Heart of the heartless world, Dear heart, the very thought of you Is the pain at my side, The shadow that chills my view.

– John Cornford to Margot Heinemann

The Thirties was a decade in which the individual felt a terrible burden of responsibility, both in the West as well as in British India… the shadow that chills my view

being perhaps the sense of horror at what was so imminent in the heartless world around all sensitive beings. Yet many anti-Fascists thought that merely by their personal efforts they could avert the looming disaster on the horizons of Europe, which was fuelled by Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany and Franco’s Spain. This attitude was perhaps a sign of the basic innocence of those on the Left, as indicated by the large numbers of brave, idealistic volunteers who died quite needlessly in Spain during the Civil War. And the poets, the spokespersons of the era, saw heroes and dragons in dramatic perspectives.

No one is given leave On either side, except the dead and wounded… John Cornford

– John Cornford

It was during this turbulent decade that my father, M.D.Taseer, arrived in Cambridge in 1934 to work towards his Ph.D in English Literature from Pembroke College, where the noted scholar Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch was his supervisor. About Taseer, Professor Quiller-Couch wrote: ‘I have never worked with a student more pleasurably, for with a scholar’s habit of mind and sense of perfection, he has a large and generous nature.’ Taseer completed his thesis and gained his Doctorate by the end of 1935, and his teacher had high hopes for his career in India.

Cambridge in the 1930s was a hectic centre of Leftist intellectual activity, and many notable Indians were active Marxists and members of the Communist Party. Foremost among these, a man who became a close friend of my father’s, was Mohan Kumaramangalam, whose photograph is in our family papers, inscribed: ‘Love from Mohan (Mug)’. Kumaramangalam came from a distinguished Tamil family, was born in England, went to Eton and then to King’s College, Cambridge, and was eventually called to the bar from the Inner Temple. He was deeply influenced by Communism.

Another good friend was Rajni Patel, who had the somewhat dubious claim to fame of being the grandfather of two Bollywood siblings, Amisha and Ashmit Patel. He was barred from appearing in the ICS examination in London on account of his pronounced political views and his participation in the Indian freedom movement. British officers denied him entry to the examination hall, but even as he was nursing his disappointment he met Jawaharlal Nehru who urged him to go in for law, and so Patel qualified as a barrister from the Middle Temple. Both Kumaramangalam and Patel returned to India to serve the country with tremendous devotion.

Somnath Chib and his wife Savitri Bhalla were very much part of the Cambridge inner set, since Uncle Som was studying for his tripos in English Literature at Emmanuel College, with Aunt Savitri there to provide her famous after-dinner coffee, and generally welcome her husband’s friends to their home and entertain them with her sparkling personality. Uncle Som was of course already my father’s friend from Lahore, as he had done his MA from Government College. The Chibs became close to my favourite Leftist poet, John Cornford, who died near Lopera in 1936 on his 21st birthday, after he set off from Cambridge for Spain to fight for the Republican cause. Victor Kiernan, the eminent Marxist historian, was a great friend of Cornford, the Chibs and my father, and this friendship lasted in India and abroad over the years, with Kiernan later becoming a kindly proxy uncle to both myself and Achla, daughter of Uncle Som and Aunty Savitri.

Uncle Victor wrote with deep affection about my father during the Cambridge days, pointing out that as he was somewhat older than many members of their set, he appeared far more mature. ‘I remember describing him to someone as the cleverest man in Cambridge.’ His fondness for conversation and for getting to know people gave him a very wide and cosmopolitan range of acquaintance. Apart from English and Indian students, he knew Africans, Chinese and many others, and was interested in all their problems, especially their political problems. He used to walk around the town wearing a grey qaraquli cap, which put the finishing touch to his appearance, tall and rangy, with a broad intellectual brow, a beaming smile and large sparkling eyes. Some of his Western friends were inclined to look upon him as a kind of Oriental sage, and came to him for advice as if consulting a Guru. This amused him a great deal. He was, as it were, the lynchpin that held together a diverse collection of eager young scholars. As a research student he did not have to wear a cap and gown, nor live in college, but was established in rooms of his own in a building which also housed a club called All Peoples’ Association, whose activities he encouraged with great enthusiasm.

