Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India, page 3
Hindu India was under the domination of Muslim rulers from the late twelfth century until the nineteenth century. What struck me as I sat reading on the floor of Babaji's office was that my family, without being told to do so, never ceased fulfilling its destiny as scribes. Were we choosing freely? Or was Brahma, with the image of the man with the quill and inkpot firmly before him, tugging at strings attached to the left side of our brains—or is it the right side—generation after generation?
At a time when most Hindu families kept their distance from Muslim families, ours not only went to work for Muslim rulers but mastered their court language, Persian, with such zeal that we were relied upon to write history, keep records, and manage taxes and accounts.
This Muslim influence did not just “stay at the office.” It went to the core of the men's being, affecting their etiquette and manners, even their style of courtship. When they came home, they changed into Muslim-style clothes—white-on-white kurtas embroidered in Lucknow on top of loose white pajamas—and amused themselves with recitations of Persian poetry, some of which they composed themselves, and the pursuit of art and literature. Indeed, when my grandfather's grandfather Rai Bahadur Jeewan Lal died, the Statesman, dated May 3, 1884, declared his collection of old and rare Persian books, architectural plans, and miniature paintings to be most valuable and unique, and stated that “in him we have lost perhaps the best informed student of Indian history in North India.”
I remember once, just before the Partition of India in 1947, when Hindu-Muslim angers were running deep, a Hindu school friend chastised me for being too “broad-minded,” as if it were a sin, and then dismissed me, saying, “Well, you Mathur Kayasthas are half Muslim anyway!”
There was indeed a strong overlay of Muslim culture in our house, and a genuine spirit of tolerance towards all faiths, leading
My eldest aunt, Bhuaji, thirteen years old, with the groom on her wedding day. She wears fashionable izars (culottes) in rich damask and is laden with jewelry, including a gold jhumar (head ornament) in Muslim style, a large gold nose-ring, and six pairs of anklets.
to a strange split between the highly educated men and the less educated women. If the men spoke Persian and Urdu, the women kept up their Hindi and read the holy Ramayana from front to back each year. If the men drank and ate kebabs, the women served them willingly enough but went back into the kitchen to prepare meals that included kadhi (a thick chickpea-flour soup with dumplings), potatoes with ginger, and summer squashes with tomato and cumin.
The women's clothing was a mixture of Muslim and Hindu.
My mother and all my aunts were raised wearing the izars and kurtis of the Muslim world, culottelike loose pants either embroidered for special occasions or made of chintz, and small thigh-length shirts. Once they married, they moved on to lahangas, traditional Hindu long skirts. They did not wear the more modern saree until the 1920s, when my grandfather bought identically designed sarees by the dozen and doled them out to all the women of the house.
In spite of the Islamic influence, neither the men nor the women ever veered from being completely Hindu. Jeewan Lal may have been a great Persian scholar, but he was also a master of Sanskrit. If the men greeted their friends by raising a hand to the forehead in a very Muslim salaam or aadaab, they greeted the family with joined palms and a solid “Jai Ramji Ki” (“Praise be to Lord Rama”).
Yet another influence was to enter our family's life: that of the British. Were we going to turn half British, too?
THREE
British Rule • The Record-Keeper • Mutiny of 1857 • The Reward
When British rule was extended to Delhi in the early part of the nineteenth century, the court of a “resident” (best compared to a governor) was established there. The British capital remained, for the time being, in Calcutta. Many of the Indian rulers, struggling for influence with the newest power, sent their emissaries to this court. The Nawab of Kunjpura sent a trusted lawyer, Girdhari Lal, who was the father of the main character in our family history book, Jeewan Lal. The resident, Sir David Ochterlony, took to him to such an extent that he tried to steal him away with the offer of a job as his munshi, or record-keeper. Feeling he would be disloyal to the nawab at a critical time in the nation's history, he refused, but cleverly suggested his son for the job, saying that by taking his son the resident would get two for the price of one, as he himself would, naturally, give his son all necessary assistance. And so Jeewan Lal came to be employed by the British, first under Lord Ochterlony and then under Sir T. T. Metcalfe, rising to the rank of mir munshi, chief record-keeper and honorary magistrate. The men of our family who once knew Persian now had also learned English. The British side of our family saga had begun.
