104 – The surgeon who saved hundreds from the Plague
Nellie, Mabel & Dr. Bharat Chandra Ghosh. Kashmir. 1928
Image & Text contributed by Alison Henderson Ghosh, U.K
This is an image of my great cousin Nellie Ghosh, great aunt Mabel Henderson and her husband Dr. Bharat Chandra Ghosh. Nellie was Mabel & Bharat’s daughter – and they lived somewhere in India and their house was called “Homelands”. The photograph of the house surrounded by Palm and Coconut trees suggests a coastal area. I have been researching the Ghosh family for years but haven’t yet found much information on the family after 1929.
I do know that Mabel’s father was a tea/general provisional merchant based in Edinburgh, U.K.– Mabel had three brothers, John, William and Daniel. William was a well known Scottish composer/musician and he wrote music for church organs and also recorded to vinyl, Daniel became a smuggler and was last heard of in the Caribbean. And there were three sisters; Kate & Bunty who both migrated to New Zealand, and Helen, my great grandmother, to Ireland – they were all very musically and artistically gifted. About Bharat’s family I found out that his father, Ishan Chandra Ghosh was a Professor of Mathematics and his mother’s name was Anorndomohi Ghosh – her maiden name was Sarkar.
I am unsure about how they met, but Bharat and Mabel were married in Scotland in 1905 in the district of St. Giles. Bharat qualified as a doctor in the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and at the time of their marriage they must have moved to India because he worked for the Punjab Medical Department, and then he subsequently joined the Indian Medical Services. According to the India papers in the National Library of Great Britain, Bharat was based in Ambala, Punjab as an Assistant Surgeon where he inoculated hundreds of people against the Plague in 1901-02. He was also a member of the India Medical Service at the Theatre of War in World War I.
His name appears in the quarterly Indian Army list from January 1918 to July 1922.
Date of Appointment: 6th October 1917
Rank : Temporary Lieutenant
Promotion: 6th October 1918 to Temporary Captain
I am on the lookout for leads on the Ghosh family whereabouts after 1929, and would be happy to hear from people who may know more.
89 – A Medical Doctor, a Free Mason and a Political Prisoner
(Left) My grandfather, Dr.B. Seshachalam with his mother, Thyaramma. Bangalore, Circa 1920. (Right) A certificate proof of him as a Political prisoner. Bangalore, 1957
Image and Text contributed by Nandith Jaisimha, Bangalore
This is a photograph of my paternal grandfather Dr.B. Seshachalam (L.M.P Reg Medical Practitioner no: 1280) with his mother, Thyaramma. He was born in Bangalore on January 13, 1913 and was the son of B.Venugopal Naidu.
My grandfather was a well educated man. He attended St.Josephs school as well as Pre-University College. He then went on to join Mysore Medical College which was initially established in Bangalore, and completed the 4 year LMP course. He was married to Kamala Yadav and had one son.
In his college days he was arrested as a Political Prisoner accused of protesting during the Freedom struggle in Bangalore in 1942, and had to pay a fine of Rs. Two during his detention in the Central Jail, though the certificate and receipt was only provided in 1957. The Jail no longer exists in its original form, it has now been made-over into Freedom Park.
During the course of finding more information, I stumbled upon some incredible untold stories. For instance, I discovered my grandfather was also a member of the Free Masons and that my grandmother Kamala too was actively involved in politics since the age of 10!
My grandfather served society until the end. Even after 35 years of his demise, people in Bangalore remember the Doctor. There was an article about him in The Deccan Herald on 22nd June 2009, titled “The GP is not extinct”. The people of Bangalore East always never fail to mention their eternally gratitude to him. It was his dream to serve the underprivileged, and lived by the motto “Faith is God”.
Transcript of the Certificate
Office of the Superintendent
Central Jail, Bangalore
Dated 28th November, 1957
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the detenue No. 511 Sri. B. Dr.B.Seshachalam, S/O B. Venugopal Naidu, a Medical Student, was admitted to this jail on 10-9-1942 as a political prisoner, as per orders of Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore District and was released on 2nd Oct, 1942 as per orders of Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore.
