Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c42.s1.t2.44

v3.c42.s1.t2.44

The alliance with Chitor was again cemented by intermarriage. Suja Bai, sister to Surajmall, was espoused by Rana Ratna, who bestowed his own sister on the Rao. Rao Suja, like his father, was too partial to his *amal*. One day, at Chitor, he had fallen asleep in the Presence, when a Purbia chief felt an irresistible inclination to disturb him, and “tickled the Hara’s ear with a straw.” He might as well have jested with a tiger: a back stroke with his *khanda* stretched the insulter on the carpet. The son of the Purbia treasured up the feud, and waited for revenge, which he effected by making the Rana believe the Rao had other objects in view, besides visiting his sister Suja Bai, at the Rawala. The train thus laid, the slightest incident inflamed it. The fair Suja had prepared a repast, to which she invited both her brother and her husband: she had not only attended the culinary process herself, but waited on these objects of her love to drive the flies from the food. Though the wedded fair of Rajputana clings to the husband, yet she is ever more solicitous for [468] the honour of the house from whence she sprung, than that into which she has been admitted; which feeling has engendered numerous quarrels. Unhappily, Suja remarked, on removing the dishes, that “her brother had devoured his share like a tiger, while her husband had played with his like a child (*balak*).” The expression, added to other insults which he fancied were put upon him, cost the Rao his life, and sent the fair Suja an untimely victim to Indraloka.¹ The dictates of hospitality prevented the Rana from noticing the remark at the moment, and in fact it was more accordant with the general tenor of his character to revenge the affront with greater security than even the isolated situation of the brave Hara afforded him. On the latter taking leave, the Rana invited himself to hunt on the next spring festival in the ramnas or preserves of Bundi. The merry month of Phalgun arrived; the Rana and his court prepared their suits of amaua (green), and ascended the Patar on the road to Bundi, in spite of the anathema of the prophetic Sati, who, as she ascended the pyre at Bumbaoda, pronounced that whenever Rao and Rana met to hunt together at the Aheria, such meeting, which had blasted all her hopes, would always be fatal. But centuries had rolled between the denunciation of the daughter of Alu Hara and Suja Bai of Bundi; and the prophecy, though in every mouth, served merely to amuse the leisure hour; the moral being forgotten it was only looked upon as ‘a tale that was past.’