He was a committed member of the Majlis, a society of Indian students, and it was there that Uncle Victor first heard my father speak, displaying an impressive blend of seriousness and humour. He was careless in his English pronunciation, as though impatient of British conventions, and this was connected with his strongly marked nationalism which had nothing narrow or obscurantist about it.

Few men had an equal ability to influence and persuade others. He entered into people’s minds and dispositions and often showed the greatest tact in understanding them. At times he was also capable of a disconcerting freedom of speech, as on an occasion when a teatime discussion took place with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who had just emerged from a spell in prison and was visiting Cambridge, and talking to a group of students. All went well until Taseer began on a plain-spoken criticism of Gandhi, much to Nehru’s annoyance. But that was what my father was all about…not one to mince words.

After my father’s return to India in early 1936, Uncle Victor often visited him at his Albert Road residence in Amritsar, where as a college Principal he was at home to all comers. He was customarily to be found of an evening seated on the floor with a pile of cushions behind him, amid a circle of colleagues, students and friends from Lahore. He was an excellent storyteller, and Uncle Victor recalled one very hot night in Amritsar when he and his guests were sleeping out in the garden, and he kept everyone roaring with laughter over some humorous story until not far from sunrise.

He was never one to stand upon formality at any stage of his life, least of all in England. His wide-ranging circle of friends extended to London, where his childhood companion from Barudkhana Haveli, Nazir Ahmed (Uncle Najji) was studying for his Ph.D in Zoology. There was Dr. Mulk Raj Anand, the eminent writer, patriot and art critic, one of those who travelled to Spain to fight against Fascism. There was Harkirat Singh who was a cadet at Sandhurst, and there was Surjit Singh from Lahore studying History at SOAS, and then Law, who was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple. His lovely English wife Jewell became a warmhearted hostess for us at their Simla home for many a summer during the 1940s, after we had ourselves left that Raj town for Delhi. Iqbal Singh the eminent Leftist writer and journalist, was a graduate of Government College Lahore, after which he studied at Bordeaux University and then King’s College Cambridge. He too was a member of this vast circle. Like Uncle Victor he became an honorary uncle for both myself and Achla Chib. His book on Iqbal, The Ardent Pilgrim, is to this day considered one of the best studies of the Allama.

And foremost of all there was Mian Mahmud Ali Kasuri, studying at King’s College London, later to be called to the Bar, who was one of the greatest jurists of the sub-continent as well as being a staunch advocate for human rights throughout his career. He served on the Stockholm War Crimes Tribunal created by Bertrand Russell for trying American war crimes in Vietnam, as well as playing a key role in the formation of Pakistan’s first unanimous constitution in 1973. His larger than life personality and stentorian voice were a delight for all his friends and admirers. My father sent him to Baramula in Kashmir to be a friend in residence just before I was born, as he himself could not leave his post at MAO College in Amritsar until the summer vacation had begun.

It was in London in 1935 that my father along with Mulk Raj Anand, future Communist revolutionaries Jyoti Ghosh and Pramod Sengupta, as well as Syed Sajjad Zahir met at the historic Nanking Restaurant on Denmark Street in Soho, just off Charing Cross Road, to draft the manifesto for the Progressive Writers’ Association. Later in life my father distanced himself from the Association’s activities, but that is another story.

And so this was the multi-faceted man who was about to fall in love at first sight with a tall and slender young woman of 24 with limpid Crucefix eyes and an innocent smile. It was her utter honesty and truthfulness that won my father’s heart, he told me many years later. The fateful meeting took place one evening in Cambridge, and after that there was no looking back. My father completely disarmed his future in-laws by calling on them to formally ask for their daughter’s hand in marriage, and they consented most happily.

