An intimate portrait recalls Travancore’s last Maharani through family memories, rituals, grief, discipline, and enduring affection.
Karthika Thirunal Lakshmi Bayi was the only surviving sister of Shri Chiththira Thirunal Rama Varma, last monarch of the erstwhile Travancore kingdom. She was petite and beautiful and had a full crown of hair, she insisted she keep till her dying day. As the king’s sister, as well as being the only girl in this branch of a matrilineal family, naturally she was made much of, right from her earliest years.
She was blessed with an intensly soft skin which she pampered using the reddest of oils, she gently used to wash off with, using payar podi (beans powder). Soap never touched her skin, except when she washed her hands. Shampoo was another strict no-no. On the very rare occasions when she used to travel by train, she used to cadge a bit of shampoo off us, “to take the smell off from the hair.” She did not own a bottle of it, ever.
A bright deep green oil was what she used on her head, washed off with hibiscus leaf juice called thaali. There would be the uniquely coloured yellow of Shri Padmanabha Swamy’s Chandan, the white of Bhasmam, ash holy to Shiva and a brilliant shade of magenta as her sindoor.
She wore cotton rowkaas, blouses which tie up in front that were like bras themselves. A simple cotton mundu tucked under her arms so securely that she needed to retie it only a few times a day. One could hear the crisp frou-frou on the costume as she was walking towards you. For her to put on a bra was an operation, she called her daughters or granddaughter to do. After the discomforts of lukaemia, I find now the same lack of ease on my right shoulder, compounded by a suitcase I carried wrongly from Varanasi.
At night, she used to pile up her hair high on her head as a topknot when she went to bed. She was insistent that she completed reciting 10,000 times of the mantra, “Narayana”, daily.
She would walk the length of the long corridors in Kaudiar Palace, till she completed that day’s quota of prayers. She would not sleep till she completed her daily quota of prayers. This was something that she did which was unbroken for more than 53 years of her life.
Having such a person in the house was good enough to benefit the whole family.
This writer was lucky enough to be born as her eldest grandchild and only granddaughter. Ammumma, as I used to call her was a very young grandmother. There is less than 20 years age gap between my mother and me. Lifestyle choices make my mother look like my daughter, something that delights me for her.
Greying hair and a few (read many) kilos of extra flesh round my middle make me more buoyant.
My mother bore three children. I was the eldest. Then came Ramachandran who tragically passed away due to dehydration when he was less than a year old. In between was the svelte Ravi, my mother’s sister’s son. Then came Raghu, my mother’s son. He was totally into music. Self confessedly food, comedy and music are his areas of interest, probably inherited directly from our father. The youngest sibling is my mother’s sister’s son, Aditya born with great charm.
When he was less than ten years old, he had a kidney problem. At that time, the doctors were very doubtful whether he would survive. Dr Colabawallah of Bombay did a kidney surgery on him and Aditya is surviving well into his fifties. He was born under the asterism of Avittam. Karthika Thirunal’s eldest child, Rama Varma who survived only till he was six years old, thanks to a congenital cardiac condition was born on this star, as was my brother who died in infancy. Was Avittam going to do what it was deemed to do, during that birth as well? Shri Avittam Thirunal Memorial Hospital was in the name of Karthika Thirunal’s son.
Chiththira Thirunal and most of the family were in Bombay at that time. Karthika Thirunal, with her dashing husband Colonel Goda Varma Raja of Poonjar, her eldest son and her two-year-old daughter Pooyam Thirunal Gouri Parvathi Bayi were in Kanyakumari. Rama Varma was on Karthika Thirunal’s lap. He was slowly dying, something not clear to any of them.
“Ammay, put the lights on. It’s growing dark”, the boy said. No matter the number of lights which were put on, the child was softly descending to his last sleep.
Colonel Goda Varma tried to gently take the deceased child away from Karthika Thirunal. “He is still warm. He is still alive”, she screamed.
It was the futile warmth of her hug, that made her feel so. Many decades later, just before her 60th birthday or Shashtiabdapoorthi, she would return to worship at the Shri Kanyakumari Bhagavathi temple. The loss of a child is the deepest hurt of all, she would aver. Well into her 90s, she would fast completely on his death anniversary. There was no drama or fanfare about that act, just a mother’s perennial grieving about her first born.
Colonel Goda Varma Raja was a darling of the sports world. He set up a tennis club, the golf club, the boat club, the mountaineering club and saw the potential of tourism long before the ubiquitous phrase “God’s own Country” became a catch phrase. Kovalam beach was his favourite destination and he would invite many prominent people there. There was a building with a serrated roof that was coming up near the Thiruvananthapuram airport’s runway.
