Life Back Then

Vijay studied in Delhi at Jain Primary School Chandni Chowk, Ramjas School No. 1, Hindu College, and Delhi School of Economics (M.A.). He went on to study at the University of Alberta, University of Sheffield, and got his Ph.D. from Michigan State University. At the Delhi School of Economics, he was part of the first batch of students taught by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. At Delhi’s Institute of Economic Growth, he was a research assistant to P.N. Dhar and also assisted V.K.R.V. Rao in his research. He is the author of several technical books on Statistics. He was a professor at Catholic University and Bowling Green State University (BGSU), and is now Professor Emeritus at BGSU. He lives in Potomac Falls, VA. His e-mail is vrohatg@bgsu.edu

Chandni Chowk

My family has lived on Dharampura gali (street) in Chandni Chowk - the heart of old Delhi -for many decades.

Our house is about half a mile from the Red Fort (Lal Kila) and less than half a mile from the Jama Masjid. You can see both monuments from the roof of my Delhi home.

Dr. Kadri, a surgeon, lives in New Zealand. He was born in 1927, and grew up in Ahmedabad.

Editor's note: This article originally appeared on http://posterous.com/site/profile/munirsmemories It is reproduced here with Dr. Kadri's consent.

From time to time we used to visit our relatives in Baroda (now Vadodara). Back then, in the 1930s, it was the capital of the princely state of Baroda, the Maratha kingdom of Gaekwad.

Our relatives came from the nawab family that ruled Baroda before it was conquered by the Marathas. They were a joint family of three brothers, living together under the same roof in the traditional Indian manner at their grand home called Nawab Manzil.

Shenoi, a civil engineer and MBA, rose to the rank of Deputy Director-General of Works in the Indian Defence Service of Engineers. He has also been a member of HUDCO’s advisory board and of the planning team for Navi Mumbai. After retirement he has been helping NGOs in employment-oriented training, writing articles related to all aspects of housing, urban settlements, infrastructure, project and facility management and advising several companies on these issues. His email id is mpvshanoi@gmail.com.

In the 1940s, I was a young boy living in Mysore, which was a Princely State at that time.

If I stepped into main street from our house in Mysore, and walked due east, I would soon come to the Ane-karoti stables, which housed the elephants belonging to royal household of Mysore. I am not sure whether any elephants were still a part of the bits and pieces of the purely ceremonial Mysore army that the ruling British had allowed to be maintained. Like the army, the elephants in the stable were mostly ceremonial. They were brought out on special occasions such as Dussera, birth day of Maharaja, Yuvaraja (crown prince), and the yearly chariot procession of the Gods’ of the temples that were within the palace precincts. On these occasions, the elephants were draped in embroidered fabrics, gold plated trinkets and floral design painted on skin.

John, born 1926 in the U.S., got his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics after studying at Yale and Northwestern universities. He lived and worked in Samoa, Laos, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand for various U.S. development agencies and foundations, was a visiting scholar at MIT, Harvard and the East-West Center, served as U.S. Member of the South Pacific Research Council, on several boards and undertook consultancies for the Aga Khan Foundation and international agencies until he retired in 2000. He lives with his wife, Catharine, near Washington, D.C.

Six decades after the fact it has not been easy to write this memoir recalling my early impressions of India. I have tried to present an accurate account of the places, people, and events as I remember them.

Shenoi, a civil engineer and MBA, rose to the rank of Deputy Director-General of Works in the Indian Defence Service of Engineers. He has also been a member of HUDCO’s advisory board and of the planning team for Navi Mumbai. After retirement he has been helping NGOs in employment-oriented training, writing articles related to all aspects of housing, urban settlements, infrastructure, project and facility management and advising several companies on these issues. His email id is mpvshanoi@gmail.com.

Those days, in the 1930-40s, you considered yourself lucky if you were in a place where you could get an Allopathic (Western-style) doctor nearby.

Allopathic healthcare was scarce and unaffordable to most people. Mysore state, where we lived, was ruled by a Maharaja and the public welfare system was nascent.

My family was lucky. Within one kilometre (km) of our home we had a municipal dispensary. The dispensary had a doctor, who was a LMP (licentiate medical practitioner), and a rudimentary pharmacy. You really did not have to pay anything at the dispensary. You had to just enter your name in the attendance register and declare that your monthly income was less than Rs. 25. If your income was more than this, you would have to pay one anna (16 annas were equal to one rupee). Hardly any one declared one's real income.

