YANGON: In a modest Yangon apartment, the granddaughter of Myanmar's last king lives poor and unrecognised by her neighbours -- a far cry from the power and riches of her ancestor.
Princess Hteik Su Phaya Gyi said the childhood days when her family had a bevy of servants and retained some of its royal status were now a distant memory.
The British colonial regime dethroned her grandfather, King Thibaw, in 1885 and later the military rulers who led the country for decades, kept the family out of the public eye.
"They didn't want us to be somebody," said the silver-haired princess, swathed in a shimmering purple shawl worn especially for the rare interview.
"I have lived as an ordinary person for 60 years," she told AFP.
"Of course I repent a little over the glorious times that we had when we were young," she said, displaying a lively wit undimmed by her 90 years.
At the demolition of the monarchy by British colonial rulers to the country then called Burma, King Thibaw and his wife, Queen Supayalat, were swiftly deposited in the small Indian seaside town of Ratnagiri.
When Thibaw died in India aged 56 in 1916, after suffering a heart attack, the family eventually fractured.
Some settled in India while others made their lives in Burma, later renamed Myanmar.
"Most of Myanmar has forgotten about the king," said deputy culture minister and royal historian Than Swe, who has spearheaded a campaign to return Thibaw's body to Myanmar.
A visit by President Thein Sein to Thibaw's tomb in Ratnagiri during an official trip to India last December reignited some interest in Myanmar's monarchy.
While the princess is "grateful" that President Thein Sein took the time to visit Ratnagiri, she believes her grandfather should not be moved from his final resting place.
Thibaw was born into a courtly lifestyle within the walls of a gilded teak palace in Mandalay.
"This man was a demi-god in Burma. He was worshiped by his people," said Sudha Shah, author of "The King in Exile: The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma".
Even after British rule and independence, the royal family was held in great esteem, said the author.
When military leaders tried to enlist royal help to counter communist insurgents, they were "taken aback ... by the depth of public sentiment demonstrated for the royal family" as local people thronged to catch a glimpse of the family and women knelt and spread their hair on the ground for the family to walk on, recounts Shah.
The family had a brief period of public activity when princess Hteik Su Phaya Gyi and her siblings set up the "Miss Burma" beauty contest -- she was in charge of catwalk training.
Her eldest brother, Prince Taw Phaya Gyi, also became involved in the Olympics before he was assassinated by insurgents in 1948.
Today, the princess and her younger brother Prince Taw Phaya, are the only surviving grandchildren of the last king, with the 89-year-old prince being a potential heir of the Konbaung dynasty.
The royals, refusing the small allowance offered after the British left, made their own way in the world.
The princess used the impeccable English she picked up as a child studying in a Catholic school in the southern city of Mawlamyine to land positions at both the Australian and US embassies before settling as a teacher -- a job she still holds today.
Several members of the family scraped together the money to travel to India in the early 1990s -- her only visit to her grandparents' home in exile.
She recalled her own mother's stories of the exiled queen standing on a balcony overlooking the sea and weeping for her homeland.
"When I went there, I looked up at that little veranda and the sun was setting. I said 'Oh my grandmother must have felt the same', and I had tears in my eyes."
After a family quarrel in the late 1990s, the princess lost her inherited home and now lives with her daughter, who works at a burial association.
None of her six children, 20 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren show an interest in reviving the royal line.
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