Image and Text contributed by Jonathan Charles Cracknell, London, UK
Just as India was heading towards Independence in 1947, people were celebrating the End of the World War II and this picture was photographed at New years Eve in the real capital of British India, Calcutta (West Bengal). My maternal grandfather, Peter sits here with a fez on his head, and next to him is my grandmother Anna. She was of mixed heritage – of Kashmiri and German Jewish descent. Sitting next to her is my mother and her then boyfriend, a British soldier, on leave from his posting in Malaya (now Malaysia). It was earlier in the same year that the British Military Administration in Malaya had been replaced by its own, the Malayan union.
The hotel, then known as the Great Eastern Hotel where this image was taken is now called the Lalit Great Eastern Hotel. An extremely popular place, the colonial era hotel was originally established as a confectionary shop and then grew into a grand and plush hotel in the early 1840s, a time when Calcutta was the top seat of the East India Company. The hotel had a 100 rooms, and claimed to be second oldest of the British Empire and India’s first luxury hotel. It was also well known for its extravagant and delicious french cuisine, and served snacks and a whisky peg or two, similar to a drive-by service, to horse drawn carriages. Referred to as “the Jewel of the East” and the “Savoy of the East” in its heyday, Great Eastern Hotel hosted several notable persons visiting the city including Queen Elizabeth II, the well known author Mark Twain & musician Dave Brubeck. The hotel’s repute and value declined later during the Naxalite Era of West bengal and was only recently reopened, now as a heritage property, by its new owners in 2013.
My mother’s father was worked with the Railways in Lahore (now in Pakistan) to which they would return to face the horrors of Indo/Pak Partition. But for the time being that seemed a long way off. This was the “New” India everyone was celebrating, not the Victorian dream of the memsahibs. A new comprehension and understanding of Indian culture and the world was in the making, and this time it was to be without the tired old prejudices of yesteryear. It was time of great optimism and home and even back home in the UK people imagined a new world of equality, which would be reflected in the British election soon to come, when Winston Churchill was defeated by a Labour majority.
My father Aubrey Cracknell, too was brought up in Lahore. His father Charles Edwin Cracknell was a soldier in the British Army. After the Boer War ended in the early 20th century, he was shipped out to the Indian subcontinent, to Rawalpindi (now Pakistan) on the North West Frontier. It was here that Charles, my grandfather, met and married my grandmother, several years younger to him, and they had a son, Aubrey, my father, in the Cantonments.
When my father was only eight years old, Charles, my grandfather was wounded on a train from Peshawar, the city of the Frontier (Pak-Afghan Border) to Jalalabad (eastern Afghanistan). Hit by an Afghan sniper and wounded in the lung, he was hospitalised in Rawalpindi but died of pneumonia and other complications. He is now buried in the British cemetery in Rawalpindi which lies neglected and all the graves have fallen to ruin. My Grandmother left the cantonments and moved to Lahore where my father grew up.
Image and Text contributed by Soni Dave, Delhi
This picture was taken on December 26, 1939, the day my parents got married. I’m not sure of the location. It could be the Mainpuri District of Lucknow because I think my maternal grandfather was posted there at the time.
My father, Gurdial Singh Berar, an ace graduate of the College of Engineering Roorkee, stands here tough and tall with the talwaar (sword) in his hand, but he never even raised his voice in anger. And my mother Rajkumari may look meek and coy, whereas everyone knew her to be a very strong woman. I think they must have been in their early twenties. Together they made a perfect couple and it was one of the best marriages I have ever seen. I have been very lucky that I got to call them mummy and daddy, leading me to believe that it is not just some marriages that are made in heaven, but also parent and child relationships.
My father was a very attentive and loving father. He was well read, extremely self disciplined, a man of honor and respected punctuality of time. He was a self taught nutritionist and along with my mother, who would ensure it was cooked well, we always had nutritious food at the table. I remember he loved children and would take all the children of the family and me to the pool and teach us how to swim. Other kids at the pool would come to him too wanting to be taught. He was also a very hard working man, and I remember his last job before his health started failing was manufacturing furniture for the Asiad Games Village athlete homes.
My mother was one of the most efficient women I have ever known. In fact she was so efficient that she was nicknamed ‘intezaman‘ the organizer of the family. She excelled at embroidery, stitching, cooking, and was an excellent home-maker. I remember, she was also very quick tempered. My father used to joke with her that when angry she must count to ten before saying anything – to which she would say that counting until two was the most she could do.
They both loved me a lot. A lot.
My parents you see in this picture were not my biological parents. I was adopted by them as an infant, from my mother’s younger sister, my natural mother – whom I learnt to call auntie.
Auntie had come to her maternal home in Daryaganj, Delhi from their farm near Nainital (now in Uttarakhand)- where I was born on February 10, 1959. I had two older sisters. My biological father, Harpal Singh, whom I later called uncle, worked in the merchant navy and was sailing at the time.
My mother and father, twenty years into their marriage had had no children and so on the suggestion of my maternal grandmother, and a deep understanding between the two sisters, I exchanged hands. When auntie returned with my two older sisters, I stayed back with my new parents, my mother Rajkumari and my father Gurdial. I called them mummy & daddy.