[Signature]
Superintendent,
Central Jail, Bangalore
78 – She left everything behind in Scotland to an unknown future in India
My Grandmother, Sydney Gorrie, on her wedding day. Lahore (now Pakistan). December 1923
Image and Text contributed by Janet MacLeod Trotter, United Kingdom
This is a photo of my Scottish maternal grandmother, Sydney Gorrie (nee Easterbrook) on her wedding day in December 1923. She and my grandfather, Robert Gorrie, were married in a cathedral in Lahore (now Pakistan). She looks beautiful but perhaps to me, also slightly apprehensive. This may be because she hadn’t seen her fiancé in over a year and had just travelled out by ship with her parents from Edinburgh, Scotland to get married. For some time their home was in Lahore (now Pakistan) which my grandmother enjoyed.
Robert Gorrie fondly called Bob, a veteran of the World War I and survivor of trench warfare, had secured a job with the Indian Forestry Service, as a conservator of forests. Sydney was an only child and had left behind home and extended family in Edinburgh, Scotland for an unknown future trekking around the Himalayan foothills with her new husband. Bob was enthusiastic about trees and conservation and became an expert on soil erosion. He worked all over Punjab and the remote foothills of the Himalayas, and my grandmother would have to plan and organise camping trips for a month or so at a time.
When my mother was born, she was taken along too; her pram hoisted onto poles and carried along jungle paths. According to his Work Records, Scottish Bob was “a tiger for work” but was impatient with the bureaucracy and criticised for being outspoken. My granny would sigh that she was constantly having to ‘smooth the ruffled feathers’ of the administrators. He was also based at the forestry college in Dehradun (now Uttar Pradesh) where he taught and also where their second son, my uncle, Donald was born. I think he was more popular with the students as some of them kept in touch with him until much later in life.
Before World War II broke out, granny’s father’s illness had her visit home in Edinburgh. My mother and her two brothers went to school back in Scotland, and were looked after by grandparents and lots of doting aunties! Bob stayed back in India, and did not see his family for over six years, and after Partition he worked for the new Pakistan government for a while.
In retirement in Edinburgh, my brothers and I used to love visiting their house – we would join Granddad for early morning yoga kind of exercises in the sitting-room. He would point to a picture on the wall of a grinning man in a large hat and say it was of him eating porridge in India. It was only years later I discovered it was a copy from a Degas painting of a farmer drinking from a bowl of soup!
My grandparents’ stories were the inspiration for my own trip to India. When I was 18, I went overland in a bus to Kathmandu via Pakistan and India. In Lahore I sent my granny a postcard (my grandfather has passed away by then). What I didn’t know was that she had had a stroke and was in the hospital. The last time my mother saw her alive was the day my postcard arrived. She was able to read it to Granny, and although she couldn’t speak in reply, she knew that I had got there. I, on the other hand grew up to become an author and wrote a mystery novel based on my overland trip in the 1970s, called The Vanishing of Ruth.
73 – He folded sarees for One paisa each, and went on to become the Director of a Bank.
My maternal grandfather, Manikchand Veerchand Shah (seated in white turban) and extended family, Solapur, Maharashtra. 1956
Image and Text contributed by Anshumalin Shah, Bangalore
This image of maternal grandfather, Shri Manikchand Veerchand Shah and our extended family was photographed in November 1956, by the famous ‘Malage Photographer – Oriental Photo Studio’ who charged a tidy sum of 30-0-0 (Rupee-Anna-Paise) for two Black & White 6” x 8”copies with embossed-border mounts. The occasion was my grandfather’s birthday, he had just turned 60.
The family was photographed in the front yard of the bungalow called ‘Ratnakuti’ opposite the Fort in Solapur (then Sholapoor), Maharashtra. Ratnakuti was one of twin bungalows built around 1932 as mirror images of each other, known as ‘Jod-Bangla’. Beautifully crafted in stone and plaster, with imposing pillars, balconies and rooms with ceramic-chip handcrafted flooring, exquisite teak, brass grills for windows, coloured glass panes on windows and doors, verandahs with neat terracotta tiles, a large court-yard in front, ‘Ratnakuti’ and its twin would never fail to draw the attention of passers-by and stands to this day as a well known landmark. Eventually, the two bungalows were sold and are now owned by the Goyal family.
My grandfather, Manikchand Veerchand Shah, born in 1896, came from a pioneering and visionary Gujarati Digambar Jain family. He was a self-educated, successful entrepreneurial man with modest beginnings. Before 1910, he along with his younger brother, Walchand Motichand Shah, worked in a Saree shop of their guardian where they got paid One Paisa for every saree they neatly folded, ready for dispatch or sale and delivered on a bicycle to the shop at Phaltan Galli.
