Maharaja’s Household, The

Part memoir, part oral testimony, part eyewitness account, Binodini’s The Maharaja’s Household provides a unique and engrossingly intimate view of life in the erstwhile royal household of Manipur in northeast India. It brings to life stories of kingdoms long vanished, and is an important addition to the untold histories of the British Raj.

Maharaj Kumari Binodini Devi, or Binodini as she preferred to be known, published The Maharaja’s Household as a series of essays between 2002 and 2007 for an avid newspaper-reading public in Manipur. Already celebrated in Manipur for her award-winning novel, short stories and film scripts that had brought her to the attention of international followers of world cinema, Binodini entranced her readers anew with her stories of royal life, told from a woman’s point of view and informed by a deep empathy for the common people in her father’s gilded circle.

Elephant hunts, polo matches and Hindu temple performances form the backdrop for palace intrigues, colonial rule and White Rajahs. With gentle humour, piquant observations and heartfelt nostalgia, Binodini evokes a lifestyle and an era that is now lost. Her book paints a portrait of the household of a king that only a princesshis daughtercould have written.