Bengaluru: The Mysore royal family – the Wodeyars – announced the birth of a baby boy in the royal family, hoping to end a 400-year-old curse that the Wodeyars will never have a natural heir to the family.
Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wodeyar and his wife Trishika Kumari welcomed the newest member to the family on Wednesday.
The newborn – born late on Wednesday night in Bengaluru – arrives just over a year after Yaduveer married Trishika in June last year. Yaduveer, in fact, is an adopted son of the previous queen Pramoda Devi, who adopted him two years ago as she and her late husband Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar did not have any children of their own.
The ‘curse’ dates back to 1612, when the Wodeyars took over the reins from the erstwhile rulers and Alemalemma, wife of the outgoing king of Srirangapatna, tried to run away to Talakkad, a small town along the Cauvery, with the royal ornaments that belonged to her and her family.
Cornered by the soldiers of Raja Wodeyar, who had come to retrieve the jewels, she jumped into the river cursing the Wodeyars. She had said: Talakadu Maralagali, Malangi Maduvagali, Wodeyar doreyarige makkalagadirali (May Talakadu be filled with sand and become a barren land/ May Malangi – that stretch of the river – turn into a whirlpool/ may the Wodeyars never have children).
The legend is very much alive even in this day and age, with successive kings adopting their nephews or cousins to take over the throne over generations.
Interestingly, the Wodeyars have, over generations, tried to appease Alamelamma over the years, trying to reverse the curse. A repentant Raja Wodeyar even put up an idol of Alamelamma in Mysore, while Srikantadatta Wodeyar offered special ‘poojas’ just a few years ago in Talakkad.
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