The day all the states of India were re-organised

Image and Narrative contributed by Late. Subhadra Murthy, Hyderabad / Telangana This photograph is from my family album and was taken on November 1, 1956, on Andhra Formation Day, at the Legislative Assembly in Hyderabad. The then Nizam - Mir Osman Ali Khan, speaker Kashinath Rao Vaidya, the first elected Chief Minister Burgula Ramakrishna Rao, and Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy (the to-be 6th President of India) are seen in this image. On this day, all states of India were re-organised by language including the state of Hyderabad. The nine Telugu and Urdu speaking parts of Hyderabad State were merged with the Telugu-speaking Andhra to create Andhra Pradesh, with Hyderabad as its capital. The rest of the state merged with two of its neighbours to form the modern states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. My father M.K Shastri sits in the inner semi-circle in the white shirt on the right. He was fluent in Urdu, and became the Editor of Debates and the warden of M.L.A Quarters. Until this day of the formation of Andhra Pradesh, the independent state of Hyderabad was ruled by the Nizam and his family since the 18th century. I remember it was a very exciting day in Hyderabad and everyone was dressed up well. My father wore a beautiful sherwani. I insisted that I be taken along to the assembly on this important day in Indian History. There were two galleries for people to watch the moment take place. The Speakers gallery and the Visitors gallery, and my father got us a pass to the Speakers gallery. Most people of Hyderabad state were happy that that this moment in history had taken place. Everything had began to change when…

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A serious family photograph

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…

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