The man for whom Christabel was to give up her country and her faith was unique, having no family tree at all. His history was a complete blank, as he had no living relative other than his maternal aunt who brought him up in Lahore from the time he was three years of age. But she too was unique in her own way. Herself childless, she lovingly nurtured her sister’s son who grew up to be one of the most brilliant men of his time. She was a beautiful Kashmiri woman from a village in the Ajnala district in East Punjab, whose shining countenance reflected a benign and loving personality. She was the wife of Mian Nizamuddin of Barudkhana Haveli in Lahore and was known as ‘Amma Kahaniyan Wali’, a woman who carefully memorised all the wonderful stories from Talism-e-Hoshruba and other books that my father would rush home to recount each evening after playing truant from the Islamia High School in Sheranwala Gate. He would do so in order to read the compelling tales of Gul Bakavali and Amir Hamza, curled up under a tree in Gol Bagh. These tales would then be recycled by Bebeji in her inimitable style to various spell-bound listeners, including her eldest grand-child, myself, in later years. She had a fresh story for every day of the year, and was able to enchant my mother with them in Baramula when daughter-in-law and mother-in-law were waiting for the birth of the first Taseer child.

Perhaps I ingested these stories before I was born. A fanciful thought, but after all there were many intriguing events connected with the story of Christabel and Taseer during the fifteen years of their idyllic relationship. And so the tale went on, from the day my mother set sail in late September 1936 on the Anchor Line S.S. Circassia from Tilbury Docks bound for faraway Bombay via Suez. There was a group of anxious and concerned padres on board who considered it their religious duty to urge her to reconsider her radical decision every time the ship stopped at a port from Marseilles onwards. ‘Go back home!’ they advised her. But my mother’s eyes were firmly set on the exciting and eventful days that lay ahead.

And so my Mother landed at Bombay on the SS Circassia, where my father was waiting to receive her and escort her to Lahore. She had spent a number of months thinking carefully about her final decision, at my father’s insistence, before booking her passage to India. Now she left home fully determined to make a positive life for herself with the man she loved.

In a wise and tactful move he had prepared Bebeji to welcome the daughter-in-law of her choice, by showing her cabinet-size photographs of two women who loved him. The decision was left to her, but it was obvious which one she would decide upon. One photograph was of a sultry looking young Jewish girl called Naomi who was secretary to the renowned actor Robert Donat. She was desperately in love with my father, and had inscribed the famous lines from the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament at the back of her portrait:

Whither thou goest I will go. Thy people shall be my people, thy God my God.

The second portrait was that of my mother, with an utterly guileless expression on her face. Bebeji quite predictably chose Christabel as her daughter-in-law. The relationship remained an ideally happy one, for Bebeji was someone whose temperament was that of a saint according to my mother. There was never a cross word exchanged between the two of them.

Barudkhana Haveli was getting ready to welcome the bride, who traveled by train to Lahore from Bombay with her bridegroom. Allama Iqbal, who had advised my father to choose a European wife, as he would never be happy with an Indian spouse, was very pleased with Taseer’s decision. He had spent three months carefully drafting the ideal marriage deed for the couple, which contained two unusual clauses. The first, which is allowable in Islam, was that the husband delegated his right of divorce to his wife. The second clause stated that Taseer would not contract any other marriage during the continuance of his marriage with Christabel. The relationship would therefore be monogamous. In this way my mother’s rights were completely protected. Mian Nizamuddin, my father’s khalu, had enjoined upon him to be extremely conscious of the sacrifice my mother was making in giving up her country and her faith and coming to a foreign land to marry him, at a time when there were no telephonic communications or air travel between Europe and Asia.

Iqbal was very unwell at the time of the marriage, but he insisted on attending the function. He became unconscious after arriving at Barudkhana, but then soon recovered and acted as Qazi. My mother, dressed in a formal brocade shalwar qameez had already recited the Kalma and thereby accepted Islam, being given the Muslim name Bilquis by Bebeji. Iqbal now asked my mother several times whether she was accepting Islam of her own free will, to which she replied in the affirmative. There are several very beautiful studio portraits of her dressed as a bride, smiling blissfully at the camera.

