About Svāti Tirunāḷ

1813. The British East India Company has imperial authority to annex any princely state under the infamous Doctrine of Lapse, one of the clauses being the absence of a male heir. In the matrilineal Cera dynasty of Travancore, South India, Queen Gaurī Lakṣmī Bāī gives birth to a boy already proclaimed king in utero. Svāti Tirunāḷ Śrī Rāma Varma, now aged 16, takes over from his aunt regent and assumes power as Mahārāja of Travancore. His reign would last until his premature death aged 33.

Prodigiously talented and eventually tragic, Svāti Tirunāḷ was many things—just ruler and holder of an open court for the arts, visionary scholar and reformer of scientific temperament, virtuoso musician and composer, poet and polyglot. His Carnatic music compositions number over five hundred. Some of his erotic songs were so explicit to prudish Victorian ears that they were banned, and are probably lost.

But his work is still alive. His songs are sung, dances are danced, history is memory, and memory is present.