As they grew up together, my grandfather and his brother established and operated several businesses together complementing each other’s strengths. The businesses included a handloom cloth dyeing unit, in Valsang, near Solapur, for which the dyes were imported from Japan. They also began importing General Motors cars, motorcycles and trucks around 1922. I am told my grandfather would drive and deliver the imported truck chassis himself from Bombay to Pune and Sholapur. Their firm ‘Sholapur Motor Stores’ continues on in Pune, albeit only as a Fuel Station. He also established the well-known ‘India Garage’ in the 1930s where the present showrooms of Renault and Volkswagen stand, still operated by the family.
Closely associated with the freedom movement in Solapur, opposing the Martial Law imposed in 1930, he was arrested by the British, sent to Bijapur Central Jail and later exiled. Not to be outdone by the British, he used his stay at Bijapur Jail to monitor the establishment of a ‘Sholapur Motor Stores’ branch in the city.
Also associated with the Hindu Mahasabha, he rubbed shoulders with very important personalities like V. D. Savarkar, Dr. K. B. Hedgewar, M. S. Golwalker Guruji and Gulabchand Hirachand Doshi. While he was also deeply involved with several causes for the people of Valsang, unfortunately, owing to his association with the Hindu Mahasabha, an irate mob of villagers from Valsang set his car on fire in a frenzied reaction to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948. Barely managing to escape with his life, he was deeply hurt and disillusioned by the senseless act by the people of Valsang. In consequence, he wound up his businesses and left Valsang, never to return.
After the death of his wife, my grandmother, when he was just 34, and as a sign of love for her, he changed his attire to only pristine white – a white turban, coat and a dhoti with white canvas pump shoes. While visiting us in Hyderabad, he would regularly buy the special black metal ‘Bidriware’ buttons for his white coats from a handicraft showroom at Abid Road.
My grandfather was a man of many parts. He was the Director on the Board of Bank of Maharashtra Ltd. As well as on the governing council for several religious and temple trusts. His contribution to the educational infrastructure development from his own funds at Solapur is widely acknowledged. He offered personal loans, scholarships and donor’s seats at the Walchand College of Engineering, Sangli for students pursuing higher studies in the 1950s and 60s. Several successful senior Engineers owe their careers to him.
Farming, Gardening, and Photography were his passions. I remember us youngsters gathering on his farms near Sholapur during summer holidays and enjoying the juiciest mangoes to our brim. Quite taken up with Photography as well, he had acquired a glass-negative Camera in the 1920s and his collection of glass negatives and pictures are our family’s priceless treasures.
My grandfather passed away in June 1968. Many members of the two older generations of the three appearing in the pictures have also passed on. The third generation now have their own children and grand-children. I feel very honoured to have shared some of the birthday celebrations along with my grandfather as we were both born only a few days apart.
Time moves on, but photographs manage to freeze fleeting moments here and there. If we could preserve these photographs, we succeed in reliving those moments over and over again and again.
70 – A very fashionable civil surgeon, he was awarded the “Rao Bahadur” medal by the British
My wife’s great great grandfather, Rao Bahadur Pundit Shambhu Nath Misra, Civil Surgeon. Bulandshahr, United Provinces of Agra & Oudh. Circa 1920.
Image and Text contributed by Paritosh Pathak
This image of my wife’s great great grandfather was photographed in a studio in Bulandshahr, then a part of the United Provinces in India. In those days there were only a few trained doctors in a city, and a civil surgeon was considered to be a ‘top medical practitioner’ as well as the last hope of anyone with an ailment requiring surgery.
Shambhu Nath Misra was awarded “Rao Bahadur” medal by the British government, the top civilian award of the time which was an equivalent of “Order of British Empire -OBE”. He wears that medal proudly around his neck in this picture. The medal has the British crown connecting the loop to the neck string. In the centre is a circular portion with etched words Rao Bahadur that is barely legible because of picture quality.
He graduated with a Degree in Medicine in 1899 from The University of Panjab located in Lahore of undivided India. (In 1956, the university was relocated to Chandigarh, Punjab, India). At the time of his graduation the university awarded an all-in-one degree- Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics. Today the three are considered separate medical specialties.
