A Life
Fascinating story of my aunt Premalya's life from pre partition, to Independence in 1947, to her development as a sculptor.
Born in December, 1929, in a place called Abbottabad in the North West Frontier Province (now in Pakistan), I belonged to a well established old family and grew up amidst lots of love and laughter, with cousins, siblings, friends. From my earliest memories, though the family owned a lot of property, money, or the acquiring of it, was never considered a priority. Art, culture, current events were much more important.
Our maternal grandfather was a lawyer in Lahore (now also in Pakistan) and we had highly educated uncles, aunts and cousins. My eldest uncle qualified in Ceramics in 1928 and for years headed the largest pottery factory in Asia.
My paternal grandfather bought land, hills and forests, and built houses and hotels in many parts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). He also started several schools for boys and girls and built Government House, the summer residence of the British governor. He sent two of his 5 sons to the UK, who came back as barristers. All the sons looked after his affairs and lived together as a huge joint family, in a house that later became a hotel. My father, the youngest, was inseperable from his horse, called Pali. This became my father’s pet-name as well and he is still remembered as Paliji in his erstwhile hometown area. But, by the time I was born, besides my father, only one barrister uncle was alive -- all the others had passed away.
Our lives centred around the girls’ school, one of the many founded by our grandfather, which our aunt, wife of our surviving uncle, ensured continued to provide quality education. We spent our summers in the beautiful hills where our parents were running a rambling hotel, usually for families of British officers and administrators escaping the heat of the plains. During the longer winter holidays we spent time at our ancestral village near Rawal Pindi, where considerable land was leased out to share crop farmers and the highlight, visits to our maternal grandfather in Lahore, where we got so much love and enjoyed the company and friendship of our cousins. Besides, there was the glamour of city life -- big shops, movies and rides in grandfather’s huge Chevrolet.
With so much travelling, I cannot imagine how all of us managed to finish school. But all my siblings got good educations. My father saw to that!
Our family was also politically involved with the freedom movement. We were great admirers of The Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and he was also very fond of us. When any of the national leaders came to the frontier and visited Abbottabad they would stay at my Uncle’s place. Gandhiji was once there for almost a month. Ghaffar Khan and Gandhiji made a deep impact on us in many ways. We wore handspun khadi cloth and joined processions demanding our freedom. Though I was still in my early teens I remember shouting QUIT INDIA with great gusto.
Around the time I was born, the winter of 1929-30 was a very historic and traumatic time. My father went all the way to Lahore with three of his young children aged 12, 10 and 5 to join the massive protests and efforts to defend the case against Bhagat Singh, Dutt and other martyrs who were being tried at the time. Also to attend the processions, one of which was led by young Nehru on a white horse, and meetings leading up to the momentous declaration on January 26th, 1930 that we would settle for nothing short of complete independence – `Puran Swaraj’.
Mind you, our parents had many British friends. My father was a rover scout and held camps for boy scouts. He also organised football matches. The finals were always a big event -- army bands, bagpipes and 5 gleaming trophies being presented by some senior British officer. My mother also had very sweet British lady friends who had spiritual interests in common with her. This, for me, was the greatness of the freedom movement. Inspite fighting non-violently for freedom there were such friendships.
At the time of Partition in 1947 I was at Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore, like my sisters and cousins before me. It was a Methodist Christian college and we loved singing hymns, the Bible being part of our studies.
When Partition was finally declared, we were on holiday in Srinagar, living in a house boat. It was difficult to realise that we might never go back to our home in Abbottabad. Despite a very uncertain future we rejoiced, celebrated and listened raptly to a small radio airing Nehru’s famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech which he addressed to the newly formed Parliament at midnight of August 15th, 1947.
Soon after, troubles started and we were evacuated from Srinagar to Delhi by air
with nothing but our personal belongings. We descended on a cousin and his family. The caring and love we received can never be forgotten. It was a lesson. We then moved to a small town called Dehra Dun and were supported by half of my elder brother’s salary. My youngest brother joined school and my sister and I started teaching, I for half a day. This way I was able to join the studio of a famous art teacher, Sudhir Khastagir to learn sculpture. Even as a child I was interested in art and the miracle is that, despite the great upheaval, losing everything, my parents, especially father, saw to it that after a year I went to Kala Bhawan, Shantiniketan as dreamt and planned years earlier. Some spirit he had.
The principal was Nandlal Bose, a legend in the art world, and the sculpture teacher was Ramkinker Baij, one of the best in the world. I had some of my happiest years there. We were surrounded by Santhal villages, dark polished brown, bare-chested men and women with just a strip of white cloth on them and flowers in their hair, singing and laughing and at home with nature. Shantiniketan -- the abode of peace. Besides art there were schools of classical music and dance, language studies for Chinese, French, Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu and a children’s school, where many of the classes, from Tagore’s times, were held under the trees. We sang songs written by Tagore for each season, celebrating the full moon nights, the different flowering trees, making us aware of the glory of nature around us. His dance dramas and plays were staged there. Famous visitors from all over the world, East and West, gave talks. The students were also from around the world. It was a rich life, that opened my mind to exciting creative experimentation.
