When I look back at the lives of women in my family I find
that somethings have changed dramtically and somethings have remained the same. The third
and fourth generation girls have empowered themselves, directed and changed the
course of their lives. But most of my cousins and others chose to follow the
conventions. That was the thing to do even though they all had education but
thought that after education comes marriage then ghargrihasti and children and
all the obligations of life. My mother and two aunts were educated at home, but
my Nani? I don’t know. But I think she cknew how to read. And probably write. I
didn’t know my Father’s mother. Parvati.
The family stressed higher education for men but the girls were home
schooled . My dadi seemed very dictatorial
while Nani was quiet and gentle. Dadi seemed very traditional and harsh. My mother never
talked ill of anyone. I know she had to have her veil long after her children
were born. She was so unfamiliar with the house and neighborhood that once when
all the women went up to the terrace to look at one of the Bua’s barat, my
mother didn’t know where the stairs were to go upstairs. She told me with a
laugh,” There I was, stumbling around in my long ghoonghat.”
My Nanaji, his name was , I think, Ram Ghulam Hajela and his
younger brother was Shiv Ghulam.
But I may be wrotng. There is no one left to correct me. Nanaji was a
big zamindaar in Farrukhabad district and owned many villages near Talgram
where he had his ancestral home. His first wife could not have children, so he
married another woman, my Nani, I used to remember her name but it has
disappeared from my memory now. My mother and aunt called her Jiya= Mother and
later no one remembered her name, she became Jiya, an old fixture in her sons’s
home.s In her old age she spent most of her time wrapped up in a gatThari like
veil and did her Radhasoami worship. She barely spoke and had no say in
anything. That is how I remember in the last period of her life in Hardwar.
But I remember from before, when she lived with her eldest
son Har Ghulam Hajela and his family in a big and spooky house in Nai Sarak,
Kanpur. Mamaji wrote Har Ghulam Hajela Raees after his name. His drawing room
had my father’s sofa set that my
mother had given him after my father’s death. My mother and myself were living
in Parade, closeby. My mother liked to visit Mamaji almost every week, mostly
to spend time with Nani. I don’t know what they talked about, because I had
discovered a big stash of Chandrakanta Santati and stuck to it like a bee in honey or as it is said in
Hindi, like an ant in jaggery, gur meN cheeNta.
Mother had talked about her childhood. She had a good memory and a knack for
story telling. One of her ancestor, several generation ago was a handsome and
cultured and educated man. He also was fond of good living and blew his fortune
in the pursuits of various pleasures. He moved to central India where he got a
job as a Mashalchi, people who held mashaals in courts for light. Once, as the
story goes, told to me by my mother, the Nawab was holding his court and Mashalchi,
my mother’s ancestor along with tothers, were holding the light. The document
was in Persian, the Nawab could not read one difficult word, nor could his Vazeer,
but unconsciously the word slipped out of Mashalchi’s mouth. There was
amazement all around. He was promoted and later became Begum’s favorite. After Nawab died, he
set for home, carrying his fortune loaded on 13 camels. Or were they 35, or 57?
But in family folklore it did not matter. The sum total was that much of my
Nani’s and Nana’s jewelry was inherited from that ancestor , containg precious
gems and exquisite artisanship. I myself remember Tirwa Bhabhi’s necklace, a
beautiful piece in traditional kundan syle, which she received from my Nani.
My mother remembered every piece of jewelry her family women
owned. She also remembered what her younger sister-in-law Prabhavati brought in
her marriage. She would tell in detail but never interested in this stuff I
didn’t pay attention. More about Prabhavati’s jewelry later.
My aunt Shakuntala was married in to a very prosperous and
well known family, but my Nanaji had set his heart on having a highly educated
son-in-law for his younger daughter-my mother. There appears my father. A
handsome young man, the only son of a Lawyer’s Clerk in Agra, he had done his
BA and was in the final year of law. By that time my mother had turned 15 and
my Nani had kept her practically a prisoner in purda because the marriageably
age for the girls in the family was past. If my Mother came out in front of
visiting family members, they would say, Oh ,my such big girl and yet
unmarried. Nani was much humiliated but no one could say anything to Nanaji. Finally the engagement took place. My
Chhote Mamaji, known by the popular nickname,Barrister, my mother’s younger
brother, came back from the engagement. Women of the family asked what the
bridegroom looked like and he started saying,” He is very dark. BaRaa kaala
hai” and so the teasing went on. I asked my mother about her feeling of being
married to a very dark man. She ansaid,
“ What could I do? That was my father’s decision.”
Then she smiled
and said, “ Barrister was just words. Your father was not dark at all and very
handsome.”
Only my eldest sister Kamla remembered out father. As I
write this now it occurs to me that I should have asked her what my father
looked like. But it never did. Kamla was 12 when he died. Kamini four or five
and I was just a baby.
What a big change had taken place in the course of one generation,.Kamla had
met and known her future husband, Kamini’s was a love marriage and so was mine.
My mother had no choice but to accept what her father desired and my nani’s
sole function was to bear children. She successfully fulfilled her purpose,
giving birth to two sons and two daughters. A nicely balanced family. I wonder if she had not been able to
have children or had only daughters, would my Nanaji taken a third wife?
Probably.
ToBe Continued this family saga.
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