This was indeed a most prestigious occasion, with such a unique personality presiding over it, but we should remember that Iqbal had a great deal of affection for Taseer, as his testimonial written for him in July 1933, when he was applying to Cambridge for admission to a Ph.D programme, proves in no small measure.

He wrote in his pristine English: ‘A young man of such exceptional parts is bound to make a mark wherever he goes. He is in the vanguard of our young literati, and combines a real ability for literary criticism with genuine creative faculties. He has an extensive range of facilities in fine arts and is widely read in English and Oriental literatures. He is just the man for Cambridge, and is preeminently suited for postgraduate research work in English.

‘Considering his brilliant academic career, his experience of teaching Degree and Honours classes in English and the quality of literary work already done by him, he deserves preferential treatment and should be granted every legitimate concession.’

What more could be said by a great poet?

But then, Taseer was a unique teacher, critic and poet who achieved amazing results during the five years that he taught at Islamia College Railway Road, Lahore, before leaving for Cambridge. In the twenties he and Chughtai initiated the literary and artistic journal Nairang-e-Khayal in July 1924 from Barudkhana, financed by Hakim Yusuf Hasan, which has remained a remarkable venture ever since.

In October 1932 he laid the foundation of the Bazm-e-Farogh-e-Urdu in Islamia College, and it flourished under his dynamic guidance. It continued as an active literary organization until 1957. During its heyday luminaries such as Allama Iqbal, Sir Abdul Qadir, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan and Hafeez Jallundhari participated in its multi-faceted functions. He also published the first number of the path-breaking artistic and literary journal Caravan in 1933, from Muhalla Chabuk Sawaran, which was intended to be an annual publication. However, after his departure for Cambridge it could not continue beyond the second number which was published by his close friend Majeed Malik in 1934.

Once the marriage ceremonies were over, the young couple left for Amritsar, so that my father could take up his position as Principal of the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College, (MAO College), which had Sirajuddin Pal as one of its founder members. This institution was established by the Anjuman-e-Islamia on the pattern of the MAO College Aligarh. Sahibzada Mahmuduzaffar, an Oxford graduate and a renowned Marxist was Vice Principal, and Faiz Ahmed Faiz the Leftist poet was a lecturer in English. At the time of Partition, most of the college staff and students migrated to Lahore, where a new MAO College was established in the former DAV (Dayanand Anglo-Vedic) College premises. The Amritsar MAO College then became Guru Nanak Dev University, and my father’s office is still pointed out to visitors today.

The atmosphere at Amritsar was imbued with great intellectual brilliance as Taseer brought many positive changes to the college, so that it became a centre of excellence in academic activities. Mushairas, debates, milads and athletics were all given equal importance, and the institution made a notable mark on the Punjab educational scene.

The Principal’s colonial-style bungalow in the elite residential area of Albert Road received visitors every weekend from Lahore, as the cream of the intellectual world of the time gathered there, with my mother and Bebeji presiding over the generous welcome they received. The kitchen was masterminded by Noora Kubba, the hunchback cook from Mirpur, assisted by Adalat Khan, a young ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’ from Gurdaspur, who was to stay with us for many years. Bebeji, whose culinary skills were legendary, was the master chef, with none of the disasters of Goethe’s poem Der Zauberlehrling occurring in her kitchen. No flying brooms whatsoever.

I was born the year after my parents’ marriage, and was given the name Selma in honour of Selma Lagerlof the Swedish Nobel Prize winning author. I grew up surrounded by many devoted visiting uncles who would pet and tease me to their hearts’ content. When asked ‘ Kisliyeh?’ by someone, I would shout ‘ Isliyeh keh isliyeh!’ That someone simply had to be Uncle Sufi, who would test my knowledge of Urdu grammar by stating: ‘ Ghora paani peeti hai,’ to which I would retort, ‘ Nahin! Ghora paani peeta hai!’ . Eleven years later, as a loving friend, he wrote a tender elegy in Persian upon the death of my father, beginning with this verse: Me ravi ae anjuman aarae maa, Me ravi ae raunaq-e-duniya e maa : you have departed, oh adornment of our gatherings, oh splendour of our world!

