her, named Machi Sana Melei Khomba in Meitei sacred lores. Her stepmother and her stepsister Chaisra were still jealous of her luck. So, the two planned to kill Sandrembi. They invited her for a dinner in their house. Sandrembi came to her parental house with the permission of the King. After the dinner, Chaisra, according to their plan, dropped Sandrembi's dresses under a bed ("in a hole" in another version of the story). When Sandrembi went under the bed to bring the clothes out, her stepmother poured the hottest water over Sandrembi's body. Poor Sandrembi died and her soul (or corpse in another version of the story) got transformed into a pigeon and flew away. Chaisra, disguising as Sandrembi in the Queen's dress, went to the palace and behaved as if she was the real Sandrembi. The suspected king told her in anger, "You are not my queen whose face is as fair as the lily. You are disfigured." Chaisra answered that she contracted mental and physical agony when she wept for her son. The king noticed Chaisra's long nose, deep eyes and bushy eyelids, which are contrasting to Sandrembi's features. When asked about her sudden ugliness, Chaisra told him that crying and rubbing her eyes all her way due to missed the king make her ugly. In spite of his suspicion, the King wanted suitable opportunity to detect if she was a false queen. Words of the pigeon In the meantime, the pigeon (transformation of Sandrembi after her death) flew into the Royal Garden, perched on a tree branch and addressed to the Royal Gardener ("grass cutter" in another version of the story) concerning the forgetfulness of the King about Queen Sandrembi, animal epidemic in the kingdom, grievances of the Prince and loss of the gardener's own sickle along with a warning for reporting these words to the King. The king, on getting the report, came to the pigeon with grains of paddy in his hands. The King kept the supernatural bird in his palace. Even as a bird, she took away the dirty things from the Prince's eyes. During the King's absence, Chaisra killed the bird and prepared a nice meal from the meat. Upon knowing that the meat was that of the talking pigeon, the king refused to consume it and buried it behind the Royal Kitchen. Fruit lady The remains of the meats and the bones