This was followed about three weeks later by the birthday festivities of the Maharajah on 16 November, celebrated with regular pomp. But scarcely had these drawn to a close when Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s thirtieth birthday sent Trivandrum into a thrill once again. This was her second tirunal (royal birthday) as ruler but since the last one had not been celebrated due to an inopportune illness, the event attracted double attention. Besides, it was rare in history for a female monarch to go out in state and so, newspapers reported, the concourse of onlookers gathered in the capital was unusually large. Feasts were organised in the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple for seven days and provision was made for feeding the poor. On the evening before the birthday, the Nair Brigade was called in to shoulder the responsibility of cooking and chopping (a chore one would imagine might offend their military sensibilities, but which was in fact viewed as an honour). The Devaswom Commissioner, representing the Dewan, and other senior high-caste officials cut the first few vegetables in a ceremony called karikkuvettu, giving them the lead in keeping with tradition.
At dawn the next morning the Maharani rose from bed and prepared for the day, surrounded by her usual bevy of maids and attendants. The inaugural ceremony was the tirumudikalasam, which was when she was anointed with sacred waters. In nine silver pots, water mixed with the juices of the Ficus glomerosa, benjamina, religiosa, and indica trees, was boiled and sanctified over as many fires. The priests sat before these, performing certain ceremonies and chanting assorted Vedic mantras, offering oblations to the fire. Finally, surrounded by these religious grandees, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi took her seat on a mandapam in the fort, where the holy waters were poured over her head, sanctifying her once again as reigning queen of the land. As this happened, the Nair Brigade fired a salute outside, proclaiming the news to the waiting masses. And once the tirumudikalasam was performed, she proceeded to pray in the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple and partook in other great rituals there, before preparing for the royal procession.106
The procession commenced at eight in the morning, heralded by a band of Pathans, whose ancestors were bequeathed to the Travancore durbar by its one-time overlord, the Nawab of Arcot in the eighteenth century. Playing on instruments such as the shehnai, swarbat, etc., in distinctly north Indian tunes, they carried with them flags and other regalia, including the Union Jack. The state elephants followed, each caparisoned with different colours, starting with gold and silver, moving with the inherent majesty that made them such favourite royal pets. The elephants of the aristocratic houses of the country trailed them, after whom the cavalry and troops marched by. Drummers and musicians accompanied all these components of the procession, but when the rear appeared with the Maharani, a dignified silence arrived with it as the crowds beheld their consecrated queen.
She was seated in an exquisite palanquin, with a green velvet canopy, richly embroidered and draped in gold lace, with hangings of pearls. Within it she was clearly visible, poised with her legs crossed, her back straight, and head held high, looking almost statuesque. She was dressed entirely in white, with a single string of pearls around her neck, looking, as the Madras Mail gushingly reported, like ‘simplicity itself ’. As she passed, a hush of devotion burst out in the crowds, as some bowed, while others whispered her name; and some more progressive fans even held up her photographs. With a smile and a regal nod of her head, she acknowledged the greetings of her people, adding some grace to this antiquated and rather feudal procession. And thus, she made her way in right royal style around the town and back to Anantha Vilasam in the fort, to inaugurate the birthday feasts in the afternoon.107 At five in the afternoon an audience was granted to her sisters and their children, who presented their combined message of congratulations, after which a private banquet followed at Satelmond Palace. The culmination of the year’s celebrations came then with the second birthday party of Princess Lalitha, which coincided with the new year, brightening up the palace and the town once again with joyful revelry.
