SOUL OF SIKKIM: Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal (1923-1982)

END OF AN ERA

With the cremation of Palden Thondup Namgyal, the former Chogyal of Sikkim, in Gangtok, a 100-year-old dynasty finally came to an end. Though deprived of his throne since 1975, when Sikkim became a state of the Indian Union, the pomp and pageantry that accompanied the cremation ceremony was certainly befitting royalty. 

The last years of his life had been spent in bitterness and pain and even humiliation. He was a king without a kingdom, betrayed by his own people, his tiny Himalayan monarchy snatched rudely away by a mighty neighbour, his power and prestige reduced to nothingness. And then, the final denouement: deserted by his American wife, he lay stricken with cancer in an alien land.

   When Palden Thondup Namgyal, 59, the former Chogyal of Sikkim, finally passed into legend and history, there remained the ultimate irony: his voice box had been removed three months earlier so there were no last words, no epitaph he could give himself, no final benediction to his people.

   The irony, however, was not over. In death, if not in life, the Chogyal finally was king again and his tortured soul had found peace. For 20 days, his body, embalmed in New York where he died, lay in state in the royal monastery in Gangtok while thousands of mourners filed past, some sobbing uncontrollably, to pay their final farewell to the departed leader.

   At each corner of the tent-shaped coffin (the Chogyal, according to traditional custom, was placed seated in the classic Buddha pose) four members of the Sikkim Police maintained a 24-hour vigil, heads bowed and rifles reversed.

Stylised Pageantry: Only a king could have commanded, and deserved, such stylised pageantry. Instead of the sombre trappings of a funeral, the coffin room was a riot of colours.

   Two rows of wizened lamas in their red robes sat facing each other, eyes closed and lips moving silently in prayer. Huge prayer flags and tankhas with intricate designs hung solemnly from the ceiling. One hundred butter lamps flickered constantly in the centre of the room, bathing the scene in an eerie glow.

   There was also a symbolic show of defiance in the form of the red and white Sikkim national flag draped over the coffin and hiding the Chogyal's mortal remains from public view.

   Next to the coffin, neatly laid out with spotless tableware, was an incongruous sight - a full meal, freshly cooked, which was served up thrice a day. At breakfast, for instance, there were two fried eggs, bacon, orange juice, a thermos jug of coffee and fruit.

   According to Buddhist tradition, the soul of the dead does not leave the body immediately, but at a moment termed auspicious by the lamas for a period up to 49 days after death.

   For economic reasons, since the family of the dead person has to feed the mourners, the actual cremation takes place within a week. In the Chogyal's case, the lamas had picked the 21st day after his death for the cremation.

   Since the day his body had been flown in to Gangtok on January 31, a row of intricately designed tents had been erected on the grassy knoll separating the palace from the royal monastery. Under the tents, hundreds of female volunteers slaved day and night to provide meals for the hundreds who arrived daily from all parts of the rugged, mountainous state for the cremation.

   Next door, in the tiny Victorian building known as the Palace, the members of the Chogyal's family huddled in private grief, led by the bespectacled and self-assured scion of the Namgyal family, Wangchuk Namgyal, 29.

    "His last days were peaceful and spent in meditation. I think he knew he was going to die and though he couldn't speak he made this quite obvious," says Palden Namgyal the Chogyal's curly-haired son by his second wife, Hope Cooke, who studies in New York and was by his father's bedside when the end came.

Also present was Bhuvanesh Kumari, member of the erstwhile royal family of Patiala and a family friend as well as the former Chogyal's legal adviser. "He was a great man, a renowned scholar and this spontaneous show of grief is a measure of the affection the people had for him," she says.

   On the day of the cremation, the royal family gathered around the coffin at 4.30 a.m. in the pre-dawn darkness to make the traditional offerings of scarves to the Chogyal's coffin. They were joined by the royal family of Bhutan, led by the queen mother, which is related by marriage to the Chogyal's family.

   At 4.45, with dawn edging over the mountains, the coffin was brought out of the monastery and taken to a specially-erected tent and placed on a gaily-decorated palanquin. Till 9 a.m., the coffin remained there while assorted VIPs including N.R. Lasker, minister of state for home, and Homi Talyarkhan. governor of Sikkim, and commoners filed past silently to pay final homage.

   Many, overcome by emotion, knelt and touched the ground with their foreheads in the traditional obeisance to a king. At 9.05, the former Chogyal set out on his final journey to the royal cremation ground on top of a hill overlooking the capital.

   Leading the procession were a group of lamas carrying prayer flags and playing instruments. Behind them marched a brass band playing funeral marches. Behind them was a police contingent with rifles pointing backwards followed by a group of old women with prayer wheels chanting incantations. Then came the main body of the procession, led by the Head Lama. Behind him, the two princesses, Yangchen and Hope Lizum, the latter, the 14-year-old daughter of the Chogyal's second wife Hope Cooke, carrying food and drink wrapped in white gauze.

   Arduous Climb: The coffin itself was initially carried by the male members of the royal family led by Prince Wangchuk and his step-brother, Palden, and Simon Abraham, the English husband of Yangchen.

    The procession circled the royal monastery thrice before another set of pall-bearers took over the started the long seven-kilometre climb to the royal cremation ground.

   Every 200 yards, the pall-bearers would be replaced by people from various localities along the route. In fact, for the last four kilometres of the route, the procession crawled up a narrow, steep path that was, in some places, little more than a goat track.

    It took the procession over three hours to finally arrive at the cremation ground where the coffin was placed on top of a specially-constructed bell-shaped funeral pyre.

   The cremation ground itself was a mass of humanity, with the more agile having clambered up trees to obtain a better view.

    After an hour of rituals, the royal family paid their last respects by throwing scarves onto the pyre after bowing thrice with folded hands, their foreheads touching the ground.

   Finally, to the moving sound of the Last Post echoing through the hills, the pyre was lit and a huge pillar of smoke rose slowly in the hushed silence, casting its shadow over the entire area.

   It was, in the end, a symbol of many things. The end of a shadowy era and the tenuous beginnings of another. An intangible tribute to the memory of a lost kingdom and a disillusioned king.

   But to the thousands of watching mourners, for that one fiery moment, Sikkim was theirs again and not the 22nd state of the Indian Union.

(India Today, Dilip Bobb, Mary 15, 1982)