There was a buffalo and a calf on the premises, so there was asli gheefor the kitchen, and choori for an eager little granddaughter, to whom Bebeji would recite, ‘Mian Mitthu, choori kha ,’ with every morsel that she popped into my mouth. It should be noted that my mother was a true daughter of her hospitable parents, and enacted her role as chatelaine of a large establishment with admirable skill.

Those who travelled down from Lahore by train for the weekend included Sufi Tabassum, Dr Nazir Ahmed, Victor Kiernan who was at that time teaching at Aitchison College, Rafi Peer, Mehmood Nizami, Majeed Malik, Abdur Rehman Chughtai, Badruddin Badr, Ghulam Abbas, Hafiz Jallundhari and Abdul Majeed Salik among others. Many were the intellectually charged sessions that took place during those halcyon days. Mattresses were spread out on the drawing room floor at night, and there were always ongoing arrangements for at least thirty guests.

Mushairas of the Bazm-e-Sukhanwaran-e-Punjab were held in our house, after which All-Hindustan mushairas were organized in the college on a regular basis, and poets like Jigar Muaradabadi and Saghar Nizami participated in them, along with the big names from the Punjab.

The sessions at our house were about literature, naturally, but were filled with nationalist fervour as well. The late Thirties saw great political upheavals in the Indian sub-continent, with the fight for Independence gaining strength. A measure of these discussions was seen in my reactions as a little girl to what I must have heard at home. The family owned an elegant horse-drawn Victoria carriage, and whenever I drove out in it with my parents and Aunty Alys, who had arrived in India in 1938, I would stand up at every crossing and raise my fist, shouting: ‘Inqilab Zindabad!’ which was the nationalist call at that time.

Soon after Aunty Alys had settled in, the advent of World War II prevented her from returning to London, and so it was fated that she and Faiz the poet should fall in love and get married in 1941. The ceremony took place in Srinagar, where my father was by then Principal of a new educational institution. Sheikh Abdullah, then called Sher-e – Kashmir,was the Qazi at this ceremony.

challenging new opportunity beckoned from Kashmir in 1941, and my father moved on to ‘fresh woods and pastures new’, and was able to make an unforgettable mark on two academic institutions in a couple of years. He thereby became a legend in the world of Srinagar’s educational history. To this day he is remembered for his inimitable services to the cause of Muslim education in the valley.

The renowned Sri Pratap Singh College, where eighty percent of the student body happened to be Hindu, was the first institution he joined. The college had been established by the then Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Pratap Singh, in 1905, and became the second largest college affiliated with Punjab University. Taseer’s appointment gave rise to a major educational crisis which he surmounted with the greatest of ease and confidence. There were several notable local Kashmiri Pandits who had hoped to be selected for this post, including Pandit Brij Kishan, Madan Lahori and Radha Kishan Bhan. Taseer was a non-valley appointee.

The Convent had a very distinguished male pupil attending school for several months in 1942, even though it was a girls’ institution. We had the dubious privilege of rubbing shoulders with the 11 year old Yuvraj Karan Singh, who used to come to school every day dressed in a sherwani, running up and down the corridors, making the lives of the nuns pure hell. He was waiting to go to Doon School, Dehra Dun, and in the meantime his royal parents felt he should make good use of his spare time being coached by the longsuffering sisters. Incidentally he did his BA from Sri Pratap Singh College in later years.

Pandit Brij Kishan phoned up the then Minister for Education, Khwaja Ghulam-us-Saiyyadain, to complain. ‘Sir, I hear that Dr. Taseer has been appointed Principal. All of us are obviously asses.’ Saiyyadain Sahib briefly replied, ‘This is the government’s decision.’ The joke spread far and wide. The Hindu press and local leadership as well as Mahasabha circles began a campaign to the effect that it was a scandal for a Muslim Principal to be chosen for this post. There was a plan to greet the new appointee with black flags, while the Muslim students and administration decided to oppose this measure. In the midst of all this, Taseer arrived in college, took charge and began his work with a self-confidence that implied he was fully aware of local conditions and opinions. His compelling personality and charm of manner completely overwhelmed all around him. Within a few months his personable behaviour and kindliness to those who worked under him won over his worst enemies.

