regard. Indeed, since her son was the Elayarajah of Travancore, the Junior Rani had even demanded that the traditional residence of the heir apparent, known as Vadakkay Kottaram, be placed at her disposal. While it was unprecedented for one of her rank to move out of the Senior Rani’s establishment, this was timed so perfectly that it occurred just before Sethu Lakshmi Bayi took over the Sripadam and gained executive control over their servants and palaces, and indirectly over the upbringing of the baby prince. At the end of November, merely days before the Senior Rani assumed power over the establishment, Sethu Parvathi Bayi departed for her new home along with her son, husband, and mother, hereafter leading her life independent of her cousin.94
While Sethu Lakshmi Bayi did not object to this and was possibly even happy that she needn’t look forward to domestic disputes, there was much to pain her in the air. At court she was seen as an absolute letdown and even Kerala Varma, who had been very eager to see his favourite ward and his nephew bring forth Mulam Tirunal’s heir could not help but express dismay.95 On the other hand, the baby prince was kept away from the Senior Rani by his mother, whose attitude was of excessive protection. Sethu Parvathi Bayi was hugely paranoid about his safety. When the court physician offered to vaccinate the baby, for instance, she refused to allow it and the Valiya Koil Tampuran was irritated by ‘the chickenhearted Rani’s unwillingness’.96 Indeed he was himself often prevented from visiting the young Elayarajah, and whenever he expressed a desire to see the boy, the Junior Rani would submit one excuse after another to avoid him. This was presumably because he was seen as a partisan of the Senior Rani and his nephew, but Kerala Varma was not pleased and blamed all this on Kochukunji and her ‘insolent behaviour’.97 Another explanation was that since the last three heirs apparent to the throne were rumoured to have been poisoned, the Junior Rani was anxious to preserve her son, including from the Senior Rani.98 As the former’s granddaughter would tell, ‘My uncle [the baby prince] was of delicate health. Reports of danger to his person were rife. Grandmother guarded him like a tigress defending her cub … afraid a lot of the time about his safety. Life at the top can be very lonely. You meet many people, but who were your real friends?’99
Outlandish stories were put out by the Junior Rani’s adherents. One went, for instance, that Kerala Varma intended to shoot the baby prince, despite the fact that the old guardian’s health had so deteriorated that he was being carried around by servants, unable to walk.100 Similar accusations were also whispered about the Senior Rani whenever she showed an interest in the baby, causing her to retreat. �
�There is not a moment when directly or indirectly they do not insinuate something,’ she wrote to her mother only a month after the boy was born.101 This was worsened by misleading news carried by Kochukunji about the Senior Rani’s family. ‘Will anyone with humane feelings say [these things],’ Sethu Lakshmi Bayi complained. ‘I think it is the job of some people to trouble others and make them unhappy. Not only did she not say a word about anyone in Mavelikkara enjoying good health, she said that except [brothers] everyone seemed to be suffering from some ailment or another. Both parents were very weak, she said. Though I know it is foolishness to believe everything she says, she gives me cause for some anxiety.’102
But there was, in fact, some cause for concern. Mahaprabha, ever so imperious and proud, now faced the ignominy of having to put up with talk about how her daughter was barren and that her adoption was quite a catastrophe as far as Mulam Tirunal was concerned. By 1915, in aggravation of her declining health, she was on the verge of a psychological collapse also. Jealous relatives, enjoying every moment of the overbearing Mahaprabha’s spectacular fall, loudly bemoaned Sethu Lakshmi Bayi as carrying a curse of bad luck perhaps, pushing the lady towards a nervous breakdown. It was the Senior Rani who eventually learned to ignore all this and gently chided her mother that she hoped she too would develop a thick skin:
But if you grieve like this, not only will you not achieve anything, it is bad for your body and mind. Do we get upset if people say things to upset us? We will only be satisfying them then. Fortunately we have nothing to grieve about. You should only feel contempt for such behaviour and for such words, not grieve over it … I am anxious to hear that you are not upset.103
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