We now reach the period of the 1857 Mutiny. The British declared it a mutiny as it did start with a rebellion by Indian foot soldiers, Hindus and Muslims alike, angry at being forced to use cow and pig grease on their bullets. It soon grew into a nationwide, protracted, and very bloody insurrection against the British, an endless series of battles that were joined on the Indian side by provincial chiefs, nawabs, rajas, masses of Indian soldiers and common folk. The Moghul emperor dithered at first, but in the end joined the rebellion. Many decades later, the first Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was to call this the First Indian War of Independence.
Eventually, the colonial rulers prevailed, though not without the help of reliable “loyalists” like Jeewan Lal. For this and his general services, Jeewan Lal was given the title of “Rai Bahadur” by the viceroy and governor-general of India, Lord Lytton. (The Moghul emperor was banished to Burma. Nearly all the citizens of Delhi were expelled.) Jeewan Lal was also offered a substantial reward, but he turned it down, saying that he had more than enough for his needs.
This refusal was to haunt the family later, when it fell on hard times. As a “loyalist,” Rai Bahadur Jeewan Lal had suffered irreparable losses during the Mutiny. Here I quote from his diary:
May 11, 1857 … Sohan [a servant] also stated that he heard the city badmashe.s [miscreants], who were pointing out to the rebels the abode of the nobles of the town, utter my name also, and say that they should repair to the house of the Mir Munshi of the Agent and Commissioner and plunder it. “I tell you for the sake of loyalty,” said Sohan, “that you close the gates of your house and put heavy locks on them so that no badmash may enter the house and create disturbance.” Accordingly, the writer forthwith made the necessary arrangements. Although the house I lived in was very spacious and strong like a fort and had very large stones from the Kotla [Fortress] of Ferozshah put in its foundation … I found it advisable to lock both the gates and put heavy locks on them. I hid myself in the dark taikhana [cellar] built of the same stones and above it stationed my servants as guards to keep watch and give me information if any persons came here … and, considering for what a long time I have been eating the salt of the Government [deriving my bread and butter from the Government], and was its well-wisher, and that this was a time to repay it all and try with my heart and soul for my masters, I appointed the same Sohan to go to Sir John Metcalfe …, tender my respects to them, and ask them to give me orders for whatever service they might wish me to perform.
May 12: Two Mooglee Telungas [rebel soldiers] came to my house and made a disturbance. [We] paid them four rupees and made them go away.
May 13: Two other rebel soldiers entered my house, and took away my goods—viz., carpet, door, pillows, books, and one box containing cash and jewels and shawls, etc., value 2000 rupees.
May 19: [Miscreants] reached my house by climbing from roof to roof of adjacent houses, and plundered it, taking away women's jewels, carpets, etc., value 2500 rupees.
May 23: Rebel soldiers, hearing that I was sending news to the British officers, and being exasperated at their fruitless search after me, demolished all the buildings in my garden, and plucked off fruit from trees, inflicting a loss of 3000 rupees.
July 1: Bahadur, gardener, came and reported that the rebels had gone to my garden … cut down the trees, and carried them away.
July 19: … came to me wearing the King's [Moghul emperor's] livery and threatened me saying, “The King's [Moghul emperor's] rule is now established, not a trace of the English is left, your kamra [city room or office] in Chandni Chowk [the main street in the Old City] is in my possession, bring out the title deed, etc., and deliver them to me….” So I gave him the title deeds and wrote the lease, upon which he became the owner of my premises, worth 5000 rupees.
August 1: The [Moghul] King's officials … demand that I present myself with Rs. 50,000.I recite the following verse in my mind: God rescue me from this trouble / No one [but thee] knows what is passing in my mind.
