The price of exile

Thanks to the public telephone, sugar candy and that perennial conveyor of bad news – the weighing machine, one rupee-coins are popular. Two rupee coins have both implicit value and as small change to build bigger sums. Three rupees and four rupees are viable because there are one rupee and two rupee-coins to return as balance. You don't find many products priced three and four.

I found a king,.

Tthe King of Brahmadesh

It was hot. Summer had reached Ratnagiri. Entry to the 100 year-old building, cost three rupees. I was in the ‘Palace of King Thiba of Brahmadesh.' That's what a tourist pamphlet pressed into my hands by a hopeful guide in Ganpatipule, said.

Ever since I read Amitav Ghosh's ‘The Glass Palace' I had wanted to come here, home to one of those unexpected nuggets from history.

The last king of Burma following his overthrow and exile by the British, had first travelled to Ceylon, then Madras and eventually, spent the rest of his life in Ratnagiri. The construction of the palace had been personally supervised by the king. You can see the Burmese influence in architecture. Museum now, the forepart of the structure was closed for renovation.

All the exhibits were in four lonely rooms. One held local sculpture from centuries ago and some damaged copper vessels. Two, if I remember correct, had some pictures. None of these three rooms had anything to do with King Thibaw. Only one room in his palace seemed anymore the king's. It sported a write-up of his reign in Burma, his scholarship in Pali language, the disputes with the British that provoked his overthrow and exile to Ratnagiri. A portrait of the king dominated the small room; it was flanked by carved chairs and two high seats of solid wood. There was the photo of an old woman on the wall. Nothing around described what each exhibit was.

Three rupees-worth

The quiet premises slowly baked in the heat. I wondered whether Thibaw's palace mattered to anyone. Indeed who should worry about it – India, where the list of such neglect is long or Burma, which became Myanmar subsequently administered by its military?

According to reports, one of the king's daughters, who married a local person, died in penury in Ratnagiri. She wasn't accepted by Myanmar society. Her daughter grew up speaking Marathi, had a family and became part of Mumbai's urban poor. Another of Thibaw's daughters lived and died in Kalimpong.

The ground floor of the palace had a couple of office rooms with bored employees. Nobody knew why the Thibaw exhibits were in that specific room on top. Had that been the king's room previously? “Nothing like that,'' an employee said brushing off the query. He relapsed to boredom. May be that's all the history you get for three rupees. I kept the museum's ticket as souvenir.

(The author is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai)

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