107 – She emerged from a rural home and became a lady endowed with knowledge & charm
My Parents, K. M. Devaki Amma & Lt. Cdr. P.P.K. Menon. Bombay. Maharashtra. 1941
Image & Text contributed by Radha Nair, Pune
This photograph of my parents K. M. Devaki Amma & Lt. Cdr. P.P.K. Menon was taken at a Photo Studio in Bombay in 1941, soon after they were married. My father was based in the city serving the Naval Force.
My mother, K. M. Devaki Amma belonged to Feroke, a part of Kozhikode in Kerala. Her initials K. M. stood for Kalpalli Mundangad and her family originally belonged to the Anakara Vadkath lineage. The large joint family of more than 25-30 people lived in a house called Puthiyaveedu which still exists in Feroke, however the members are now settled in far flung places and my grand aunts and uncles are no more.
My mother had to give up school very early in life. She came from a large family of 14 brothers and sisters and belonged to an era where a girl’s formal education wasn’t a priority. While they grew up under the tutelage of grand uncles and aunts, they learned to cook, clean, and learnt to make do with and share whatever little they had with their siblings without ever complaining. Congee (Rice Gruel) was what they mostly had for lunch and dinner, supplemented with a little coconut chutney, and may be a side dish of some green banana, but only if they were bestowed with a ripe bunch of plantains available from the kitchen garden.
My mother and her sisters’ daily life entailed preparing food for all members of their very large family. By the light of a wick lamp, sweating by the blaze of crackling coconut fronds they would wash dishes with ash from the kitchen hearth and rinse them with water drawn from the well. My mother in personality was very self-reliant and was happy with whatever little she had.
Arranged by my paternal grandmother, when Amma married my father, a man with an aristocratic lineage and a Naval officer, my father’s cousins would scoff at her and condescendingly regard her as a ‘village girl’. They had been educated in Queen Mary’s Women’s college, Madras (now Chennai) whereas my mother had studied only up to Class IV in a local village school in Karrinkallai.
Undeterred, my father, who knew his wife was a bright and intelligent woman took her under his wing and brought out the best in her. He taught her English and bought her abridged versions of books written by Charles Dickens, Walter Scott and many other great authors. He read out passages to her and patiently explained to her what they each meant.
Thus Devaki, my mother, slowly emerged from her rural background, and became a lady endowed with great poise and charm. Not only did she steal my father’s heart, but even of those who befriended her. She became a much sought after friend by wives of both British and Indian naval officers. She taught them to cook Malayali dishes and stitch & embroider; skills, which were executed by her exquisitely. She wrote and spoke English with such assurance that she could put a present day Post Graduate in English to shame. But despite all these changes, she remained loyal to her roots, proud of her humble origins, and very attached to her siblings.
Sometimes, deep into the night I would catch whispers of my parents’ conversation as they sat and planned the monthly budget, and spoke about their dreams of providing us with the best of every thing. It was my mother who insisted that my sister and I be given the best education they could afford. She firmly refused a State Board SSC education, and insisted on us being admitted into schools which followed a Senior Cambridge syllabus. She was efficient and fiercely independent. By comparison I was a pale shadow. In fact, many times I used to feel very unsure of my self in her presence, intimidated by her indomitable spirit and the complete control she had over any situation.
When my father was suffering Cancer, she stood by him; nourishing him with love and healthy food, while my sister and I watched our father’s condition worsen by the day, helpless and often giving in to tears. My mother always remained calm, but only when he breathed his last in 1977 did she break down completely. He was her life force, and she was his guiding light. Theirs was an extraordinary relationship, always supportive of each other at all times and completely committed to each other till the end.
After I graduated, it was her dream that I put my education to good use. However, a few years after marriage when I was forced to give up my teaching post, she never forgave me till she breathed her last. To make up for it, I began to write and put together a collection of short stories, but the book never got published.
What pained me most was that I was not able to place a copy of my book in my mother’s hands and make my peace with her before she passed away in 2008.
65 – They committed to exchanged photographs, and were married four years later
My husband, Imam Hadi Naqvi and I, a few days after our marriage. Patna, Bihar. 1958
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’.
Hadi was raised in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh. He was a graduate of Aligarh University and then went to study Economics at LSE, London.
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.
62 – English love in the time of War
My Parents Ronald and Beryl Osbourne, at Kohat Pass (NW Frontier Province), Pakistan. April 1946
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.
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.