August 4: Nazir Ali, Thanedar [Jail Superintendent] of the Emperor, came to arrest me … accompanied by one hundred rebel soldiers with unsheathed swords in their hands…. The females of my family were sitting by Maharaja Lal [his second son], who was suffering dreadfully in those days, the stone having been recently extracted from his bladder, and ran pell-mell to the upper story at the sight of the rebels. The rebels took away th epaandan [betel box] containing jewels left by the females. The writer was arrested and, placed in a palanquin, carried under the escort of the rebels, holding naked swords in hand, to the kotwali [police station]. [Here] an old subedar [sergeant] … ran up to stab me with his drawn dagger, shouting, “This is the man who sends news to the English.” [Jeewan Lal was rescued by a Moghul friend.]
It was the custom then for one man, the head of a household that included children and grandchildren, to be responsible, financially and otherwise, for all of them. That was the joint-family system. The family coffers had been emptied during the Mutiny. Rai Bahadur Jeewan Lal's death in 1884 was soon followed by that of his eldest son. His next son, Maharaja Lal, unable to work because of severe deafness, appealed to the British government for the reward that the family had once refused. He asked that the younger generation, which included
My grandparents, circa 1926, some of the clan, and the two Number 7 family dogs. The sarees were ordered in bulk by my grandfather and are here worn in the old-fashioned way with a pin at the shoulder. Back row: Prakashdada, Saran Bhua, Shibbudada, Taoji, my father, Kiran Bhua. Middle row: Bhuaji, Taiji (Shibbudada's wife), Bari Taiji (Chand Narains wife), Babaji, Bari Bauwa, my mother, Shammo Bhua. Front row: Anup Jija, Raghudada, Kripaldada, Prem Bhua, Harish Bhaisa'ab, Kailashdada, Brijdada.
my grandfather, be given a chance at sitting for entrance examinations at London law schools.
My grandfather, Raj Narain, was barely twenty-one and already a student at St. Stephen's College in Delhi. Even his college submitted a petition for him. In the end, my grandfather did go to London, and the reward, consisting of land and villages outside Delhi, did come through. Some of this was sold, the money used both for education and to purchase the orchard estate, a huge piece of land that was procured by the joint family and then divided up among them. My grandfather ended up with a choice among curving plot overlooking the Yamuna River, Number 7. His younger brother lived next door, in Number 16; his elder brother's family was down the road, in Number 8; his cousins in Number 4, and so on. The numbers were picked haphazardly, according to personal preferences. Our entire neighborhood consisted of family, several generations in each large house.
FOUR
The Freedom of Kanpur • My Mother and Father • A Fairy-Tale Marriage • A Desire to Excel
I was born on August 13, 1933, on the night of Janmashtmi, the dark eighth day of the waning moon, the feast day of Lord Krishna's birth, in my grandfather's orchard house. I was delivered by Dr. Keany, a British missionary lady-doctor, while my sister Kamal banged at the door and cried because she was not allowed in. In the India of that time, you were what your family was (I borrow shamelessly from Brillat-Savarin), and my family was a hybrid: it was Hindu by origin but heavily veneered with Muslim culture and English education; it considered itself very liberal but lived by the ancient rules of the joint-family system, whereby men dominated, only men made it to history books, and all marriages were with other Kayasthas—more inkpot and quill. I may have been born with honey on my tongue, but I was also born squirming against the status quo.
When I was about two, my father took a job as the manager of a ghee (clarified butter) factory. This was not real ghee but the hydrogenated cooking-oil variety, a kind of shortening known in India as vanaspati. The factory, Ganesh Flour Mills, was owned by my father's cousins, in fact the cousins who lived at Number 4, so it was all in the family. Except that the factory was not in Delhi but in Kanpur (Cawnpore in those days), an overnight journey by train.
All through my grown-up life I have written many times about Kanpur, but I have rarely identified it—I have always merged it with Delhi. They were really quite distinct. But in my childhood memory we would leave the house in Kanpur, get into our car, drive along the gardens, go through the high, gated walls, fall asleep in a train, and pass through a less severe, white-painted gate and down another drive, and there, in front of us, would be the Delhi house, Number 7. Both houses were our homes, and they were seamlessly adjacent.