Taseer’s Principalship became a remarkable period in the history of the college. Apart from the Muslims who were grateful for his sympathy and affection, it was the Hindu faculty and local leadership who were compelled to admire his intellectual superiority and administrative brilliance. What greater success could there be for a teacher?

In September 1942 it was decided that the increasing number of students at Sri Pratap Singh College necessitated that its degree classes should be separated and formed into a new college. Within a week all arrangements were made to establish this centre of learning in the grounds of the Amar Singh Technological Institute at Gobji Park near the banks of the River Jhelum. This institute was named after General Raja Amar Singh, uncle of the ruler of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, and the new college was given the same name. Taseer was appointed its first Principal and his portrait still hangs in the college hall. Its current Dean of the Faculty of Science, Dr Wilayat Rizvi, has just sent me a heartwarming email informing me that during his short tenure my father laid the foundation stones of many new departments at Amar Singh College, and that there is a conference hall on the premises called Taseer Hall where his portrait also hangs. Incidentally his portrait hangs outside the Principal’s office in Sri Pratap Singh College as well.

It was now that my father began a determined and concerted campaign to improve the dire condition of the impoverished young Muslims of the state by taking the wealthy members of the community into his confidence. Scholarship funds were established and board and lodging was made free for all those who could not afford to pay for this facility. My father contributed a great deal to this out of his own pocket, and many Muslim students enrolled at the new college because of these generous new arrangements. Sheikh Abdullah actively participated in these efforts.

There is a dramatic story of how my father spotted a ragged young lad selling grams outside the college cricket ground during a match, ensured that he could bowl well, and promptly enrolled him in the college on a full scholarship. He also contributed to his expenses from his own pocket. After he graduated the young boy became a school headmaster.

When we first arrived in Srinagar, the Principal’s new residence was not ready to receive us, so we were established in a portion of Maharaja Hari Singh’s marble summer palace, situated on the banks of the fabled Dal Lake. This palace was named Peri Mahal after a beautiful edifice situated on the outskirts of the city, which was once a Buddhist monastery and was later used by the Mughal Prince Dara Shikoh as his observatory. (The current summer palace has now been converted into the Oberoi Palace Hotel.) The marriage ceremony of Uncle Faiz and Aunty Alys was held while we lived at Peri Mahal. .

For six months I used to travel across the Dal Lake to the Presentation Convent in the Rajbagh area every day by dunga, with the boatman giving me my very own little chappu to row with. We moved among the lotus blossom pads that covered the surface of the lake, navigating our way between clumps of flowers. Once I came home I used to play in the sentry boxes at the palace gates, pretending I was a guard. When we moved across the lake to 7, Karan Boulevard, I could ride to school on a pony.

Our bungalow was situated on the Bund, and had a large garden blooming with daffodils in the spring. Many friends arrived to stay in the good weather, and once again Bebeji came into her own, cooking traditional Kashmiri dishes like shabdeg and roghan josh for everyone’s delectation. During the summer, turnips and apples were dried so that they could be cooked in the winter. Amina Majeed Malik, whose husband was one of my father’s dearest friends, came with her daughter Billum during the first summer, along with her sister Nageen who later became Nageen Rushdie, mother to Salman Rushdie the novelist and Sameen Rushdie the cookery expert.

By this time I was old enough to understand and enjoy Bebji’s wondrous stories, and I would rush home from school every day so that I could cuddle close up to her in the afternoons and evenings, and listen enthralled to tales of Amar Ayyar’s bottomless magic bag, his Zambeel , the tricks of the various junior Ayyars, the ferocious Safed Dev , the fairies of Koh Qaf, and the magic Waqwaq Tree, or Speaking Tree , with humanoid heads hanging from its branches, conversing amicably with Sahibqiran Amir Hamza after he had escaped from the dangers of Koh Qaf . And who could resist acquaintance with that evil genius Hell-cave Bano , daughter of Bakhtak, Amir Hamza’s adversary?