The year 1925 came to a conclusion, thus, with a great deal of positive energy and enthusiasm. The pace of big and small reforms was accelerated and the work of the Maharani’s government was already being lauded as exemplary. She had succeeded in appointing a loyal minister on terms that made her active hand in the administration quite clear; her relationship with the Government of India and its Resident was cordial and positive; and while her refusal to countenance communal proclivities did not impress many politicians, the people of the state saw in her an inspiring, self-assured monarch and vindicated her policy. Women, especially, began to admire Sethu Lakshmi Bayi for her graciousness, as the gates of Satelmond Palace were thrown open, in what was unprecedented, for any one of them with a grievance. Every morning when the Maharani returned from the bathhouse, scores of women would line up on the pathway with petitions and representations. A special attendant would collect these from them but each day Sethu Lakshmi Bayi listened to all these women patiently, comforting them with kind words or a warm smile.108
It was not an easy task, for many of the women would be distraught with emotion, telling of their indebtedness, or an impending marriage with all its expenses, or even about their difficulties in paying school fees for their children. The whole affair took up a large portion of the Maharani’s time, but in spite of this, she insisted on these informal daily meetings and treated the petitioners with all the consideration and respect that was due to them. News of the sovereign of the land, a figure so revered and worshipped, personally coming down and listening to these women reverberated throughout the state. The tremendous oneness she felt with her people came to be recognised through these genuine and heartfelt gestures, and for her entire reign ahead, the Maharani always made it a point to reach out to common men and women. Perhaps that is why when Lady Elizabeth Glover featured her in a book titled Great Queens, there were very few who thought it was a title Sethu Lakshmi Bayi did not deserve.109
7
Malice Domestique
The year 1926 began with scandal. For no sooner had the new-year celebrations concluded than Trivandrum woke up to one of the most controversial pieces of gossip it had ever devoured, even with all the ribald stories that always plagued royal courts. Every tattler true to his predilections was roused into action and, to quote Mr Cotton’s more gentlemanly terms, ‘great sensation’ prevailed in town.1 And to the genuine mortification of the royal family and all its well-wishers, swamped in the middle of all this was Kowdiar Palace and its principal mistress, the Junior Maharani.
It all started when, within a fortnight after the new year, her husband, the Kochu Koil Tampuran, suddenly walked out of their home in a great rage. He was generally known as something of an eccentric who threw his occasional tantrums, but this time it was not a passing whim that drove him. On the contrary, he was furious and left making the wildest accusations against his royal consort, none of which were even remotely charitable or flattering. Before long it was revealed that the issue concerned a bhagvathar from whom the Junior Maharani had been taking music lessons. There was presumably nothing unsavoury about his talent, but the problem lay in that the Kochu Koil Tampuran accused the two of ‘undue familiarity’ with each other.2 In what he saw as his conjugal right, he demanded, therefore, that the man be sacked. But to his great resentment, his wife (perhaps stunned) refused to do anything of the sort. The music lessons continued as did whatever familiarity normally accompanied it.
The quarrel escalated, then, and a thoroughly piqued Ravi Varma decided to stage a dramatic rebellion. No petty consort had ever done anything like this before, and everybody was shocked when he went on to broadcast his reasons. He was absolutely determined, and told the Resident, ‘that he would not [return] so long as the music master was there’.3 His pride and dignity were at stake, he felt, and he would not allow the Junior Maharani to prevail in this matter. Mr Cotton did much to sweet-talk him into his regular mood of composed submission but without success; not even the sentimental trump card of his distraught children co
uld persuade him to go back. Uncontained, thus, the scandal burst into outrageous proportions. Liberally embellished whispers of servants reached the town and Kowdiar Palace came under a shroud of nightmarish disgrace. It was a first-class crisis; one that was for some time waiting to explode.
It appears to have been increasingly obvious in recent years that the Junior Maharani’s marriage was afflicted by a malady every couple dreads: incompatibility. Sethu Parvathi Bayi was an individual of ‘keen intelligence, wide interests, restless energy and boundless ambition’.4 She was strong-minded, with a very dynamic and powerful personality that distinguished her in all the circles she frequented. Her love of travel was enormous and she profoundly enjoyed cultivating the friendship of interesting, powerful persons like herself. She hoped to ‘shine in the new mixed society of cultured, progressive India’, and to a serious extent was successful at this.5 Her gregarious temperament had impressed even Mr Cotton before the commencement of the regency, when he was still uncertain about Sethu Lakshmi Bayi. He felt that the Junior Maharani had much more spirit and was remarkably unorthodox in her views and despite an ‘impetuosity which occasionally causes trouble’, she was worthy of sincere admiration.6 But to her unfortunate chagrin, it was back home in Kowdiar Palace that her myriad qualities were met with conspicuous contempt. And this fountain of disapproval was none other than her own husband.
