Hair Styles Archives - Page 3 of 8 - INDIAN MEMORY PROJECT

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.

My Paati and Thatha, Lokanayaki and RR Hariharan. My mother's parents from Ravanasamudram, Thirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu. Circa 1920. Image and Narrative 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.

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…

Six generations of a British Family in 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 Narrative 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…

The fashionable soul sisters of the 70s

My aunt Rashmi and mother Soma, at the annual town fair of Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, 1977

My aunt Rashmi and mother Soma, at the annual town fair of Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, 1977 Image and Narrative contributed by Juhi Pande, UK / Mumbai This particular photograph was taken in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh in 1977. My mother (right) had finished her graduation and was teaching in a school. My masi, the bike rider, (mother's sister) was in her 12th standard. They lived in Etawah, a town by the river Yamuna, with their father, Dr. Krishna Kumar, a Chief Medical Officer. My maternal grandmother, also Dr. Krishna Kumar (yes, they shared the same name) at that time was incharge of the Dufferin Hospital in Raibarreily and they had all come on holiday to Etawah. There used to be a local mela (fair) every year, which the entire city would attend, because that’s what you do when you’re in Etawah. There were food stalls and rides and balloon & air gun shooting galleries. And then there was this photostudio where one could take dashing, avant-garde photographs. So, of course Soma & Rashmi climbed aboard this cardboard bike and posed. I can almost hear Rashmi’s laughter once the picture was developed. I feel you cannot entirely be pretty unless you are a bit silly. My mother and my masi were born four years apart. But that’s just a technicality. Soulmates is a very vanilla word when it comes to them. Born to doctors, Soma and Rashmi lead a very nomadic life till their twenties. Moving from one city to another every couple of years meant that they mostly had each other for constant company. Growing up from little girls to stunning young women I feel that they started to think alike yet…

The Wild Parties of JJ School of Art & Architecture

Dance Party. 'Saawan' Architecture festival-C.J. Hall, Colaba, Bombay, Maharashtra. September 25, 1980

Dance Party. 'Saawan' Architecture festival - C.J. Hall, Colaba, Bombay, Maharashtra. September 25, 1980 Image and Narrative contributed by Charu Walikhanna, New Delhi This was a hot day with a baking hot floor. I was in 4th yr of Sir JJ School of Applied Art. And the same campus housed disciplines of Fine Arts, Textiles and Interior Designing. This dance party was an event organised by JJ School of Architecture during their annual festival SAAWAN. The dance party in the image was not in our campus but in a hall in Colaba. I wonder if it still exists. We used to then dance like mad, to songs of ABBA and other such English bands. There was no Punjabi rock or rap in those days and there were definitely no intoxicants or alcohol. Nor did anyone have bottles stashed away in their car like today in Delhi. Some people were into soft drugs though no one ever experimented openly and definitely not at college functions. We lived, ate and dreamed of Art & Design. Our heroes were Picasso, Salvador Dali and Charles Correa. We were so absorbed in our passions, that failure or success was not the ultimate goal. A well known joke was that if one failed at JJ and was yet successful, it may be better because Charles Correa, one of India's most famous architect was JJ drop-out too. In those days, film stars like Parveen Babi flocked to our college to hear J Krishnamurti's lectures on Philosophy, on campus under the huge banyan tree while the sun set and the crows cawed. I was a boarder in Bombay. JJ did not have a girls hostel so we girls…

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