I was loved like one can only imagine. But no one in the family ever mentioned my adoption. No one ever told me my own story and over the years I have had to piece it together all on my own.
I remember when I was about eight or nine years old, an old lady neighbour blurted it out. After some days I confided in my cousin (my real sister) who confirmed that it was indeed true. However, no grown up ever spoke to me about it and I had to try to make sense of it myself. It left me with deep insecurities and lack of confidence. Being the plainest of all the cousins in the family only worsened everything and chipped away further at my confidence.
I went to one of the best schools in Delhi – the Convent of Jesus and Mary, but I was never good at academics, and so when I turned 16 and didn’t make it through Senior Cambridge, I was required to take the exam again before the schools phased it out to be replaced by the new Plus 2 systems. One of the schools still with the Senior Cambridge system was was in Nainital and so my parents sent me there to prepare for and appear for my exams. My biological mother and I got to play mother and daughter for a whole year.
However, our biological relationship remained unaddressed, until one day, amidst tears we spoke of it. I remember thinking that I looked like her, I was like her in many ways. Our personalities were similar and I completely understood why she did what she did. I loved her with my heart and bore no grudges and I knew she loved me too. I was glad that we had talked but it didn’t necessarily resolve my insecurities.
Back at home in Delhi, we would visit my father’s (Gurdial) side of the family once a year, during my holidays. There too I was a stranger to my cousins who were very close to each other and met very often. But I never felt included and it led to more confusion and feelings of abandonment, which no matter how much my parents loved me, the sense of exclusions left me wanting.
As an adult, I found a great life partner, we had two beautiful children and have been very lucky to have wonderful life together. I also discovered that I may not be have been good at academics but I was good at the creative arts. In early 2014, with a desire to find some more resolve and belonging in my life, I decided to travel to the United States and meet old school mates as well as my fathers family. They were cousins who I would be meeting after almost 40 years. All older and grayer, but this time with no hesitations of acceptance, they opened their doors and hearts with nothing but warmth.
When I came back and was cleaning up some cupboards, this photograph appeared, sitting there in an old box of photographs. My mother and fathers wedding day – and I decided to engage with it and think about our lives – this time for longer. Then I picked up a paint brush and made a water-colour of this photograph (image), my first ever – tracing their presence and love again, because I know now that I belonged to them and they to me. They were the best match made for each other and me, in heaven.
Image and Text contributed by Fawzan Husain, Mumbai
This picture was taken at my grandfather’s home, on the occasion of my aunt Zainab’s pre wedding ceremony. She was about to be married to a fireworks merchant. Zehra, was my mother Rubab and Zenab’s half sister.
My maternal grandfather Abdul Husain Motiwala, a Pearl Merchant, belonged to the Bohra Shia Community in Saurashtra (now Gujarat State). At the time, during the early 20th century, Saurasthra’s coast line had been a rich hub for pearl hunting, and trade was in the community’s blood. The word Bohra itself comes from the Gujarati word vehru (“trade”). As most merchants and families began to adopt and attach last names after the products they traded in, my grandfather’s name Motiwala too, literally translates as “Pearl Man”.
As a teenager, he decided to go to Bombay with Rs. 5 in hand, and landed up at the shop that dealt with pearls, for a job. Soon he grew in stature and bought the same establishment that he worked for. He turned the business around, made it hugely profitable and became one of the top businessmen of the community.
My grandfather was a liberal man and was inclined towards reformism. After the death of his first wife at a rather young age, and a young son to care for, he decided to marry Fatema, a young widow and mother to a daughter Zehra, from her own previous marriage. The Bohra community was hugely upset and wondered aloud as to ‘why this very rich and eligible man needed to marry a widow with a child, when there were so many other eligible proposals from the community.’
My grandfather Abdul Husain and Fatema, my grandmother, had three children together. With three daughters and two sons, it became a family of seven. Zehra and Zainab for some reason never got educated, while my mother and her brother studied up to 10th grade college. All the sisters got along very well. Two of whom were so close, that later while my father could afford a bigger house in Bombay, my mother insisted instead that we live next to my aunt Zenab’s house in a chawl (inexpensive community housing) near Bombay Central.
My grandfather Abdul Husain Motiwala was the first man in our community to own an American Kaiser car. He was so well respected that he was given the title of “Patel”. A surname that was used primarily by Hindus whose ancestors were traditionally landlords and owners, I suppose it had come to mean “Respected man”. People would shout from the streets as his car passed by- “Patel Saheb’s car has come!”
While Abdul Husain was one of the best businessmen around, he was keenly aware of his own hardworking background. He had great respect for the dignity of labour and had no sense of class discrimination. He, for instance did not go easy on his own son Kamruddin, and ensured that he worked very hard to earn his keep. Another instance was, when a proposal for Zehra came from a man in the community who had walked away from his own family business. With problems at home, he had decided to begin life on his own terms and became a taxi driver. My grandfather agreed to the proposal, perhaps because he knew his to be son-in-law to be a dignified & hardworking man. He helped him out with good advise and offered him loans to build a fleet of taxis in Bombay. The advise was taken but the money wasn’t, proving my grandfather right.