Home for the summer holidays, I discovered that my father had slowly given up all hope and finally realised that he would never go back to his home. He lost interest in living and became ill, bedridden and, at the age of 52, with his whole family around him, he died. It was the end of a chapter.
I went back to Shantiniketan for one term to wrap things up and then joined my family, who had moved back to Delhi. I got admitted to the Delhi College of Art and within two years happy things happened. My eldest sister had twins after eight years of marriage. I got married to a young diplomat, distant kin, and we left for our first posting to Central Africa. My middle sister met and married a wonderful army officer and little brother topped his exams, graduated and landed a good job in the corporate world.
I was 23, very enthusiastic to serve our country, the world, to bring freedom to Africa from colonial rule, ready to love everybody. It was difficult at first. We were the only non-white diplomats but we soon made a place for ourselves. We were young, handsome and sincere. Our home became the centre for people of all colours to meet. African leaders, journalists, white and black, visiting authors writing on Africa, real and doubtful liberals, Christian and technical missionaries and diplomats. My best friends were Ellen and David, European refugees from World War II. David was a sculptor. In their home for the first time we met many other interesting Europeans, who talked of art and music, not just politics.
We were posted to many different countries with very different cultures and customs. Central Africa, oppressed, restless and on the edge of the great leap into the abyss -- Freedom. Whatever, whichever way the path led. Holland, at that time very formal and correct, still suffering from the after-effects of the 2nd World War. Full of intellectual life. Tinbergen, Khalastine, so many brilliant people who were accessible and very friendly. The great art, the museums, Fran Hals, Rembrandts, the impressionists. The land of Van Gogh. But art there was not part of the daily life of the people as it was in Thailand, our next posting. Such delicacy and fineness in the people. They lived art.
Our life touched some of the most wonderful people in every country. We were in New York, Nepal, West Asia and Caracas. Maybe because of our very open and unrigid upbringing, though I always dressed in traditional indian clothes, mostly the sari, I never thought of different people as different. I was always at home with them and never felt odd, or thought them strange. There was always a cord, a communion with so many everywhere and I would laughingly say, “we must have been brothers in our previous birth”.
While abroad we met not only artists from different countries, we cherished the friendship of some of India’s greatest artists, who would sit and talk or draw and paint right before our eyes.
My work, like me, is Indian, but perhaps all the influence of the world that I absorbed are also inherent. But then that is being a true Indian.
Born in December, 1929, in a place called Abbottabad in the North West Frontier Province (now in Pakistan), I belonged to a well established old family and grew up amidst lots of love and laughter, with cousins, siblings, friends. From my earliest memories, though the family owned a lot of property, money, or the acquiring of it, was never considered a priority. Art, culture, current events were much more important.
Our maternal grandfather was a lawyer in Lahore (now also in Pakistan) and we had highly educated uncles, aunts and cousins. My eldest uncle qualified in Ceramics in 1928 and for years headed the largest pottery factory in Asia.
My paternal grandfather bought land, hills and forests, and built houses and hotels in many parts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). He also started several schools for boys and girls and built Government House, the summer residence of the British governor. He sent two of his 5 sons to the UK, who came back as barristers. All the sons looked after his affairs and lived together as a huge joint family, in a house that later became a hotel. My father, the youngest, was inseperable from his horse, called Pali. This became my father’s pet-name as well and he is still remembered as Paliji in his erstwhile hometown area. But, by the time I was born, besides my father, only one barrister uncle was alive -- all the others had passed away.
Our lives centred around the girls’ school, one of the many founded by our grandfather, which our aunt, wife of our surviving uncle, ensured continued to provide quality education. We spent our summers in the beautiful hills where our parents were running a rambling hotel, usually for families of British officers and administrators escaping the heat of the plains. During the longer winter holidays we spent time at our ancestral village near Rawal Pindi, where considerable land was leased out to share crop farmers and the highlight, visits to our maternal grandfather in Lahore, where we got so much love and enjoyed the company and friendship of our cousins. Besides, there was the glamour of city life -- big shops, movies and rides in grandfather’s huge Chevrolet.
With so much travelling, I cannot imagine how all of us managed to finish school. But all my siblings got good educations. My father saw to that!
Our family was also politically involved with the freedom movement. We were great admirers of The Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and he was also very fond of us. When any of the national leaders came to the frontier and visited Abbottabad they would stay at my Uncle’s place. Gandhiji was once there for almost a month. Ghaffar Khan and Gandhiji made a deep impact on us in many ways. We wore handspun khadi cloth and joined processions demanding our freedom. Though I was still in my early teens I remember shouting QUIT INDIA with great gusto.
