Binodinī - The maharajas household: a daughters memories of her father

BINODINI (M.K. Binodini Devi, 1922-2011) was a Manipuri novelist, short story writer, dramatist, screenwriter, essayist and lyricist. She was the youngest daughter of Maharaja Churachand Singh and Maharani Dhanamanjuri Devi of Manipur, now a state in northeast India. She was a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1976.
NAHAKPAM ARUNA is a Professor of Manipuri literature at Manipur University, Imphal. Her publications include The Twentieth Century Manipuri Novel: An Assessment (1991), Nongthangleima amasung Taibang (The World of Nongthangleima, 2001). She is a founding member of Leikol, the women writers circle established by M. K. Binodini Devi.
L. SOMI ROY is a film curator, producer, writer and translator. He divides his time between New York and his native Manipur.

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This edition published by Zubaan, 2015

Copyright for the original: M.K. Binodini Devi 2008
Copyright for the English translation: L. Somi Roy
and the Imasi Foundation 2015
Introduction copyright Nahakpam Aruna 2015

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M y mother, M.K. Binodini Devi, who wrote under the single name of Binodini, had thought about writing her autobiography for many years. I remember her saying when she visited me in New York in the summer of 1992, that she would not be able to embark on such a major undertaking. As it turned out she was entering one of the bleakest, isolated periods of her life. We talked about perhaps approaching her autobiography a little differently. Why not write personal memoir essays, a genre that she was celebrated for in Manipur, and publish them in the newspapers? Then perhaps they could be gathered and published as a book later?

The idea of translating Churachand Maharajgi Imung (The Maharajas Household) emerged from my correspondence with Dr. R.C. Jamieson of the Cambridge University Library, even before the publication of the book in 2008. Our correspondence and subsequent conversation in Cambridge over lunch, suggested that The Maharajas Household, exceptional in that it is an insiders intimate view of royalty from a recognized writer, might serve as a good introduction for the Western scholar to contemporary Manipurs literature, court-life, society, culture, and history. It would also of interest to readers in the West as it essentially covers the modern period of the British Raj in Manipur, from its induction into the British Indian Empire in 1891 until World War II. The initial plan was for a dual language publication, with the English translation facing the original Manipuri written in Meitei Mayek, the old script used in the puyas. The dual text could help the Western or non-Manipuri scholars learn the cadences, usage and syntax of the Manipuri language.

The translation of The Maharajas Household began in 2007 when I asked Sunita Akoijam and Chitra Ahanthem to make the first rough drafts of the essays and for this I owe them great gratitude. As I read Manipuri but painfully and feared my command of the language had rusted in the 20 years I had spent away from India and Manipur, their freeform translations guided me as I worked on them back in New York to keep the structure of the essay, sentence by sentence in keeping with the dual language approach, rather than taking a more free-flowing literary approach. Though ultimately abandoned over many drafts, traces of this approach may perhaps be still discernible when a Meitei Mayek edition comes out one day.

For me, the most rewarding part of the translation process was that I was able to work with my mother before she died. Growing up, I had heard every story in this book, as my mother loved to tell stories. Working with her was like going over my past, my own childhood, and our own family history, with her, but in her own words. After the original Manipuri edition of The Maharajas Household came out in November 2008, my mother helped us translate the first 22 chapters of the book before she went into her long, painful decline.

During my stays in Imphal, Chongtham Kamala, whom I call Cheche Mani, my childhood friend Aribam Shantimo Sharma, and I sat with my mother and went over my draft together. In the process, we further cleaned up editing lapses and minor typographical errors. But more importantly, we got a unique insight into the work with the help of the writer herself, savouring her delicacy of nuance and tone. Nonchalant is too fancy; I mean something simpler, like careless, she would say. She loved to sit out in her garden in the weak winter sun as we gathered around her,