The first Indian woman to perform on New York Broadway

The first Indian woman to perform on New York Broadway
Gopal Sharman & Jalabala Vaidya. Rome, Italy. 1967

Gopal Sharman & Jalabala Vaidya. Rome, Italy. 1967 Image courtesy Akshara Theatre Archive. Narrative points by Jalabala Vaidya, New Delhi Volunteer Assistance : Myra Khanna, Delhi I was born in London (UK) in 1936. My English-Italian mother, Marjorie Frank-Keyes was a concert singer and my father Suresh Vaidya was a successful young writer. He was also on the editorial board of Time Magazine in London. My father was arrested by the British authorities when he refused to join the British Army to fight in World War II. He declared he would gladly fight as a free man, but not as a colonial subject. He was imprisoned in Canterbury and fought and won a case in the British Court. His case was defended by well known lawyers like Sir Fenner Brockway and Lord Reginald Sorensen. In a landmark judgment, the court ruled that the British Army could not compel a person to fight because he was a colonial subject. Of course I was one my feisty parents’ two daughters. I completed my schooling in London then in Bombay (now Mumbai). Later I graduated from Miranda House, standing third in Delhi University. I was also actively involved in theatre and was awarded the best actress for performing sections from Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. Later, I began working with Link Magazine in Delhi as a journalist that also had a daily paper called The Patriot. Gopal Sharman was suggested to us as an independent writer who could write very well on the arts. Up until then I had been writing them. In the 1950s, at the office, I was in charge of putting the month’s issue to bed and I had been told…

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My mother’s journey from India to England

My mother’s journey from India to England
My mother Dr. Rehana Bashir (middle with sunglasses) at the Bombay Airport with her friends and family. Bombay, Maharashtra. March 31, 1957

My mother Dr. Rehana Bashir (middle with sunglasses) at the Bombay Airport with her friends and family. Bombay, Maharashtra. March 31, 1957 Image and Narrative contributed by Sohail Akbar, New Delhi This photograph, as the handwriting below tells us was taken on the 31st of March, 1957 at Bombay Airport, Santacruz. Among the many photographs that adorn a very beautiful album maintained by my mother, Dr. Rehana Bashir, I find this picture the most fascinating, perhaps because of my love for airplanes and airports but also because it is the first picture of a photo album that is primarily a pretext to my mother’s life in England as a student. This picture is clearly my mother’s favourite too as it the opening image of that album. My mother Rehana was the only daughter born to Prof. Bashiruddin and his wife Shafiq Begum (standing left most in the picture) in 1930. Her father was a Professor at the Aligarh Muslim University and was a true modernist. He sent his daughter to St Mary’s Convent in Allahabad (UP), one of the best missionary schools in the state. She did well in studies and qualified to study Medicine at Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi. The year was 1949 and India had only recently achieved Independence, though the scars of partition were very visible. The best story that she has about going to study in Delhi is the scare that her father’s friends had tried to instill in his mind - of sending a young Muslim girl to study alone in a city where a number of people of the community had lost their lives in the partition riots. But my maternal grandfather was…

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“My grandparents were staunch political rivals”

“My grandparents were staunch political rivals”
My grandparents' wedding. Gaya, Bihar. 1956

My grandparents' wedding. Gaya, Bihar. 1956 Image and Narrative contributed by Richa Srivastava, Mumbai My grandmother, Sushila Sahay whom we called Nani, was born in Jila (District) Hoshangabad in 1926 in the Central Provision, now known as the state of Madhya Pradesh. A daughter of a Forest officer, she was brought up in Dehradun in Uttar Pradesh. When she was 13 years old, Nani heard that Mahatama Gandhi was visiting Mussoorie and she travelled to hear him speak. Heavily influenced by Gandhi’s words, she met with him and declared her wish to be involved his Ashram, the Sabarmati Ashram. However, Gandhi recommended that she finish her education first. She heard him out, but to feel associated with the movement, she began to wear only Khadi clothes, worked to uplift the Harijan groups, who were considered Untouchable in the conservative caste system of India. And when she finished her Bachelor’s degree, she did joined the Ashram. However, by then Gandhi has been assassinated. My grandfather, Dayanand Sahay, whom we called Nana, was born in 1928, in a village called Bhadvar in Bihar to a conservative family. By the time he grew up he had already lost many siblings to the fight for freedom. He became a Sarvodaya Activist, that propagated Gandhi’s political philosophies. Later, he joined the Shakho Deora ashram in Gaya district, a branch of the Gandhi ashram established by Jayaprakash Narayan, popularly referred to as JP or Lok Nayak (people's leader). In the 1950s, my grandmother would travel to the ashram in Gaya with a few other women and that is where my grandparents met. At the Gandhi Ashram however, every member was considered a brother or a sister and in the beginning she also tied a Rakhi…

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Nehru signed his name in Devanagari script

Nehru signed his name in Devanagari script
Jawahar Lal Nehru, my brother Bruce and I, at the Air Force Station, Adampur, Punjab, India. Circa 1955

Jawahar Lal Nehru, my brother Bruce and I, at the Air Force Station, Adampur, Punjab, India. Circa 1955 Image and Narrative contributed by Brian Fernandez, Maharashtra This image has my three year old brother Bruce on my left, and I, four years old, gazing with awe and wonder at the unmistakable icon, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru signing my father’s autograph book. And it has several fond and sad memories attached with it. Nehru had arrived at Adampur, on a whistle-stop election tour, in an Illyushin aircraft of the IAF (Indian Air Force). I can still vividly remember the twin-engine, grey aircraft with its distinctive, clipped wings. I believe these aircrafts were in service for many years after that, into the 70s. The IAF also had a squadron of Vampire aircrafts ( plywood, twin-rudder, jet- fighter aircrafts ). Our family - my Dad, Mum, and younger brothers Bruce & Barry used to live by the airstrip, in a huge canvas tent which was the standard Officers’ accommodation in those days, before we moved to Adampur village. My father Captain L. T. Fernandez, an Army pilot, was posted to an Air Observation Post (AOP) Flight, based in Adampur and flying the propeller driven Harvard. He retired in 1981 as a Colonel in the Regiment of Artillery and passed away a year after my mother, in 2009. Somewhere along the way we misplaced my late father’s autograph book on which Pandit Ji's signature was taken. But what I do remember is that Jawaharlal Nehru signed his name in Devanagari (hindi) script. This photograph is special to me, because it also reminds me of Bruce, my younger brother who suddenly died at…

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