Ravi Varma, while known to be a Sanskrit scholar of respectable standing and an intelligent man, could not make too many claims at popularity. He had little by way of personality and was a ‘shy and retiring’ character with ‘no social graces and no wish to acquire them’.7 While his wife was flattered as the ‘accredited representative of Indian womanhood’,8 for instance, the Kochu Koil Tampuran was dismissed as a henpecked ‘worm’ who did not inspire even the smallest appeal.9 He was anything but the vivacious Junior Maharani’s ideal companion and as she embarked on a variety of interesting pursuits, he picked up the more mundane chores of everyday parenting. When he was not poring over his Sanskrit manuscripts, Ravi Varma was busy ‘employed as a fag for the little Maharajah and nursery governess for the younger children’, as Mr Cotton noted with a touch of disgust at his so-called unmanliness.10 At banquets he ate nothing and sat with a lemon, apparently a symbol of happiness and purity, before him, feeling ‘disgusted with himself at being in [the] low company’ of Europeans and others.11 His prudish lack of sophistication was often an embarrassment for his wife, and during a recent trip to Ooty, the summer capital of the Madras Presidency, he had spurred an outrage with the flamboyant Maharani of Cooch Behar, whose friendship Sethu Parvathi Bayi had recently cultivated.
Indira Devi, as she was known, was a very merry widow and a great socialite, also serving as Regent in Council of her state.12 A regular at some of Europe’s most exclusive casinos and clubs, she was famously rumoured at one point as the mistress of Prince George of England.13 She had far-reaching connections and many powerful friends, besides a rebellious streak that made her the object of great fascination. But the glamour that mesmerised many horrified conservative Indian society and its starched colonial masters, compounded by her promiscuous bedroom escapades that earned her the sobriquet ‘Maharani of Couche Partout’.14 In London she ‘got into a bad gambling and drinking set’ and was seen more at the 43 Club, notorious for its alcoholism and easy drugs, than at the saloons and parlours of aristocratic ladies. ‘She demoralised the youth of the town and the young officers of the Household Cavalry to such an extent’ one disapproving intelligence note goes, ‘that the Royal House Guards (Blue) became known as “the Blacks”’. The King of England, as a consequence, was ‘much annoyed’ and ‘owing to the notoriety she had gained by her loose style of living, her gambling, and her drinking propensities’, had her practically expelled from Britain to India.15
As Regent too Indira Devi was profligate, spending too much of her time abroad and helping herself to her state’s treasuries to fund ‘tours of foreign hotels and casinos’.16 She is believed to have initiated some developments in her state, though for most part her reputation even as an administrator was not exemplary. But notwithstanding these questionable traits, she did have an exquisite magnetism that attracted the irrepressible Junior Maharani, and they would go on to become great friends.17 At that party in Ooty, however, when she was introduced to the Kochu Koil Tampuran by his wife, she encountered a sanctimonious individual who recoiled and publicly humiliated her by saying he would not shake hands with her. This was likely because her reputation preceded her, but the episode so embarrassed the Junior Maharani that she decided to exclude her husband from all her future advances in high society.18
Relations between the couple steadily deteriorated in the months that followed and their mutual discord leaked out for all to see. But Sethu Parvathi Bayi was not one with a defeatist bone. It was to prove a point that she refused to sack the musician (and it is possible her husband, with all his conservatism, was overreacting). This was her fixed attitude even after her name was dragged through the mud when the scandal broke. Sensible voices around the palace spoke of how a little discretion and maturity on both their parts could have saved the day, but there was little scope for this now. On the contrary, spurning efforts at reconciliation,19 an unyielding Junior Maharani decided to go away instead on holiday with her children. She retreated to the beach at Varkala, ignoring the Kochu Koil Tampuran and his unceasing rants. She would not, she made it clear, be bullied, even if it was her husband on the other side. This was not an unusually striking attitude on her part; some years later when she travelled to Europe, the Junior Maharani proved herself equally capable of telling even the Pope off when his staff decided to offer her unsolicited advice about her clothes and make-up before she arrived for an audience.20