My mother Rubab or as she was fondly called Ruby, was the youngest and the most adored. So much so, that she like many of the youngest members in families enjoyed several liberties. Being exceptionally intrigued with photography, she would dress up in different attires & accessories and get herself photographed regularly by a photographer called Ahmed Zardi in the near-by photo studio called Dayzars.
My father Ahmed, a photographer, and my mother Ruby, the photographed, fell in love over pictures, and my grandfather accepted the relationship with great ease. My father became a regular visitor at my mother’s home and would take our family pictures ever so often, even before they got married. It was the first love marriage in our family.
Dayzars was a Photography studio in Bombay Central and was named after its two partners – Dayabhai from Rajasthan and my father Ahmed Zardi. They worked together for 32 years. As far as I know, it was uncommon for a Hindu and a Muslim to have such a great and long partnership. But when Dayabhai’s eyes began to fail him, he decided to leave Bombay and return home. My father and Dayabhai’s son tried to work together but a generational gap of ideas led him to relieve himself of the business and Studio Dayzars was sold. I was an only child and would frequent my father’s studio. I learnt how to handle cameras, developed film and made prints. The magic of the dark room was an incredible experience. However, I was absolutely not interested in studio photography and so I studied journalism and became an editorial photographer.
Text and Image contributed by Chris Longrigg, UK
My father J.H Longrigg (seated in Black) was brought up in North London and was a graduate of Cambridge University.
During the British reign and with high popularity, demand and pay for British officers in India he decided to join the Indian Forest Service in 1912. In 1924, while vacationing in Switzerland on a skiing holiday he met my mother, they fell in love and got married quite quickly. Like many other officers, my father too wrote some of his experiences down. In one of the notes written in 1921 my father recounts going for rounds in the Mudumalai Forest (Nilgiri Wyannad), and encountering an Indian Black Panther who escaped after grabbing a piglet as prey and climbing the tree with it. According to his notes, climbing the tree was normal, but with prey, was something he had not seen or heard of before.
In 1937, my father become the Principal of the Madras Forestry College in Coimbatore. This photograph was taken at the time when the college was closed for the duration of the World War II, between 1939-1945. The little boy standing in the photo is me and I was about three years old at the time. While my father worked in Coimbatore that was relatively hotter and dustier, in the plains, my siblings and I was more or less brought up in Ooty which had better climate with schools & clubs and it was only a few hours away. My mother spent her time playing tennis, attending parties, looking after us children and she also helped in running the forest academy hostel. The college was renamed to South Forest Rangers’ College and then again to Tamil Nadu Forest Academy.
My father served the college as Principal from 1937-1939 as the eighth and the last European Principal of the college. He was succeeded by C.R. Ranganathan, the first Indian Principal of the college. After World War II ended, in 1945, my father was sent to Germany to advise on Forestry matters, and then he retired at the age of 55.
When my family and I left India, I was about eight years old and my father had by then served in India as an officer and educator for more than 30 years. I remember my brother, sister and I, spending our time playing around the Campus and one of my vivid memories is rolling a car tyre down hill in the Botanical gardens. In 2009, my sister and I returned to revisit our old haunts and we were so warmed to receive a very big welcome from the College who still remembered my father and my family.
Image and Text contributed by Deesh Khanna, Gurgaon
I remember when I would visit Delhi from Simla, the Qutub Minar was the place where my husband and I used to meet even before marriage, with family approval, of course. There were several couples and families who would come to the Qutub, meet, hang around, picnic, play and talk. It was and still is, indeed a beautiful monument of India.
I am not sure who took this picture though. It had been only a few months since my marriage in June, because we had begun wearing sweaters. I was wearing a Ferozi (Fuschia blue) Salwar Kurta with the latest cut, with a wonderful complicated hairstyle. Now my hair has thinned so much, but at that time, indulging our hair with beautiful complicated Hairstyles was a huge hobby and personal challenge every morning. I could style my hair in ways you can’t even imagine.
Every weekend, my ‘Rodu” as I fondly called him, and I would take the Tanga (horse carriage) from Daryaganj (old Delhi) and go and see places. Rodu was very fond of showing me new places, and if not places then it was the movies. We loved watching movies at Golcha Cinema. The matinee shows were old movies, and evenings were new ones. In Daryagunj, we lived in one of the several apartments in Madras House.
Both my husband’s family and mine, had come to live in Simla, Himachal Pradesh after Indo-Pak Partition. The families had originally lived in Lahore (now Pakistan). And we girls had studied in Kinnaird College in Lahore and then later at the Church College in Simla. The girls from Kinnaird College were very popular for being feisty, smart and opinionated. In Simla, I used to participate many drama and theatre Groups, all the time playing roles as a man, and the one time I got to play a woman, it was the role of a nurse.
My family were also huge supporters of the Congress, and we cousins and sisters enrolled ourselves to be Congress workers and worked very hard campaigning and collecting donations for Jawahar Lal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. One of those times, we were also asked by the Congress workers to wear Burqas, pretend to be Muslim women and vote on their behalf. We were almost caught when one of my cousins tripped over on a stone and in pain exclaimed “Hai Ram! (Oh Lord Rama – the Hindu God)”. We ran and gave the booth care-takers quite a chase. I laugh when I think about that, but you know, at that time no one thought what was right or wrong, we just did what we were told, and as far as we were concerned it was for a good cause. Anyhow, those requests never came again.