A very fashionable man, in this picture, he sports a bowtie, very western for an Indian in 1920s. His ’Head Cap’, was common head gear for a man of stature, though unlike the kings and other royalty, it indicated status as a civilian. Completing his attire is a 3 piece suit, a silk vest, and I think a pocket watch which was specifically worn on the left pocket.
He was a very wealthy man, earning a salary of Rs 14,000 a month. And the ‘civil surgeon’ tag was important enough to get a letter delivered to him with only “Shambhu Nath Misra, Civil Surgeon, Bulandshahar” as the address. He supported many families of needy relatives and had significant real estate assets. He fathered 2 daughters and 3 sons, one of whom was the great grandfather of my wife. Two of his other sons emigrated to the United Kingdom. The family prestige and assets, both were gradually lost and it never regained the glory of his achievements. He suffered from diabetes and other common ailments, and passed away around the age of 70.
58 – Mary Jane shoes with a nine yards saree
My Paati and Thatha, Lokanayaki and RR Hariharan. My mother's parents from Ravanasamudram, Thirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu. Circa 1920.
Image and text contributed by Vani Subramanian, New Delhi
He worked with the Indian Railways, and she raised her five children between Delhi and Shimla, learning Hindi and the ways of the ‘north’ as she went along. This photograph was probably taken fairly soon after they were married. Even my mum who is now 72 years old doesn’t remember them like this at all. So in a sense, they are both familiar and strangers as they appear in the picture. But I do remember the photograph framed and hanging on the wall in the house that they retired to in the village. A house they moved in to the day I was born: 22 Jan 1965.
My favourite part of the photograph is that Paati is wearing Mary Jane shoes and white socks with her nine yards saree. I never saw her in shoes in real life. As a matter of fact, I never saw my grandfather in a coat and tie, either. Though I am told that he wore a coat, tie, shoes and pants clipped with bicycle clips as he rode to work from Park Lane to the railway boards offices.
57 – India’s foremost philosopher with his friend, the future president of India
S Radhakrishnan, the future president of India with his friend, my great great grandfather, and well known philosopher Prof. M. Hiriyanna. Mysore, Karnataka. Circa 1925
Image and Text contributed by Arati Rao, Mumbai
According to N. Sivarama Sastry. “Prof. Hiriyanna lived a perfectly ordered and disciplined life. He often reminded me of Kant and the Philosopher’s Walk. He was simple to the verge of austerity. He dressed simply and everything about him was scrupulously neat and clean. He was correct and punctual. He promptly answered communications, kept all his engagements, and never made a promise which he could not fulfill. He was fastidious to a degree and a perfect artist in everything he did – from mending a pencil to writing a work. Though he did no spare himself, he was tolerant of those who could not come up to his exacting standards. He was in fact noted for his kindness and consideration and unfailing courtesy. He never denied help to any student or scholar. He was equally well known for his honesty and uprightness. He was exceedingly modest and his learning did not sit heavily on him. But beneath his modesty and humility he had a keenly sensitive nature.”
Hiriyanna, by all accounts, was a philosopher par excellence. A glowing tribute to him by President S. Radhakrishnan left no room for doubt as to his regard in those circles. “When Plato said that philosophers should be Kings, he did not mean that the main task of philosophy was to make laws and solve political problems. For him the philosophical temper of mind, the exalted, calm, noble, dispassionate attitude unmoved by motives of personal gain, ambition or power is the only temper of mind which can solve these problems. In these days of increasing specialization and party strife, when we are unable to see the wood for the trees, when the effort of genuine thinking has yielded to the acceptance of slogans, the need for philosophic reflection on life’s problems is most urgent. … It is this spirit of philosophy that Hiriyanna illustrates in his reflection and life.”
My aunt, Malathi Jaya Rao grew up around him and says – “He always emphasized physical courage; an unbending spirit; self esteem without pride; not taking things that are not ours, and created in us an enduring value: what a man is far outweighs his wealth or intellectual attainments. An immaculately dresser, in a spotless white dhoti, cream colored close collared coat, a laceless turban, an uttariyam and pump shoes, he used to get up very early and after collecting flowers from the garden and after having a bath he would do do puja. He was very particular that the family joined him for the Mahamangalarathi at 6 a.m.” It seems he would sharpen pencils exactly the same amount and use them until they wore down up to a pre-determined length. Short worn pencils were then passed on to the kids in the family. He has left us a priceless legacy in his writings on Indian philosophy – many of which are now textbooks and staples.
