The curious life of my great-grandfather Balwant

According to family knowledge, My great grand-parents, Balwant and Laxmibai’s relationship was considerably strained. Four years after their marriage, he married again, for the second time, to a lady named Kamalabai, because he thought that Laxmibai was not beautiful enough and that the marriage was arranged against his wishes. Consequently, Laxmibai’s life was riddled with difficulties and illness, compounded with eight pregnancies of which only three children survived. While Kamalabai would accompany Balwant in his travels to Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bombay (now Mumbai), and Delhi, and she attended to her husband throughout his life, Laxmibai had to stay home, and look after their kids. Ironically, the conspicuous absence of Balwant’s second wife, Kamalabai in family group photographs could be for the fact that she was unable to bear children. Both women suffered discrimination in different forms. Having said that, Kamalabai looked after her step-children as her own, even after he passed away.

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The dynasty of forensic and hand-writing experts

The dynasty of forensic and hand-writing experts
Our Great-grandfather Charles R. Hardless (seated left), his son Charles E. Hardless, with Nizam’s palace staff. King Kothi Palace, Hyderabad. 1912

Our Great-grandfather Charles R. Hardless (seated left), his son Charles E. Hardless, with Nizam’s palace staff. King Kothi Palace, Hyderabad. 1912 Image and Narrative points contributed by Karin Tearle, Shahila Mitchell – UK, with expert inputs from Prof. Projit Mukharji – USA This is a photograph of our great grandfather Charles Richard Hardless, his son Charles Edward and the Nizam of Hyderabad’s court staff, taken in Hyderabad State (now Andhra Pradesh) in 1912. Our great grandfather was at the time a detective superintendent and the government’s first handwriting expert. He had been engaged by the Nizam Mir Osam Ali to help foil a conspiracy to overthrow his reign, and is seen here examining some documents. My great grandfather was what Prof. Projit Mukharji and other experts deem ‘The founder of a dynasty of graphologists’. Our great-grandfather, Charles Richard Hardless was born in 1866 in Calcutta (now Kolkata, West Bengal). We believe that his father worked with the East India Company and as was customary in most British families in India, Charles along with his other siblings were brought up between Calcutta and UK. Charles had a keen eye for detection detail and inspired by an uncle, John H. Hardless, an administrator in the British Indian Railways and a trained graphologist (Hand-writing expert) - Charles taught himself the same skill but with a lot more ingenuity. By the 1870s, the Calcutta police had established an exceptionally skilled and large Detective Unit (especially after the infamous Amherst Street murder and Ezra Street murder cases). The department was constantly on the look out for expertise that could help them solve criminal cases in the subcontinent – a empirical region that was still…

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The man who compiled the first English to Hindi & Marathi dictionaries

The man who compiled the first English to Hindi & Marathi dictionaries
My great grandfather, Sukhsampat Rai Bhandari. Ajmer, Rajasthan. Circa 1955

My great grandfather, Sukhsampat Rai Bhandari. Ajmer, Rajasthan. Circa 1955 Image & Narrative points contributed by Myra Khanna / Rachana Yadav, Gurgaon Volunteer Assistance : Myra Khanna, New Delhi This is the probably the only photograph we have of my maternal great grandfather Sukhsampat Rai Bhandari or as we refer to him Nana Sahib. Born in 1891, Sukhsampat Rai Bhandari was the eldest of four brothers. He was brought up in Bhanpura, a district in the Central Provinces of the subcontinent (now Madhya Pradesh, India). I never did get a chance to meet him, but stories my mother and grandmother tell me about him make me feel that would have been an honour to know him. While there is some documentation that mentions our ancestor Rao Raghunath Singh Bhandari as the acting King of Jodhpur from 1713-1724, I am not sure how it all turned out because in our family’s current memory we had humble beginnings from a village called Jaitaran (Jodhpur District). The family then migrated to their maternal land Bhanpura where Nana Sahib was born. After his birth and as tradition was, his umbilical cord was cut and buried in the soil of our family home’s courtyard and a tree was planted. The house still stands in Bhanpura today, and in it’s courtyard so does a grand tree. In 1904, at the age of 12, Nana Sahib was married off to 13-year-old, Roop Kavar, my great grandmother. Nana Sahib was not interested in the family business and ran away to Jodhpur to complete his education. He excelled at Marathi, Hindi and English languages and self-published his first works by translating Ralph Waldo Trine’s In tune with the Infinite in…

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