My husband was one of the most well known portrait photographers of Simla and then later Delhi. He had studied Chemistry in Bombay but then he went back to Lahore and worked as a darkroom assistant in a ‘S.Rollo’ Studio. After Partition he got a job with a Kinsey Photo Studio in Simla and worked under a German photographer there. He learnt a lot from him. Their job entailed developing other people’s work as well as photographing people and important delegates and leaders who visited Simla and then later Delhi.
Everyone in my friend’s circle except I knew that Rodu was interested in me and rumours were abound. So when I got wind of that, very upset I confronted him about it on Mall Road. His unexpected response was “Would it be so bad if we were to be together?” I was stunned and I confess I may have begun to like the idea right then.
Later Rodu moved to Delhi to work with the Kinsey Studio, (a branch of the one in Simla) a very popular Photo Studio in Connaught Place and when he sent a marriage proposal, my entire family was delighted, because all this while my mother had used my future husband as a sound board and advisor on my other prospects, and he would sheepishly give her feedback, all the while suppressing his own feelings for me. But nonetheless, when he finally let my family know of his intentions, everyone was happy and we got married six months later.
When we moved to Delhi he continued working with the Kinsey Studio, later he joined the USIS in Delhi (United States Information Services) as a photographer and photographed several of their events, delegates and leaders. At home we converted a small bathroom in the backyard into a darkroom and Rodu and I would develop the negatives that he had photographed. I also continued working as a volunteer for Congress and campaigned for Indira Gandhi.
In Delhi, I remember meeting Amrita Pritam, the acclaimed author and writer, often on the bus. Our families were acquaintances since Lahore. She remembered me from my theatre days and insisted that I did not give it up. But by now I had had three children, and big family responsibilities and so I decided not to do so. We were good and we were happy. In 1980, Rodu decided to work on a contract basis with USIS, and one of those assignments in 1983 he flew on a special plane with the then Secretary of State (USA) to Agra. Upon return, he gave up his seat for another delegate, and took the car instead. My beloved Rodu passed away that day in a car crash on the Agra-Delhi highway. Our lives went through a very dark time, but at the least I know that we really loved and respected each other and we were the best of friends one could ever ask for. We had made each other very happy.
Today my daughters Meenu and Amu, and grandchildren are happy and well. My son Dinesh, is now one of the best known photographers of India. A passion and profession for long he resisted, until one day, years after my husband’s death, he too could not resist the call of the Photograph. I wish Rodu could see his children now. He would be so proud.
Image & Text contributed by Jason Scott Tilly, United Kingdom
I will never be sure if my grandfather Bert Scott, would have wanted me or anyone else to find these negatives;
They were his secrets for all of his adult life. He had after all kept them very safe, hidden from the moment he left India.
Bert Scott, (lower right) was my grandfather, and he was born in Bangalore in 1915. He was educated at Bishop Cottons school and he joined the Times of India in 1936 as a press photographer, where he worked until the outbreak of World War II.
With trouble brewing during Indo-Pak Partition, he and his family fled and he left his whole life behind; his country of birth, India, his friends and home. Travelling with minimum luggage would have been conditional so he chose to take only the necessary in just a few metal trunks.
Inside one of those trunks were several photo albums and pocket-sized blue negative holders that I came across many years later in my grandparent’s cupboard in 2006, a few years after Bert, my grandfather passed away. The little blue pocket-books held as many memories as it did negatives, about 100 precious moments of reflected light captured on film of our family and of some places where they had lived, but inside one particular folded grease proof sleeve were four negatives that were cut up into single frames and they were of one particular young lady; of a Margurite Mumford, a beautiful young Anglo Indian girl.
I remember one Sunday when he was alive, sitting with his photograph albums on my lap, my grandmother looked at me and stated, in a tone which sounded somewhat incongrously jealous for a woman in her late seventies, “those books are just full of photographs of his ex-girlfriends!”. My grandpa who was sitting across us, either didn’t hear the remark or chose to ignore it – the Snooker on television providing a timely distraction.
After he passed away, I found an extraordinary number of photographs of Margurite. The photographs of her are always infused with a certain playfulness during day trips to the beach or picnics by the river. There is something so obviously personal and intimate about the images. Margurite clearly loved to play to the camera or to be more precise she loved playing up for the photographer, flirting with both the camera and the man whose eye followed her through the lens. The books did have many photographs of other beautiful young women of the Raj too, but the intimacy I saw in Margurite’s images proved to me that only she was actually a girlfriend of my grandpa before he met my grandmother.
As time wore on, I became more intrigued as to whom Margurite really was. I wondered why their romance had ended. I spent hours scouring the internet in the faint hope that I might be able to find someone from her family with whom I could share her beautiful photographs. With not a clue in sight, eventually my hope began to wane but I never stopped wondering about her.
Only recently while pouring over the pages of the albums for the nth time, I noticed a faded scribble “Margurite ‘Lovedale’” by a photograph. Intrigued as to what the word ‘Lovedale’ meant I returned once again to the internet and within seconds I was on to something. Lovedale is the nickname of the Lawrence Memorial Military School in the town of ‘Ooty’ in the Niligiri Hills. My great-grandfather, Algernon Edwin Scott, had a summer-house in Ooty and my grandpa would spend weekends with him whilst he was studying at St Josephs College in Kannur. Ooty would have been the place where he must have met Margurite!
