CHAPTER VII
LIFE AT COOCH BEHAR
Eight days after I lost my father I held a little daughter in my arms, and I wondered whether the innocent soul which had come into my keeping straight from God had met my father’s noble spirit on its upward flight.
Into that house of mourning her birth brought some consolation. We named her Sukriti (Good deeds), but we always call her Girlie. She is fascinating rather than lovely.
When Rajey was four years old, as no other son had been born to us, the Maharajah’s people were most anxious for him to marry again, for they said if anything happened to the child and the Maharajah also died, the throne would have to go to another branch of the family. The old Maharani and the late Calica Das Duth planned out very carefully that it was most necessary for my husband to marry again. The Maharajah never mentioned the matter to me, but to the doctor he said when Rajey once had an attack of false croup: “Durga Das, I shall always be over-anxious about Rajey’s health until another son is born.” So it was a day of great rejoicing when my second son Jitendra, whom we called Jit, was born, 20th December, 1886.
I was greatly delighted when I went to live at Cooch Behar to find there a fine church of the New Dispensation and a girls’ school named after me.
But there was much room for improvement in the country, although Government had well prepared the way for us. It remained for my husband to be a ruler in the highest sense of the word, and for me to win the hearts of our people as a woman, a wife, and a mother. The more I saw of Cooch Behar the more I liked it. The old tales say that the god Siva chose it as his earthly home on account of its luxuriant loveliness.
Many legends have gathered round Cooch Behar, mostly of the time when it formed part of the kingdom of Kamrupa, and when many of the temples and palaces were built.