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
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.
43 – The Beach Parties of Tanzania, East Africa
My parents at the Beach Disco in Dar-es-salaam, Tanzania, East Africa. December 1973
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!!”
31 – She studied only up to Class 5, but was a well-read person subsequently
The wedding of my parents. My father, Dr. Gadepally Subbarayudu and Mother, Venkata Ratnalamma, Visakhapatnam, (then Vizagapatam), Andhra Pradesh. Circa 1919
Image and text contribution by Lft. Col (Retd.) Dr. G.Kameswararao, Secundarabad
This photo was taken at the wedding of my parents. My Father, Dr. Gadepally Subbarayudu was a medical doctor. My mother, Venkata Ratnalamma was a housewife and studied only upto 5th class, but was a well-read person subsequently. I, Gadepally Kameswara Rao, am their second child, a graduate in Medicine and a post-graduate in Public Health. My wife, late Lakshmi Devi, nee Mokkarala, was a housewife. I served in private institutions, the Andhra Pradesh State government and the Army Medical Corps. I was born on July 23, 1932, and am now 78 years old .
- The Contributor is a financial patron of Indian Memory Project
21 – Shanta Bhandarkar as a grown up lady
Shanta Bhandarkar, with her husband Dr. S.S. Bhandarkar, soon after they were married. Bombay, Maharashtra.1935
Image and text contributed by Usha Bhandarkar
Shanta Bhandarkar, my Mother in Law, turned 100 on February 25, 2010. On the occasion of her birthday our family gifted her an album with a collection of these old photographs. See her here as a baby.
19 – Honeymoon in Simla
My parents, Mr & Mrs Manchanda, on their Honeymoon in Simla, May 1977
Image and Text contributed by Isha Manchanda
My father worked in Central Bank of India and retired as a bank manager a few years ago. My mother taught English & Home Science at a Government School. My parents live in Delhi.
15 – My grandmother, now married
My Grandparents Rohini and Thejappa Palan. Bombay, Maharashtra. 1941
Image and Text Contributed By Manorath Palan, Mumbai
My Grandparents Rohini and Thejappa Palan. in a few days after their wedding in 1941.
More Images of Rohini here
13 – Culturally from Mangalore, they adapted to Maharashtra with ease
My great-grandparents Tavadappa Talwar with his wife Laxmibai Talwar. Bombay, Maharashtra. Circa 1900's
Image and Text Contributed by Manorath Palan, Mumbai
My great-grand parents Mr Tavadappa Talwar and Mrs Laxmibai Talwar migrated to Bombay from Mangalore, Karnataka in the early 1900′s. Cultures like the Marathas were unheard of for a native of Mangalore, yet my Great Grandparents adopted the native Maharashtrian attire and culture without any compulsion or threat from the locals as opposed to the present situation in Mumbai.This picture was taken weeks into their moving to Bombay, sometime in the early 1900s.
8 – 8.5 months pregnant and bringing in the New Year
My parents photographed on New Year's Eve. Calcutta, West Bengal. 1958
My father worked for a company called Metal Box in Calcutta. In this image, my mother, an Obstetrician, is 8.5 months pregnant with my elder brother, who was born 18 days after this picture was taken.
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.”
5 – Goans in Allahabad
My maternal grandparents Ahilya & Pandurang Karapurkar with their eldest daughter, my aunt Vijayalakshmi. Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, 1942
Image and Text contributed by Madhav Pai.
“My grandfather Pandurang Karapurkar was a banker. They belonged to Goa but immigrated to Allahabad in the 1940s. The little girl in the picture is my aunt (mother’s elder sister) and she retired a few years ago after serving as a high court judge.”
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.
2 – Rabindranath Tagore composed the dance-drama ‘Mayar Khela’ at her request
My great-great grandparents, Sarala and Dr. PK Roy. Calcutta, West Bengal. Circa 1880
Image contributed by Chetan Roy
This photo was used by Kodak India for an Ad campaign in the early 1980s.
Sarala Roy was an educationist and is remembered as the founder of the Gokhale Memorial School at Calcutta (now Kolkata), West Bengal. She belonged to the famous Das family of Telirbagh, Dhaka, now in Bangladesh. She was also a member of Calcutta University’s senate and also one of the leaders of the All-India Women’s Conference. The conference was founded in 1927 under the leadership of Margaret Cousins but was soon completely run by Indian women. It was the most important women’s organisation of its time.