Perhaps, college sweethearts; They kept their relationship going from their first meeting in the south Indian Hills of the Deccan Plateau to the humid coastal city of Bombay where my grandpa had begun working for the Times of India. I know from the amount of photographs that I have found, that the couple took days out to Juhu beach and the Hanging Gardens on Malabar hill along with trips out to the Ghats outside of Bombay. What was most obvious is how much Margurite meant to my grandpa because he kept the negatives separate from all of the others that he had saved. The memories held on film, of Margurite seem different to the rest, they seem more personal, more intimate.
I immediately contacted the school in Ooty. They in turn put me in touch with ex-pupils who although now in their late eighties and nineties were still in touch with one another. My search led me to a woman in America, Moira who very kindly informed me that she was still in touch with one of Margurite’s sisters, Gladys, who also lived in America. I was soon sharing these images with Gladys and she remembered my grandpa very well. She let me know that Margurite was still alive and living in New Zealand, but she was now ninety-six years of age and living in an old people’s home. Her memory had dimmed, but she was physically quite well. I was then put in touch with Alecia, Margurite’s daughter and I began sending them pictures of the young Margurite – images I presume they had never even imagined existed.
In my eagerness and excitement at re-uniting people with a ‘more than half -a-century-ago’ memory, I also sent a photograph of my grandpa. I was told Margurite’s poignantly hopeful reaction was simply, “Is Bertie here?”. My grandpa was indeed the love of her life. But her family had to leave India during Partition, she had then married an Irishman and moved to New Zealand.
It had been obvious to me all along, by the very nature of the photographs, that they were in love, that they both meant an awful lot to each other. Proof, if it were needed, of the indelible nature of first love.
Image and Text contributed by Adit Dave, Delhi
In 1975 my family and I moved to Delhi from Assam. After college I began working with the Government of India in various departments of administration. I called myself a Sarkari Naukar, a government Servant, because it really did feel like that. However, I had a passion for Motor Bikes and Rock Music, and it always made everything better.
This image was taken in the spring of 1982, and as I call it, also the spring of our lives. I had met my girlfriend Soni just a few months ago, at a New Year’s party; she was introduced to me by her sister. She used to work with a well known home accessories store called, The Shop at Connaught place, near Regal Cinema in Delhi.
I remember this day clearly. Delhi weather in spring was just wonderful and it was also great for a motorcycle ride into the wilderness. I had donned my usual old hand-me-down army great coat, pulled on my helmet and tooled on over on my trusty Royal Enfield bike (a third hand purchase for Rs. 3000) to pick up my new girlfriend Soni for a short adventure outside the city.
The air was cold and crisp, and with good friends along on the ride we were the right ingredients for a joyous time ahead. We headed out onto the Faridabad Highway. without a plan, and soon found ourselves riding a narrow dirt road to Surajkund. The “Kund” or lake, existed then and I think we even went for a boat ride.
Simple pleasures like Paranthas and Andaa bhurji at a dhaba (road side restaurant) were what we at the time used to really looked forward to, and finally, like good boys and girls we were home before dark. I think it was on the way back that we saw the little puppy on the road and wanted to take it home. But as the ride back got uncomfortable with a very nervous and restless pup, we had no choice but to leave it behind. When Soni and I got married, dogs became a part of our lives and we have never been without them.
In my life I took many risks and achieved many things, including taking on a franchise for Bhutan Board (furniture products) and became one of their foremost dealers in Delhi. I also fulfilled a life long dream and organised a music festival called the Naukuchiyatal Lake Side Jam near Nainital. Later in my life, my passion for motorbikes only increased and I would participate in all conversations and plans about Rallys and adventure sports. I indulged all my passions and even own two motorbikes – an Enfield with a side car, and a BMW GS 1200.
I also began to help in organizing motor sports and expeditions events across the country and South Asian territories like Desert Storm. Soni and I also ran a very popular home accessories shop called the EM 1 Hauz Khas, right below our lovely home in Delhi. Passionate about pottery, Soni trained herself to become a full time potter. She was also my biggest support when I was diagnosed with Cancer. And I can gladly say I survived it because of her love and constant infusion for zest for life. A trait we have always had in common.
It’s been 31 blessed years, loving dogs, and two amazing children since that first bike ride with Soni. She and I are still on a wonderful road together.
Image and Text contributed by Renu Shukla, Jaipur
This picture is of mom Usha Sharma and my Dad Jagdishwar Nath Sharma right after their marriage ceremony on December 12, 1954. My mother at the time was only 15 years old & my father was 23. He was the Assistant Commissioner with the Income Tax Department in Jaipur, Rajasthan and my mother was studying in 10th Standard. She completed her education after marriage.
My mother Usha was exceptionally fond of movies and so was my father. He was studying Law (LLB) in Agra at the time and on a serendipitous day decided to visit his hometown, Ajmer, Rajasthan, for holidays along with some of his friends. Young blooded, the friends and he spontaneously made a detour to Delhi for a fun day & also to watch a movie.