Some of the family still lives in the house Hiriyanna built – 962, and the descendants visit several times a year. We are now scattered across the world, seven generations and several nationalities incorporated into the gene pool. The house ’962′ he built has not changed since 1910. It’s hundred year-old stones are the ones that know him well and when I run my hand along the walls or sit on the cool red oxide floors, or enter “his room,” and read his wisdom in his own beautiful hand, I stand a little taller knowing there is a bit of this great man, somewhere in me.
56 – They seem like wings at either ends and they both became pilots
My father's family. The Datta family. Delhi. Circa 1940
Image and Text contributed by Saugato Datta, London
This photograph of my father’s family was taken in the courtyard of my grandfather’s government house on Irwin Road (now Baba Kharak Singh Marg,Delhi).
Seated in the middle are my grandparents, Sailendraprasad Datta (1898-1956) and Bibhabati Datta (1906-1977). My grandfather was a civil servant and moved to New Delhi from Calcutta in the early 1920s. My grandmother was a housewife. She grew up in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.
To the left of my grandfather is their eldest child, my aunt Uma Datta Roy Choudhury (1926-2009). She was a statistician, joining the Indian Statistical Service when it was founded after Independence, which was also the year she got her MA from St. Stephen’s College. She later consulted for UNDP and lived for many years in the then Czechoslovakia (Now Czech Republic and Slovakia) and later in Zimbabwe. To the right of the my grandmother, is my oldest uncle, Kalyan Kumar Datta (1928-1998). He was a pilot for Indian Airlines and lived in Calcutta.
The little boy on the left is my father, Kamal Kumar Datta (born 1938). He studied Physics at Presidency College, Calcutta and Brandeis University in the US, and was a professor of Physics at Delhi University till he retired earlier this decade. The other kid on the right is his brother, Saroj Kumar Datta, (born 1936) who was also a Stephanian. He worked for many years in Air India, and has been with Jet Airways since it was founded. he currently works as Jet’s Executive Director. He’s still working, though he recently turned 75.
The two youngest kids are apparently beaming because they were given books to entice them to sit still for the photographer – or so I’ve heard. The others seem to have taken the whole “look serious for the camera” injunction very literally. People didn’t normally smile for photos back in the day, did they? I guess it was considered a formal affair, having a photographer over and all.
55 – Six generations of a British Family in India, one of whom was a Photographer for Times of India.
(Left) My Great Great Grandparents Edwin Ebenezer Scott (1850-1931) & Emily Good Andre (1862-1946), Bangalore, 1915. (Right) My Great grandparents, Algernon Edwin Scott & Desiree Leferve with my Grandfather, Bert Scott as a two or three year old boy. Cannanore, Karnataka. 1919
Image and Text contributed by Jason Scott Tilley, Birmingham UK
These are two photographs from My Grandfather Bert Scott’s family photographic archive. The photograph on the left, of my Great Great Grandparents Edwin and Emily Scott was taken on Christmas day in 1925 at 3, Campbell road, Richmond Town, Bangalore, our family’s house which was one of the old British Bungalows and has sadly like many of the rest, been demolished. On the old ground now stands St Philomenas hospital, right in the very heart of Bangalore.
On the right, are my great grandparents Algernon Edwin Scott and Desiree Leferve with my Grandfather, Bert Scott as a two or three year old boy, the image was taken in 1919 in Cannanore, Karnataka. (now Kannur and in the state of Kerala)
My family came to India in 1798 when James Scott Savory joined the East India Company as a writer of the Records of state. He was the second assistant under the Collector of Krisnagearry (Krishnagiri). Edwin Ebenezer (left image) is his great great grandson. From the church death records at St. Marks Cathedral in Bangalore it states that Edwin Ebenezer was the Assistant commisioner of Salt in South India.
Bert Scott, (little boy on the right) was my Grandfather, and he was born in Bangalore in 1915. He went to Bishop Cottons school before he joined the Times of India in 1936 as a press photographer.
Son of Algernon Edwin Scott and Desiree Marie Louise Josephene Leferve, (she was the daughter of a French professor of English from Pondicherry). Algernon Scott (Bert’s father) worked for the ‘Salt and Abkeri’ before he joined the army and went to Mesopatamia region from 1916-1919. After Algernon Scott left Mesopotamia he then went to the North West Frontier province until 1921 when he was discharged as Lieutenant. In 1925 he joined Burmah Oil company until 1933 he worked at Caltex until the out break of War.
