The Autobiography of an Indian Princess

What happens when a woman raised on radical progressive ideals marries into centuries of royal tradition? Sunity Devee was born in Calcutta in 1864 during a storm that her family believed foretold her fate, a dramatic beginning for a life that would span dramatic change. Her father, Keshub Chunder Sen, was the legendary reformer who revolutionized Hindu thought through the Brahmo Samaj movement; her mother embodied the best of Hindu womanhood. Yet even this privileged childhood required difficult choices: the family broke from caste restrictions, sacrificing much for their principles. When Sunity married the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, she entered a world of ancient customs and royal expectations that would test everything her upbringing had taught her. Written in 1921, this is a rare first-person account from an Indian royal woman navigating the collision between reform and tradition, between the progressive ideas of Bengal's intellectual elite and the weight of centuries-old royal duty. It is intimate history, cultural translation, and a woman's reckoning with her own identity, all in the elegant voice of someone who lived at the crossroads of empires.