Describing that fated day, my mother would tell us, that she too, along with her cousins, had landed up to watch the same movie and she noticed ‘this strange boy in the front seat who would keep turning around to stare at her continuously!’ She was into the movie, yet was beginning to get more and more annoyed with this shameless fellow whose stares were distracting her. So much so, that ultimately and in a huff the girls left the theatre half way through the movie, cursing the boy away. What she did not know, was that the boys too left and followed the girls discreetly to my mother’s residence, which was right behind Moti Mahal theatre in Chandani Chowk.
The enterprising boys then found out all her family details and a few days later, my father’s family sent in a marriage proposal to my mom. Fortunately, there was no hitch in the proposal because both families were Brahmins and economically secure. We, consequentially were blessed by having very loving Parents. They doted on each other for the rest of their lives.
Years later, and after their passing away, I still think of that particular day, when fate and the movie ‘Barsaat’ brought my parents together. I miss them terribly. They were simply the best and most fine parents a child could ask for.
Image and Text contributed by Anupam Mukerji
This picture was photographed on March 9, 1970 on the occasion of my maternal grandparents Kali Pada and Sukriti Chakrabertti’s 25th marriage anniversary (seated middle), at their home, 63, PG Hossain Shah Road, Jadavpur, Calcutta (now Kolkata). Here, they are with their daughters Sarbari, Bansari and Kajori, their son Sovan, and several nephews and nieces.
After graduating from school with a gold medal in East Bengal‘s Dhaka Bickrampore Bhagyakul district, the young teenager, Kali Pada Chakraberti moved to Calcutta. He began working while continuing his education in an evening college. The office he worked at was also his shelter for the night. Desperate for money to pay his college examination fees, he went to a pawn-shop in Calcutta’s Bow Bazaar to sell his gold medal.
The pawn broker at the shop however was a gentle and generous elderly man. He lent my grandfather the money without mortgaging the gold medal. Years later when my grandfather went back to the shop to return the money, he found that his benefactor had passed away and his son refused to accept the money stating he couldn’t, because his father had left no records of that loan. My grandfather then established a Trust with that money to help underprivileged students with their education.
Bhai, as all his grandchildren fondly called him, graduated from college with distinction and built a successful career in the field of Insurance. He rose to a senior position in a public sector insurance company. He also bought a plot of land in Jadavpur and built the house of his dreams where this photograph was taken. Post partition of Bengal, many of his family members moved to Calcutta and everyone found food on the table and a roof over their heads at his house. Over time, many of them moved out and made their own homes, but 63 PGHS remained the place where everyone congregated for festivals and special occasions.
Sukriti Chakrabertti, my grandmother, was fondly known as Hashu Di. She was raised in Shanti Niketan and learnt Arts & Dance under the guidance of Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore and Nandlal Bose. She was part of the first batch of students of Shanti Niketan’s Kala Bhavan and went on to make a name for herself in various classical dance forms.
In love with each other till their last day, they passed away in 2000 and 2001, within three months of each other.
Image and text contributed by Nazni Naqvi, Mumbai
My name is Nazni Naqvi. This picture of me and my husband Syed Imam Hadi Naqvi was taken on 11thOctober, 1958, five days after our wedding day. It was taken on the terrace of my parents’ home, Sultan Palace in Patna (now the pink painted State Transport Bhawan) by my brother, Syed Quamarul Hasan. An avid photographer, he took this photo as part of a series with his Roliflex Camera.
I came from a family with part royal lineage of Nawabs – My paternal grandfather had established the Patna University and was knighted by the British for his contribution to education. He was thereafter known as Sir Sultan Ahmed, and my grandmother as Lady Sultan Ahmed, customarily called ‘Lady Saheb’.
In 1954, a Maulana recommended Hadi to my father as a prospective son-in-law. I was 16 years old then and the only daughter in seven sons. I had other considerations for a husband- some cousins (sanctioned under Islamic law) and some other men with royal lineage. Marrying cousins was out of the question, and marrying into a royal family was not a very appealing idea even though my mother belonged to one. Photographs were exchanged and once I saw Hadi’s picture, I was in love. My father however wasn’t sure because the only thing that concerned him was Hadi had to be taller than me.
My father then travelled to London for health reasons and also met Hadi. They began to meet often and became well acquainted. To his relief Hadi turned out to be an inch taller than me, I was 5ft 3, he was 5ft 4. Everyone was happy, the families met and we were declared Engaged. Through the process of the engagement until our marriage, a 4-year gap, we never met or communicated with each other. Although I did sneak a peek from behind the curtains when he was visiting.
At the time of my engagement, at age 16, I was studying in class 9th I think. This might seem strange now but as a generation many of us didn’t have school for almost 2 years, because most educational institutions were closed due to partition issues. But in those days, loss of time in the arena of education wasn’t a big deal, especially for women. Nonetheless, I did complete my matriculation from a private school.
Three years since the Engagement and the Nikah, Hadi returned from London in 1957. Our marriage was fixed for October 1, 1958. That the dates changed is because of an interesting incident. The train that was supposed to bring the groom and his family to Patna never arrived on the date. It was pouring rain so hard in Amroha that the connection bridge from Amroha to Moradabad broke and they had to stop at Moradabad. At the time there were no mobiles, the few telephones that were around too were dead. So we had no clue where anyone was and it seemed the entire groom’s family had vanished!