My Grandfather Bert Scott, whom I fondly call ‘Grandpa’, was mainly brought up by his Grandparents, this must have been because his parents were away much of the time. He was educated at the famous ‘Eaton of the East’, Bishop Cottons school in Bangalore and then at St. Joseph’s college in Cannanore on the way up to Ooty in the Nilgiri’s. In 1936 he took a job as a press photographer at the Times of India Newspaper in Bombay where he worked until the out break of World War II. He initially joined up as a ‘Gunner’ but soon took the Job as Head photographer for the Indian Army during the second world war where he worked out of GHQ New Delhi (Now Parliament), His duties include photographing ceremonies and Japanese positions behind enemy lines in Burma.
My grandfather married his Bride, Doll Miles at the church of redemption in New Delhi and 1943 and my Mother Anne Scott was born later that year in Amritsar, Punjab, whilst he was away on active duty during the war. He was in position on 14th August 1947 to photograph the hand over of Power and watched as the Mountbattens left Vicregal lodge (now Rashtrapati Bhavan). During the troubles of partition, because my family were Anglo Indian, they fled from Delhi to Bombay, and then took a ship to the new country of Pakistan where in November of that same year they left for a new life in the United Kingdom.
For more images via Jason please click here
54 – The Anglo Indian men who transported millions of refugees to safety
(Left to Right) My grandfather Bundy Nixon, Joseph, the chauffeur, my Uncle, Norman Costanzio Nixon, Rob May (an Australian Gurkha officer), my father, Leslie Nixon, and a local game hunter (sitting) Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, 1946
Image and Text contributed by Deborah Nixon, Sydney
My family has a history of having lived in India for four, or possibly 5 generations- they were all Railways people. Both my grandmother and great grandmother were buried in Bhusawal.
My father Leslie Nixon, was born in Agra in 1925, schooled in Mussoorie, trained with the Gurkhas and joined KGV’s 1st OGR (King George V’s regiment). He worked during the Partition to transport refugees in and out of the Gurkha head quarters in Dharmsala (then Punjab territory, now in the independent state of Himachal Pradesh) to and from Pathankot, Punjab, by train.
This photograph was taken at Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh in 1946 . Behind them was an empty elephant stable. I like this photograph because it is at variance with the way the British in India were depicted on Shikar (Game hunting). This was an ordinary Anglo Indian life away from the metropolis and now there is very little to be seen of it. My father, aged 22 then and his friend Rob May were very young and had to take on an enormous responsibility and an almost impossible task during partition in protecting refugees. He, like millions of others, was left deeply affected by it .
My father archived all of the family images in India and thanks to him I have been lucky to have a ‘bird’s eye view ‘ of partition. He kept a lot of old army documents and memorabilia from the few years he served with the Gurkhas. When he migrated to Australia he went to University and became a Geologist. He has been very interested in my own Phd thesis which focuses on the ‘experience of domiciled Europeans and Anglo Indians up to and during the Partition‘ and sometimes the memories have been painful for him. I am planning on visiting India again later this year to do more research I think your project is absolutely remarkable I read about it in ‘The Australian‘ newspaper and thought I had to try and get a picture in although my family were not Indian they were a part of India!
46 – Chameli & Phoolchand Jain. A teenaged couple’s fight for freedom
My Grandmother Chameli Devi Jain and Grandfather Phool Chand Jain, shortly after their marriage. Delhi. Circa 1923
Image and text contributed by Sreenivasan Jain, Journalist, New Delhi
Some text is paraphrased from a recent Book – Civil Disobedience, by my father Late. Shri LC Jain, noted economist and Gandhian.
This image was photographed in Delhi, shortly after my Paternal grandparents Chameli and Phool Chand, got married. She was 14 and he was 16. It was unusual for couples in our family to be photographed, especially holding hands, which turned out to be an indication of the unconventional direction their lives would take. They were both Gandhians and Freedom fighters.
The prestigious Chameli Devi Jain award for Journalists was named after my grandmother . The only visible reminder of her brush with radical politics of the freedom movement was the milky cornea in her right eye, the result of an infection picked up in Lahore Jail where she had spent 4 months in 1943. Otherwise, she was Ammaji: gentle, almost luminous in her white saris, regular with her samaik (Jain prayer), someone who would take great pleasure, on our Sunday visits, to feed us dal chawal (rice and lentils) mixed with her own hands.