But then there was an uncharacteristic change of heart. Almost as if by a sudden stroke of intelligence, she realised how disastrous her situation was politically. For if the Government of India, who were sharply monitoring the situation, took exception to her ‘unwomanly’ attitude, which for all its sexism they tended to do, the outcome could be devastating. They could remove the little Maharajah from her household citing his moral well-being and keep him away from her for years;21 they had done something similar with Indira Devi’s son, for instance, by appointing for him an official guardian.22 Such an eventuality was dreadful for her to envisage. And so after an injudicious posture of blasé and indifference towards her husband’s frenzied expostulations, the Junior Maharani abruptly hurried back to the capital to mitigate the scandal. Mr Watts was summoned and asked to ‘secure the early return of her consort’ although she continued to insist that his conduct was ‘most unreasonable’.23
Protracted negotiations followed and Sethu Parvathi Bayi sought to appeal to the Dewan’s sentiments, lamenting her melancholy fate. In an ‘extremely spirited review’ she remembered the day when Mulam Tirunal sent her five candidates to choose a husband from and how she now regretted selecting the much older Ravi Varma simply because his BA degree had seemed an attractive bonus at the time.24 But the Kochu Koil Tampuran was not to be outdone and countered the Junior Maharani’s impassioned pleas with heated rejoinders of his own. Being of a ‘jealous and suspicious temperament’, he ‘riposted with a catalogue of his wife’s paramours or alleged paramours’, prominent among whom were Yuvarajah Sir Narasimharaja Wodeyar of Mysore and Sir Vasudeva Rajah, a Malabar aristocrat.25 Both returned fire vehemently and there was little potential for progress. Finally, therefore, with the belated consciousness that she was the one who would lose the most should the crisis continue unchecked, the Junior Maharani conceded defeat. She offered to accept whatever was decided to bring her husband back to the palace, and looked to her cousin to resolve the matter.
Through all this, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was ‘greatly upset’ at the downpour of shame that had been brought upon the royal family.26 It did not help that the Junior Maharani had, during the height of the dispute, recruited a palace doctor called Nallape
rumal Pillai to help ‘prove’ that her husband was insane. The campaign did not succeed for, as the Resident reported, ‘very slender and unconvincing is the material so far collected’.27 This was a devious enterprise and Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was aghast. So, as head of the family who was responsible for maintaining its standing and dignity among the people (and, after Mahaprabha’s tutelage she knew one or two things about the importance of appearances), she ordered disciplinary action. Mr Cotton was consulted and gave her his fullest support, and that of the Government of India, in issuing punitive measures.
The provisions of the verdict were stern. The music master was dismissed to begin with, and the Junior Maharani was prohibited from seeing him again.28 The Kochu Koil Tampuran had also complained about Kochukunji provoking trouble, and so she too was asked to leave for Mavelikkara and allow the couple to settle by themselves. But Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s ire came out upon the doctor and his crooked exercise to establish that Ravi Varma was insane. She did not clap him in irons and throw him in jail, as she might have in the old days, but felt it necessary to make an example of him nonetheless. With a sense of irony and satire, then, the Maharani confirmed his fate. Dr Nallaperumal woke up one morning to find himself served an order appointing him head of the lunatic asylum and transferred, thus, to the treatment of ‘real lunatics’.29 Provisional peace was effected, thus, and by the middle of February, the Kochu Koil Tampuran was successfully prevailed upon to return to his wife. ‘For the time being at any rate,’ Mr Cotton concluded dryly, ‘the voice of scandal is hushed, though I cannot myself believe in any permanent reconciliation.’30
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