Zakir Hussain, who was then Governor of Bihar and a family friend came to Hadi’s aid and with the help of the Telephone Exchange enabled a phone call to Patna two days later, informing us of what had happened. Hadi and his family finally did arrive, though four days later.
Image and text contributed by Alisha Sadikot, Mumbai
This picture of my grandparents was taken on a trip to Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. A route known to tourists as the The Golden Triangle. My grandparents, Rukaya and Sultan Dossal were married in 1949 in the city of Bombay. They had met a few years earlier, when my grandmother Rukaya compelled him to buy a theatre ticket she had volunteered to sell, unaware that this expense of Rs. 10 was one he could then ill afford. The story of their early courtship is one of my favourites. Here it is, recorded in her own words in a memoir she wrote for her grandchildren, 60 odd years later:
‘Needless to say that I was quite struck by Sultan and I remember coming home and telling Saleha (sister) that I had met a very handsome man, but most probably he must be married. I was greatly relieved sometime later when I learnt that he wasn’t. I suppose, Sultan must have been duly impressed as well because he made every attempt to see me. As he told me later, he would leave his office at Flora Fountain at a particular time to catch me walking down from Elphinstone College towards Churchgate Station and to me it seemed that it was just a happy chance. We would then have coffee at Coffee House.
I avoided going to movies with him but one day when we met by chance in a bus and he was getting down at the next stop, I told him I’d like to go to the movies with him and we decided on meeting at Metro the next day to see “Arsenic and Old Lace”. On coming home I was stunned to be told be told by Baba (father) that we would be going to Kihim the next day. I tried to make all excuses to be left behind but Baba would not hear of it, so I could not keep my appointment with Sultan and there was no way of my letting him know. Naturally, he must have thought the worst of me, and naturally I was miserable on this first trip to Kihim. Fortunately, my connection with Sultan as also with Kihim did not end there. In fact, it is in Kihim just now that I am writing this….’
At the very end of her story, when asked to note the most exciting part of her life, she wrote ‘the most exciting thing that happened to me was coming across Sultan’.
Image and Text contributed by John Reese-Osbourne, Australia
I first learned of the Indian Memory Project from an article in ‘The Australian’ of May 2011 (a News Ltd daily newspaper). After visiting the website, it occurred to me that others searching the pages might be interested in a brief glimpse of Indian Army life from the viewpoint of a British officer and his family in 1945-46. It may shed a personal light on that brief moment in time just before the watershed of Independence and the bloody shambles the politicians made of partition.
This images is of my parents taken on 23rd April 1946, and it show them at the top of the Kohat Pass, near Tribal Territory. My mother is wearing a revolver!. On the back of some of these photographs, she has captioned them as ‘the gateway to 30 miles of tribal territory’.
My father Ronald Osborne was born in Wales in 1910 and worked as sales manager in London for Geo. Wimpey & Co., then a large builder of houses. He volunteered for the British Army in 1939 just before universal conscription was introduced. He served initially with the Royal Engineers and fought in the abortive Norway campaign before undergoing commando training and going on the far more successful Lofoten Islands raid to destroy an oil refinery held by the German forces. Selected for officer training, he found that the pay in the Indian Army was higher than in the British forces and chose to be commissioned into the Royal Indian Army Service Corps, serving in the North African and Italian campaigns, where he rose to the rank of major, until the Indian Army was repatriated.
My mother Beryl (née Beardsley) was also born in 1910 and grew up in Derbyshire. She moved to London as a young woman where she met and married my father. I was born in 1934. When my father joined the army, we went to live with her parents in Kingston-upon-Thames, where they owned two shops. At some point in 1940 a stray German bomb destroyed the shops and my mother, grandmother and I moved to stay with relations in Derbyshire before settling in a small village called Kirk Hallam. My grandfather stayed in Kingston, continuing to run his shops from two garages.
Understandably impatient after five years of wartime separation, my mother joined the Women’s Indian Voluntary Service (WIVS) as a means of getting out to India. By coincidence, she and my father were on separate ships passing through the Suez Canal at the same time (I think in September 1945). They met briefly when their ships docked in Bombay, before travelling to their respective postings. Initially she worked in the WIVS headquarters in New Delhi, organising the postings of other British volunteers as they arrived. Seeing little point in staying in New Delhi while my father was stationed in Jalandhar, she surreptitiously posted herself there! At some time in 1946, my father’s unit was transferred to Kohat.
In 1945, I was 11 years old, attending a boarding school in Leicester in the UK Midlands and spending school holidays with my maternal grandparents in Kingston-upon-Thames or with my father’s brother’s family in Porthcawl, South Wales. Sadly I no longer have any of the letters from my parents, so the story of their time in Jalandhar and Kohat is based solely on my memory and the scribbled captions on the backs of old, fading black-and-white photographs in the album I began to compile that year.
Image and Text contribution by Anusha Yadav, Mumbai
This is a collective image of my mother and her sisters, photographed holding their degrees with pride, between 1961-1971, as it was the custom at the time for women to be photographed to prove that they were educated. Some of these images were also then used as matrimonial pictures. All the sisters (Left to right) Kusum, Madhavi, Suman, Aruna, Shalini and Nalini were born between 1935 – 1946 and brought up in Raja Mandi, Agra in Uttar Pradesh. There were also four brothers, the eldest of which is Rajendra Yadav, one of the foremost Hindi writers of the country. My grandfather Mishri Lal, was a very well respected Doctor, with a signature white horse which he rode when out on rounds, and my grandmother, Tara, his second wife hailed from Maharashtra with a royal lineage.