At this stage, my parents, whom we called Dadaji and Bauwa, had five children: my two older brothers, Brij and Bhaiyya; my sisters, Lalit and Kamal; and me. Brijdada and Bhaiyyadada (the “dada” being a term added out of respect for older men, especially brothers) were twelve and ten years old, and already going through the rigors of Delhi's Modern School. Pulling them out was considered a very bad idea, so they were left under the general supervision of the joint family, with my middle uncle, Shib-budada, keeping a special eye on them. I was just two. My schooling had not even begun. Lalit at seven, and Kamal at five, were at Queen Mary's School, but so bright that a move for them at that age was not considered a problem at all.
Our years in Kanpur were such a happy time for my parents. My father was freed from orbiting around as second fiddle in the rarefied spheres of his autocratic father and his highly popular, music-loving, entrepreneurial middle brother, Shibbudada. My mother did not have to be a dutiful daughter-in-law or sister-in-law or aunt. She could just be a mother and wife. Kanpur was the only place my parents thrived.
My father, Kamal, Lalit, my mother, and me on holiday in the hills in about 1936.
Even though they were in Kanpur for eight years, Delhi remained their official home. My grandfather would not have it otherwise: he loosened the strings only so far. Thus every holiday we returned to Delhi, to the same room where I was born, the room that balanced out my grandfather's large room at the back of the house. When my father wanted to buy a separate house in New Delhi for himself, my grandfather said no and my father fell silent. That is how the joint-family system, the respect-for-elders routine, worked.
My father, Dadaji, was one of the best-looking men I knew. He was tall—well, tallish by Western standards, about five foot eleven—straight-backed, and even-featured, with fine dark hair that he parted on the side and then brushed backwards with his English brushes. His clothes were British, all arranged very neatly on hangers by my mother, tweeds for the winter and khakis for the summer. For formal occasions he had Muslim-style achkans (like Nehru jackets but knee-length) in different weights of wools and cottons, which he wore with tight churidar pajamas (tight poplin “leggings” with extra folds at the bottom). He dressed, smoked, and drove his ever-changing British and American cars with the style of a man about town.
My mother, Bauwa, was just as short as my father was tall: on a good day she might have reached five feet. So she always wore heels to compensate. When she was born, she was so startlingly light-skinned that her family bestowed upon her the name Kash-miran Rani (Queen of Kashmir), which signified the height of beauty. Her face, as sweet and open as her nature, could be classified as softly pretty, but in the India of that time her color and smooth skin were enough to lift her into a special class of the “highly desirable.”
She, too, dressed with uncommon flair, but, although her taste was impeccable, perhaps because of her size and rounded frame, she lacked my father's flamboyance. She wore only sarees: cottons in the day; printed silks for simple shopping excursions; chiffons,
My parents, stylish in their summer whites, in the mango orchard of Number 7.
fons, georgettes, and heavy Benaresi or South Indian silks for evening parties. Her cupboards were as neat as my father's— naturally, as she was everybody's cupboard-keeper. The cottons, nicely starched by the dhobi (laundryman), were stacked one on top of another on shelves, the everyday silks were on hangers, but a very special treatment was reserved for the dressier sarees. My meticulous mother would first get rectangles of heavy cardboard, all cut to the same size, about sixteen inches by thirteen inches. She covered each with sturdy brown paper. She would then take a saree and fold it into a very long rectangle the same width as the cardboard, place the cardboard in the center of this rectangle, and fold the saree over it in thirds. That was not all. Muslin, bought by the bolt, had been cut into large squares. Each folded saree was then enfolded again in the muslin, like putting a letter in a freshly made envelope.
Bauwa had hundreds of heavy, dressy sarees. Some that she wore regularly were in her cupboard, and others, not in use, were stashed in trunks and stowed away. When she needed to wear one, it was unwrapped. It came out of the muslin and off the cardboard and was then draped on her body as she stood in front of her long dressing-table mirror. When she returned home, she undraped the saree, folded it up, put it on the cardboard, and wrapped it again in muslin. The girls, generally in identical dresses, stood in a row and watched. We, her daughters, have most of her sarees now. They are all in perfect condition.
