A tale of the last King of Burma and a princess

It is well-known to us in India that the last Mughal King, Bahahur Shah Zafar II, was interned to Rangoon of Burma (now Yangon in Myanmar), after the defeat in the war with the British in 1857. What is lesser known that, by reciprocation, the last Burmese King, was interned in India. King Thibaw, after he lost the Anglo-Burmese war in 1885, was unceremoniously packed off with his family members, two queens and four minor daughters, and exiled to the then Mumbai Presidency of British India.

King Thibaw (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

The Burmese King was probably luckier than Zafar. Though he had to live in a smaller confinement for the first 24 years of his stay in India, the British built a grand palace for the exiled King and his family, atop a hillock in the coastal town of Ratnagiri (now in Maharashtra), in 1906. This is a building made of brick and laterite stone, with typical British architecture of the time. Today, the palace is minimally maintained by ASI with very few visitors. It comes back to life for three days, once a year, during the art and culture festival of Ratnagiri, which is being held in the last week of January (Friday -- Sunday) since 2008. The King lived a reclusive life in the palace and died in 1916. Soon after his death, his surviving family members were relocated back to Burma. None of these family members ever came back to India, ... except for one, who pleaded to be sent back.

 

King Thibaw's palace (Thiba Palace), Ratnagiri

Myat Phaya Gyi, the eldest princess and the daughter of the first queen Supayalat, then about 26 years of age, had a love affair with one Gopal Bhaurao Sawant, a gatekeeper of the palace. She hid the affair successfully, unfortunately till the arrival of her baby daughter "Tutu". However, Gopal was already a married man, and Phaya was never accepted as his wife. 

 

Princess Phaya Gyi (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

The half-caste child and the conduct of princess Phaya were never appreciated in the royal household, as well as the people of Burma. Eventually, Phaya pleaded to come back to Ratnagiri with her daughter and the request was granted. Though Gopal promised their upkeep, he did not keep it, and even squandered her royal pension, received from the British government. 

Phaya lived in Ratnagiri for rest of her life in abject poverty. She lived in a hut till it was demolished by the (British) Indian police. She slept on the ground near the hut for a few days till she died on 3rd June, 1947.

The princess'es hut

Tutu eventually married an Indian driver, Shankar Power, and her descendants became Indian citizens. It appears that Tutu discussed little about her or her mother's life to her new family, and the current generation does not know much about them.