My eldest aunt Kusum (left most), passed away in 1967 under mysterious circumstances, some say it was suicide and some that it was food poisoning, and my youngest aunt Nalini, found courage to elope from home to marry, her neighbor in old Delhi, the love of her life at the time, a Punjabi gentleman. A move which was considered extremely scandalous for an highly respected intellectual but a conservative Yadav family. The rest led quieter lives, doing what was prescribed at the time for ‘good’ Indian women to do.
Quite amazingly all sisters were highly educated, triple degree holders, in Bachelors, Masters and Commercial Diplomas in Science, History, Economics, Dance, Arts, Painting and Teaching and each one was formally trained in Tailoring, Embroidery, Shooting, First Aid, Swimming, Horse-riding, Music, Dance, Crafts and Cooking in Delhi, Kota, Mathura and Agra. It still baffles me that, not one sought pro-actively to form careers of their own, and my aunt Madhavi (middle, top) says it was due to the protective brothers, who didn’t think it was appropriate for single women to work before marriage.
Only Aruna Masi (left bottom) and my mother Shalini did continue to work after their marriages. Aruna, with a Masters in History, moved to Oregon, USA after her marriage and still works (out of choice) as a Chartered Accountant and my mother is now retired, but only worked because she had to, after the death of my father.
All sisters still get along, well, more or less, however as all conservative families go, when ambitions in women lie unfulfilled, it channelizes that frustration in different aspects of their lives for years to come, with consequences that are both good and bad. Marriage did offer them security, but the desire to do something with their lives aside from being great home-makers still causes angst.
Having said that, as kids, my sisters, my cousins and I learnt a lot, from each and every one of these women. They were all feisty, fiercely talented and ensured that we received at least some of their knowledge from the time we could walk. We were encouraged to read, Hindi Literature and English, we were trained in classical and folk music & dances, embroidery, painting and cooking – first at home and then some of us were sent to schools to further that knowledge, even if it were private lessons. I do realise, that cultural knowledge like that is now hard to come by, and our own children by virtue of being 21st century products, will never fully have a grasp on such enriching guidance, however domestic it may seem. For which I will forever be grateful.
Image and text contributed by Sheetal Sudhir, Mumbai
“These were the happiest days” say my mom, Sandhya (nee Parina) and dad, Sudhir Ramachandran, a photographer.
This picture was taken at a beach disco in Dar-es-salaam called Bahari Beach Hotel. These were times of the early 70s floral hippy patterns and elephant pants combined with an Elvis spillover from the late 60s. My dad recalls that they had just finished an engrossing session of ‘soul’ dancing and were moving to the beach to relax and then a friend clicked this picture, with dad’s very first Hasselblad camera and a large Metz flash!
My mom, a Gujrati Muslim and my dad, a Malyali, got married in Tanzania and then moved to Bangalore, India in 1975. I was born in 1976. Lately, they have been visiting Dar-es-salaam more often to see my maternal grandmother, and my uncles & aunts. In my father’s own words, whenever he sees this photograph, he is in “His fav town with his fav girl…and those were the days!!”
Image and Text contributed by Anisha Jacob Sachdev, New Delhi.
This picture with my mother Anupa Jacob (nee Nathaniel) and her closest friend Shalini was taken when they were in school at Convent of Jesus & Mary in Delhi. They would have been around 15 years old. My mother was a Rajasthani, from the small town of Nasirabad near Ajmer. Her father was orphaned when a plague hit the village, he and many others were then adopted by the British. Everyone adopted was converted to Christianity and given the last name ‘Nathaniel’. From Nathu Singh, my grandfather became Fazal Masih Nathaniel. He went on to become the Head of the English Language Department at Mayo College, Ajmer.
My mother married my father Philip Jacob, in 1968. He is a Syrian Christian – whom she met while she was studying at school around the age of 15, he was studying at St. Columba’s School.
One of the most interesting parts of my mother’s life was that Shalini, some other friends and she, formed the first ever Delhi University‘s Girl Rock Band called “Mad Hatter” in their 1st year of college at Miranda House. My mother was the lead guitarist and singer. Because of that status, when the Beatles performed, albeit privately in Delhi in 1966, the Mad Hatters were given front seats priority.
My mother had four kids. She was also a piano teacher, and her youngest child and my youngest sister Arunima is autistic but an ace piano player and has performed Beethoven Music pieces with complete accuracy.
My mother suffered a cardiac arrest in 1982, and passed away in 1986. Shalini Gupta, my mother’s friend in the photograph (left) is now a psychologist in London.
Image and text contributed by Lata Bhasin, New Delhi
I met my husband Anil Bhasin, a business man, on a Blind date in 1966. We got married three years later.
We lived in Calcutta a while, had two daughters and then moved to Delhi in 1985. ‘Bouffants’ hair dos were in great style then, and all of us friends would keep up with trends. Most of our friends moved to other countries, after their respective marriages.