Jyoti Basu, (born 1914), a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), was the Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1977 to 2000.

Editor's Note: These reminiscences originally appeared on http://www.ganashakti.com/jb/preface.htm, from where they have reproduced without any changes.

PREFACE

My longtime associate, Comrade Saroj Mukherjee, had requested me to write about my political experiences in Bengali.

After giving it a long thought, I had decided to do so and Ganashakti serialised them which were later compiled as a book "Janaganer Sangey" ("With the People"). I have had to face many complex problems during my career which centred wholly on the liberation of the people at large. I have seen the people rise in victory as much as I have been witness to their defeat at times. These memories themselves imbibe a sense of achievement. This new book has been updated since then. If my experiences are of any help to all those who are striving to make this world a better place to live in, then I will consider my efforts a success.

Finally, I would like to repeat what I have always believed in: it is man, and man alone, who creates history. Despite the many crests and thrusts, the people will finally emerge victorious and gain freedom in a classless society free from exploitation of any form.

Shenoi, a civil engineer and MBA, rose to the rank of Deputy Director-General of Works in the Indian Defence Service of Engineers. He has also been a member of HUDCO’s advisory board and of the planning team for Navi Mumbai. After retirement he has been helping NGOs in employment-oriented training, writing articles related to all aspects of housing, urban settlements, infrastructure, project and facility management and advising several companies on these issues. His email id is mpvshanoi@gmail.com.

Shamrao Adoni, born in 1904 (perhaps – few people kept accurate records those days), was one of the few barbers in our mohalla (neighbourhood) in Mysore. Almost all his clients knew him as Shamu.

He had a cherubic face, a winning smile and a soft voice. And he had parables and patter for all occasions. So? What is so special about Shamu that he is worth remembering after so many years? Well, he changed the way men wore their hair over their heads in our mohalla in the second quarter of the 20th century. He was a coiffeur par excellence, besought by young men who wanted to look different and handsome.

Gopal Swarup Pathak, 1896-1982, was a Judge of the Allahabad High Court for six months (1945-46), member of the Indian delegation to the United Nations (1946-59), Union Law Minister (1966-67), and Vice-President of India (1969-74).

Editor's note: This aricle is taken from the website of the Allahbad High Court. It is a speech delivered on the occasion of the celebration of the centenary of the Allahbad High Court in Novermber 1966. The author was India's Union Law Minister at that time. http://www.allahabadhighcourt.in/event/MyReminiscencesAHCGSPathak.html

I joined the [Allahabad] High Court Bar in the year 1928. I shall endeavour to give the picture of the High Court as I saw it in those days.

Premnath was born in 1918. He served in the Army before India became independent. Soon after Independence, he joined the Railways, where he worked for 30 years. At present he lives with his wife in Gurgaon.

I became an army officer during the Second World War when India was still under British rule. Army service was, of course, total discipline – you had to do what you were told to do.

But, what I experienced was that the man who told you what to do had traits of kindness, convictions in asking you to do what he wanted, and interacted with you in a fair and reasonable way.

After an intensive training course, I was sent to Burma (now Myanmar), which was also under British rule at that time. Here I was asked to go to the combat area to witness the service conditions - which were really tough during monsoon season in the jungles of Burma. When I returned to the base after visiting the front line areas, there was a message waiting for from my Commanding Officer to see him. I went to see him, not knowing what I was in for, but mentally prepared for any dressing down.  But, he was very sweet and kind. He appreciated the effort I had put in to go round to see things on the ground, and gave me some sound words of advice.

Stan retired as a university professor, specializing in the cultural and social history of the Indian sub-continent. He speaks in an English reflective of his boyhood in India. This made lectures easy to understand for his Pakistani students at Forman Christian College and Punjab University, Lahore.  Stan describes his Urdu proficiency as "serviceable."

Editor's note: This story is excerpted, with permission, from Farewell the Winterline: Memories of a Boyhood in India by Stanley E. Brush, Chipkali Creations • 192 Ezra Avenue • Santa Rosa CA 95401. An online version of the book is available at www.farewellthewinterline.com.

In 1998, in the foreword to his book, Stanley wrote:

So much has changed in India over the past seventy-three years that the period before and during World War II, its disturbances, dislocations, and precipitous end of British rule seem like scenes in a distant drama, ever receding over the horizon of living memory. The details are obscure, the colours have faded, the sounds are barely audible. As the generation of those who were there leaves the stage, the details go with it and are lost forever.