Thirumeni, as Goda Varma Raja was known, went there with a hammer in hand. He was physically going to break down the building as it would come in the way of the expansion of the airport. There was total consternation. Here was the brother-in-law of the erstwhile Maharaja of Travancore indulging in “antisocial” activity. It was soon enough after the Indian Independence to warrant interest in the highest echelons of the then Thiruvananthapuram soceity. With the intervention of his brother-in-law Chiththira Thirunal, matters were amicably solved.
At that time, only propeller planes were landing in Thiruvananthapuram. It is an irony of fate that the very first jet aeroplane that touched down in Thiruvananthapuram was a Caravelle, containing the body of Colonel Goda Varma Raja who had died in an air crash in the Himalayas. There is a portrait still of this man who had done so much from tourism, in the arrival hall of the domestic airport.
Just a few months before his death, Colonel Goda Varma Raja had gone to see the elephant Surarshana, of the Shri Padmanabha Swamy temple. On every first of the Malayalam month, Sudarshana used to gracefully sway her way up to Kaudiar Palace and be fed bananas, coconuts and jaggery in front of Chiththira Thirunal. Colonel Goda Varma Raja moved forward to feed the elephant and the normally gentle Sudarshana knocked him down and gored him on his thigh. This happened in front of Karthika Thirunal Lakshmi Bayi and thus was born her very real fear even of domesticated elephants.
The ever active, never-at-home Colonel was housebound and he chafed at that. When he died months later, his wife understood that he would have preferred to go surrounded by his beloved mountains, rather than succumb to a microbe.
There were many rituals and celebrations in Kaudiar Palace. Onam and Vishu when everyone would greet and prostate both Chiththira Thirunal and his mother, the Navarathri, the biannual Ulsavams in the Shri Padmanabha Swamy temple, the monthy New Moon, Full Moon, Pradosham and the midnight pooja on Ashtami Rohini, the birth star of Shri Krishna, were all celebrated with gusto and reverence.
We kids had our greedy eyes mainly on the accompanying Naivedyams.
My father’s mother’s 60th birthday or Shashtiabdapoorthi was then. Unfortunately I was due to have my menses and it was
But during that time, Voldys was not available. Another generic drug was given and I exhibited the classic signs of pregnancy, like morning sickness and feeling faint each day. The rumour mills of Kaudiar Palace swung into gleeful over drive. Aha! Here was an unmarried, pregnant girl. The only female in the line too. What could be more delicious to a gossip starved setup!
Karthika Thirunal used to read the newspaper from cover to cover in the afternoons, lying on her “day” bed. She had fallen off a horse in her youth and had suffered from backpain forever. Sidling up to her, I scanned the weekend magazine of the Indian Express that she used to prefer reading. In a very gentle, non judgemental tone, she asked me, “Child, have you been naughty?”. It took me a while to realize that she was questioning me about a possible pregnancy! Till my hysterectomy at 40, I had made sure that no such “accidents” occur.
She seemed relieved at my vehement and highly amused “No!”.
There were three maids who were employed when each child was born. Yet it was Karthika Thirunal who used to bathe, feed, clothe and educate me. Likewise during her mother’s final years, she used to make her Horlicks with her own hands and give it to her past midnight. She never relied on servants to hand out love to her family, though there were many loving people working for her.
Of all her grandchildren, she looked after me the longest and most. There were inevitable fights. She was the epitome of propriety. She rarely lost her temper.
“You stand at the end of Three Hundred years of Tradition. I stand at the beginning of yet another Three Hundred years of Tradition!”, I used to shout and flounce out of the room as I had no idea what Tradition I represented.
She never allowed me to have coffee or tea in the morning. It was get up, abolutions, bath, prayers and then breakfast. One gets black coffee in hovels, not in the Kaudiar Palace, was my pet refrain.
So long as I bring you up, you will listen to me till you are eighteen and a legal major. This was her steady reply to my diatribes. Of course, at eighteen you no longer need beverages to wake you up.
It’s now eighteen years since Karthika Thirunal passed away. In the morning, the family does her Shraddham. The priest guides us through the steps to invoke her down from whichever world she inhabits. Symbolically feed her rice, sesame and water as he chants. Yes. I mentally add her favourite Manner Wafer to what I feed her.
That is the least I can do to return the countless meals she served me lovingly, for eighteen years, and for memories that will last a lifetime.
Thiruvathira Thirunal Lakshmi Bayi was born the XII Princess of the erstwhile Princely State of Travancore.