My grandmother grew up in a village called Bahadarpur in Alwar, about 4 hours south of Delhi, in a deeply conservative Jain family. The family was locally influential; they were traders in cotton turbans, woven by local Muslim weavers and sold in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. They also were moneylenders. As with much of rural Rajasthan, the women were in purdah. Within two years of their marriage, their first child, my father, LC Jain was born.
Ammaji moved with my grandfather into the family home in the teeming bylanes of Dariba in Chandni Chowk. But he had developed a growing interest in Gandhi and the nationalist movement and soon broke away from the family business to join the Delhi Congress. In 1929, soon after the call for Poorn Swaraj at the Lahore session, he was arrested for the first time.
My grandfather’s stint in jail exposed him to even more radical politics. Along with his Congress membership, he also became part of the revolutionary Hindustan Socialist Republican Association which counted Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad amongst its members. (Azad, in an interview, acknowledged that he received his first revolver from my grandfather). He also became a reporter for the nationalist newspaper at the time, Vir Arjun, whose editor he had met in jail.
In 1932, Gandhi called for a major nationwide satyagraha against foreign goods. It was also the year a bomb was thrown at Lord Lothian,an act in which my grandfather played a role. When he told my grandmother that he was going to jail, she said this time she would go to prison first, by taking part in the swadeshi satyagraha. The household was stunned. Ammaji’s life had revolved around ritual, the kitchen and ghoonghat. Her decision led to the following heated exchange; witnessed by my father, age 7:
Babaji: “You don’t know anything about jail.”
Ammaji: “Nor did you when you were first arrested.”
Babaji: “Who will look after the children ?”
Ammaji: “You will.”
Sensing that things were getting out of hand, my great grandmother, Badi Ammaji locked both of them into a room. But my grandfather apparently fashioned an escape from the window using knotted dhotis and Ammaji, head uncovered, marched with other women pouring out of their homes towards the main bazaar. The crowd had swelled into hundreds. There were cries of ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki Jai’. As they began to move around picketing shops selling foreign goods, they were arrested, taken to Delhi Jail, and charged with 4 and half months of rigorous imprisonment.
Her arrest, not surprisingly, outraged the family in Alwar. Umrao Singhji, Ammaji’s father, came to Delhi and had a big argument with my great grandfather, accusing the in-laws of ‘ruining our princess’. But Ammaji found an ally in her in-laws, who refused to pay her bail out of respect for her satyagraha. Umrao Singhji then tried to talk his daughter out of it when she was being transferred to Lahore Jail. ‘Chameli, apologise, ask for pardon.’ But Ammaji asked him not to worry. ‘Bolo Bharat Mata ki Jai’, she said, as she was being led away in a rickshaw along with the other prisoners. ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, responded her father.
She returned from Lahore 4 months later, a minor heroine. But there was also loss. Lakshmi, her daughter, 5 years old, fell from the balcony of the house and died when she was in Lahore jail. And there was the milky cornea – the loss of an eye. But her world had somewhat widened. She wore her ghoonghat a few inches higher. She gave her Rajasthani ghaghra choli away, and wore only handspun. She spun on the charkha. She would attend meetings with other women on matters of community reform, like widow remarriage and also became more involved in the activities of the local sthanak, the Jain community’s prayer and meditation hall. She had, as it turns out, quietly fashioned her own blend of Jain renunciation and Gandhian abstinence.
In the years that followed, my grandfather retained his engagement with the freedom struggle. He would often go to sit in the family’s property agency in Model Town, but his real passion, which consumed most of his last 30 years was compiling a massive index of freedom fighters, a staggering 11 volume chronicle of the stories of countless ordinary men and women, who took part in protests, bomb conspiracies, went to jail, lived and died. For my grandmother, it was a gradual return to a more conventional domesticity.
But, that single action that morning in 1932 had opened up a world: a young woman from a deeply conservative family, who became the first Jain woman in her neighbourhood to go to jail, who was named on the day of her arrest in the Hindustan Times with all the other satyagrahis, who would return home to other freedoms, even if minor, like a ghoonghat that could be worn a few inches back.
And for that, she would one day have an award named after her.