Around the time I was born, the winter of 1929-30 was a very historic and traumatic time. My father went all the way to Lahore with three of his young children aged 12, 10 and 5 to join the massive protests and efforts to defend the case against Bhagat Singh, Dutt and other martyrs who were being tried at the time. Also to attend the processions, one of which was led by young Nehru on a white horse, and meetings leading up to the momentous declaration on January 26th, 1930 that we would settle for nothing short of complete independence – `Puran Swaraj’.
Mind you, our parents had many British friends. My father was a rover scout and held camps for boy scouts. He also organised football matches. The finals were always a big event -- army bands, bagpipes and 5 gleaming trophies being presented by some senior British officer. My mother also had very sweet British lady friends who had spiritual interests in common with her. This, for me, was the greatness of the freedom movement. Inspite fighting non-violently for freedom there were such friendships.
At the time of Partition in 1947 I was at Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore, like my sisters and cousins before me. It was a Methodist Christian college and we loved singing hymns, the Bible being part of our studies.
When Partition was finally declared, we were on holiday in Srinagar, living in a house boat. It was difficult to realise that we might never go back to our home in Abbottabad. Despite a very uncertain future we rejoiced, celebrated and listened raptly to a small radio airing Nehru’s famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech which he addressed to the newly formed Parliament at midnight of August 15th, 1947.
Soon after, troubles started and we were evacuated from Srinagar to Delhi by air
with nothing but our personal belongings. We descended on a cousin and his family. The caring and love we received can never be forgotten. It was a lesson. We then moved to a small town called Dehra Dun and were supported by half of my elder brother’s salary. My youngest brother joined school and my sister and I started teaching, I for half a day. This way I was able to join the studio of a famous art teacher, Sudhir Khastagir to learn sculpture. Even as a child I was interested in art and the miracle is that, despite the great upheaval, losing everything, my parents, especially father, saw to it that after a year I went to Kala Bhawan, Shantiniketan as dreamt and planned years earlier. Some spirit he had.
The principal was Nandlal Bose, a legend in the art world, and the sculpture teacher was Ramkinker Baij, one of the best in the world. I had some of my happiest years there. We were surrounded by Santhal villages, dark polished brown, bare-chested men and women with just a strip of white cloth on them and flowers in their hair, singing and laughing and at home with nature. Shantiniketan -- the abode of peace. Besides art there were schools of classical music and dance, language studies for Chinese, French, Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu and a children’s school, where many of the classes, from Tagore’s times, were held under the trees. We sang songs written by Tagore for each season, celebrating the full moon nights, the different flowering trees, making us aware of the glory of nature around us. His dance dramas and plays were staged there. Famous visitors from all over the world, East and West, gave talks. The students were also from around the world. It was a rich life, that opened my mind to exciting creative experimentation.
Home for the summer holidays, I discovered that my father had slowly given up all hope and finally realised that he would never go back to his home. He lost interest in living and became ill, bedridden and, at the age of 52, with his whole family around him, he died. It was the end of a chapter.
I went back to Shantiniketan for one term to wrap things up and then joined my family, who had moved back to Delhi. I got admitted to the Delhi College of Art and within two years happy things happened. My eldest sister had twins after eight years of marriage. I got married to a young diplomat, distant kin, and we left for our first posting to Central Africa. My middle sister met and married a wonderful army officer and little brother topped his exams, graduated and landed a good job in the corporate world.
I was 23, very enthusiastic to serve our country, the world, to bring freedom to Africa from colonial rule, ready to love everybody. It was difficult at first. We were the only non-white diplomats but we soon made a place for ourselves. We were young, handsome and sincere. Our home became the centre for people of all colours to meet. African leaders, journalists, white and black, visiting authors writing on Africa, real and doubtful liberals, Christian and technical missionaries and diplomats. My best friends were Ellen and David, European refugees from World War II. David was a sculptor. In their home for the first time we met many other interesting Europeans, who talked of art and music, not just politics.
We were posted to many different countries with very different cultures and customs. Central Africa, oppressed, restless and on the edge of the great leap into the abyss -- Freedom. Whatever, whichever way the path led. Holland, at that time very formal and correct, still suffering from the after-effects of the 2nd World War. Full of intellectual life. Tinbergen, Khalastine, so many brilliant people who were accessible and very friendly. The great art, the museums, Fran Hals, Rembrandts, the impressionists. The land of Van Gogh. But art there was not part of the daily life of the people as it was in Thailand, our next posting. Such delicacy and fineness in the people. They lived art.
Our life touched some of the most wonderful people in every country. We were in New York, Nepal, West Asia and Caracas. Maybe because of our very open and unrigid upbringing, though I always dressed in traditional indian clothes, mostly the sari, I never thought of different people as different. I was always at home with them and never felt odd, or thought them strange. There was always a cord, a communion with so many everywhere and I would laughingly say, “we must have been brothers in our previous birth”.
While abroad we met not only artists from different countries, we cherished the friendship of some of India’s greatest artists, who would sit and talk or draw and paint right before our eyes.
My work, like me, is Indian, but perhaps all the influence of the world that I absorbed are also inherent. But then that is being a true Indian.
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