Cultural Attire Archives - INDIAN MEMORY PROJECT

A serious family photograph

My father's family. The Datta family. Location either Delhi or Simla. Circa 1940

My father's family. The Datta family. Location either Delhi or Simla. Circa 1940 Image and Narrative 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…

The last photograph of a family together

Possibly the first photograph of the village, a Kashmiri Pandits Extended Family. My grandmother, Tara Dhar, (second from right in the top row), my grandfather Raghunath Dhar (fourth from right in the same row) Between them is my great grandmother, Sokhmal Dhar. Vicharnag, Srinagar, Kashmir. Circa 1915 Image and Narrative points contributed by Anil Dhar, Mumbai This is probably the first, and as it turned out, the last ever photograph taken of my entire Kashmiri Pandit extended family. The Dhar Family. My grandmother, Tara Dhar, stands second from right in the top row, and my grandfather Raghunath Dhar, fourth from right in the same row. Between the men is my great grandmother, Sokhmal Dhar. The family was photographed in Vicharnag, a small village situated on the outskirts of Srinagar, Kashmir. Vicharnag when translated, means “the spring of contemplation". The village has a centuries-old temple complex which housed several Pandit families including mine for hundreds of years. The Dhar family belongs to the Kashmiri Pandit community - the only Brahmin Hindu community native to Kashmir. These were also good times, when ties between all communities, be it Hindu or Muslim, were strong and warm. This picture holds so many cultural nuances. For instance, the headgear of the elder male members was different from the younger male members. Moreover, the women were not in purdah (veiled) displaying some liberal social and cultural aspects of the community at the time. After belonging to a land for centuries, the families were forced to uproot themselves because of Indo-Pakistani border War of 1947, and then again in 1990 because of the eruption of radical militancy and ethnicity based massacres by subversives, on the Pandits. It is said that approximately 250,000…

A teenager couple’s fight for freedom

My Grandmother Chameli Devi Jain and Grandfather Phool Chand Jain, shortly after their marriage. Delhi. Circa 1923

My Grandmother Chameli Devi Jain and Grandfather Phool Chand Jain, shortly after their marriage. Delhi. Circa 1923 Image and Narrative contributed by Sreenivasan Jain, Journalist, New Delhi Some text is paraphrased from the Book - Civil Disobedience : Two Freedom Struggles, One Life, memoirs of my father 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 Gandhians and freedom fighters. The only visible reminder of her brush with the 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 1932. 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 four 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, 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…

The first ever Vegetable Oil mill of India

My parents Dinkar Wasudeo Mandpe & Vatsala Mandpe with their staff, Nagpur, Maharashtra.1943

My parents Dinkar Wasudeo Mandpe & Vatsala Mandpe with their staff, Nagpur, Maharashtra.1943 Image contributed by Vijaya Shenoy, Bengaluru The Hindustan Oil Mills - Staff Photograph. The mill was the first ever Vegetable Oil company of India.

Bangladeshi Family portrait

My great grandmother and family. Dhaka, East Bengal ( Now Bangaladesh). Circa 1934

My great grandmother and family. Dhaka, East Bengal ( Now Bangaladesh). Circa 1934 Image and Narrative contributed by Saugato Datta, London This photograph was taken at a photo Studio in Dhaka. The woman in the upper-right corner (dark blouse, sari and dangling earrings) is my grandmother Smritikona Basu (nee Majumdar) (1919-1995). To her left, in the middle is her older sister, Sadhana Basu and then their cousin whose name I don't know. The man is Sadhana's husband, Manindranath Bose, who was a lecturer in Dhaka University. After partition of Indian and Bangladesh, he migrated to Bihar and became a professor and later a principal of a college in Begusarai. The baby is Sadhana's oldest son (Samir Bose, 1933 -). He is now a retired Professor of Physics at the Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana. The old lady is my great-great-grandmother, Swarnalata Majumdar. My guess is she would have been born around 1880. They all lived at my great great Grandmother Swarnalata's house in Tikatuli, old Dhaka.

All translations are machine generated, hence they are not 100% accurate.