44 – An All India Heavyweight Wrestling and Weightlifting champion
My paternal grandfather, Manjerikandy Ramchandran, Cannanore, Kerala. 1927
Image and text contributed by Sheetal Sudhir, Mumbai
This picture of my grandfather Manjerikandy Ramchandran was taken when he was 16, just before he set sail for Dar-es-salaam for the first time. He came back to India 5 years later and won the All India Heavyweight Wrestling and Weightlifting championship beating several champions including the Sri Lankan heavyweight wrestling champion in 1937.
His son Sudhir Ramchandran is my father who was born in British Tanganyika and retains his British Citizenship until this day. My grandfather was also responsible for building gymnasiums in Cannanore (Kannur) and in Tanzania. There are several tales of how he used to be called to handle African robbers, who existed in plenty those days. His happiest life was in Dar-es-salaam.
After he retired in 1968, he moved back to Cannanore, India to build a house but passed away the same year of cancer. My dad believes that I have adopted his no-nonsense approach to life and loyalty to friends.
25 – The plush bunglow with Viennese furniture that became an Ashram
These pictures of the Drawing Room, Dining Room and Lounge was home to my uncle and aunt, Nani & Mehra Moos. This is also my birthplace (1923) My parents and grandparents shared the house. It was constructed in Bandra, Bombay in 1923 and is now stands behind the Hotel Taj Lands End.
Image and Text Contributed by Feroza H Seervai
I was born in this house in 1923 and we lived there until 1941. My uncle was a barrister, then a Solicitor, (Partner in Payne and Co. Solicitors), and still later, High Court Receiver.
The most distinguished Barrister at the High Court in Bombay, Inverarity (cited with Moos), was my uncle’s friend, and often spent days in this house. At one stage he is said to have suffered losses in investment and I heard that he made a bonfire in my uncle’s garden of his investment certificates. My sister was 13 years elder to me and she had interacted with Inverarity. If I am not mistaken he died while I was an infant. Whether he died in Scotland or in India, I am not sure.
50 or 60 years ago, this bungalow, along with 8000 sq. yds. of land and a cottage on an elevated part was sold for Rs. 3 lakhs, without the furniture, which had been imported from Vienna. A lot of the furniture was then bought by Maharani Chimnabai Gaekwad of Baroda sometime in the early 1940s.
The old bungalow now houses the Father Agnel Ashram, since the Priests of the Order of Pilar purchased the property. There is a Church within it, and on the land are many educational institutions.
24 – He was a Ph.d. in Sanskrit and Philosophy
My maternal grandfather Dr Vasudev Sukhtankar (center, with garland & white turban) Director of Education, Indore State. 1926
Image and text Contributed by Ashok Bhandarkar, Mumbai
In this photograph, my grandfather, the Director of Education was on an inspection tour of a school in Tarana (Indore State) on February 6, 1926 with group of boy scouts (probably the entire population of the school!)
‘Ajoba’ as we called him, was a PhD in Sanskrit and Philosophy from Germany and also a staunch Brahmo Samaji.
7 – The Professor who founded the Surat University
My maternal grandparents, Surat, Gujarat. 1925
“My Grandfather was a very progressive man. Though he married my grandmother very young, 17 or 18 I think, he decided not to have children until she was in her 20s. He understood that she was too young to have kids so early. He was a Chemistry professor in Surat. After being trained in Manchester, he and 2 other professors joined hands and found the Surat University.
The watch that my grandmother proudly wears in this photograph, was a gift bought for her in Manchester.”
4 – Later they heard, their home and assets were all burnt down
Hand painted in New York (in 2000), my maternal grandparents, Lahore, (Now Pakistan). 1923
Image and text contributed by Dinesh Khanna.
My grandparents, Balwant Goindi, a Sikh and Ram Pyari, a Hindu were married in 1923. She was re-named Mohinder Kaur after her marriage . They went on to have eight daughters and two sons, one of the daughters happens to be my mother.
Balwant Goindi owned a whiskey Shop in Lahore. He was a wealthy man and owned a Rolls Royce. During Indo-Pak Partition, he and his family migrated to Simla, without any of his precious belongings; assuming he would return after the situation had calmed down, however, that never happened. After moving around, and attempting to restart his business with other Indian trader friends, they finally settled down in Karol Bagh. The area was primarily residential with a large Muslim population until the exodus of many to Pakistan and an influx of refugees from West Punjab after partition in 1947, many of whom were traders. It must have been a very sad day when he heard that his home and his shops in Lahore were burnt down.