But best of all was the exciting tale of Prince Tajul Muluk’s quest for the fabled Bakawali flower, whose possessor was the fairy princess Gul Bakawali. This sweet-smelling white flower grew in Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh, it blossomed only at night, and its nectar was the sole cure for his father’s blindness. The prince, like all such heroes, came from Central Asia, and met innumerable devs and magicians and kings along the way. Finally, after many travails, the prince and the fairy were united, and I followed their adventures with bated breath, since Bebeji was a veritable Scheherezade, constantly drawing on her hookah with relish and stopping her story every evening at the most exciting moment. She instilled in me a sense of possibility through the enchanting narratives that she recited, thereby unconsciously enlarging my mind to an understanding of the cultural richness that is part of our South Asian heritage.

She was a personality to be reckoned with, someone whose confidence and dignity were combined with a modesty and self-effacement which were unique. Of her beauty perhaps John Donne could be said to have the last word:

Her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought That one might almost say her body thought…

She was in one instance a peri who took part in an adventure worthy of any fantastic tale from her own repertoire. A few years before my father was due to go abroad for his Doctorate, the question of his expenses arose. He was Bebeji’s younger sister Zaitun Begum’s son, who had been pledged to her after his birth, as she herself was childless. His parents died in the great Bubonic Plague that struck Northern India in 1904, when their entire village of Ranian in Ajnala Tehsil, thirty-two miles from Lahore, was wiped out. They acted upon the Hadith that the inhabitants of an area should not depart from there if an epidemic takes place, and so nobody left.

However, my three-year old father was sent away at dead of night to Lahore, since he was Bebeji’s amanat. As a young man he recalled that midnight ride with great melancholy, which separated him from his parents forever. He was never to see them again. His father Chaudhry Atar Din was a landholder, whose property became my father’s inheritance, and this was sold off piece by piece over the years to pay for his expenses until he had finished his education at F.C.College with an M.A. in English Literature, and began to teach at Islamia College, Railway Road.

This was the time when my Bebeji had an amazing dream in which her sister spoke to her and said that her box of jewellery was buried under the threshold of their village home. She urged her to go to Ranian and dig up the box for the sake of their son. In the morning when she recounted the dream to her husband Mian Nizamuddin, he at first scoffed at it, but once he saw how upset she was and how determined to leave for the village, he sent her off accompanied by her personal maid Chiragh Bibi and her retainer Miran Buksh, armed with a shovel. They arrived at the derelict family haveli, which had been neglected for so many years, and lo and behold, once Miran Buksh began digging, there was an iron box measuring one and a half feet in length, filled to the brim with jewellery!

Bebeji sold the contents of the box with the help of two trusted family friends, Sufi Tabassum and Ghulam Mohyuddin, and at the appropriate time, in their presence gave the money to my father, telling him he should use it wisely. This paid for most of his expenses at Cambridge, and the rest of the money came from a loan granted to him by the Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam from his provident fund at college. It was the first time that such a loan had been sanctioned to anyone. And so along with this money, Bebeji was able to play a major part in sending off her beloved adoptive son to follow his destiny.

Srinagar gave our small family a new member, a baby sister who was born in the middle of a snowstorm at the end of November, 1941. My mother could not reach the hospital, so flaxen-haired Mariam was delivered at home by my mother’s English doctor friend. With her red cheeks and furious expression she looked like a tough visitor from some faraway northern land, come to replace baby Yusuf who died tragically in Amritsar in 1939 of a stomach ailment for which there was no cure at the time. By then we had Mai Soma from Jammu to take charge of nursery matters and cope with the blonde fighter, and Soma remained with us until 1947. She wanted to leave for Lahore with the family…and thereby hung a romantic tale.

Amar Singh College flourished under the supervision of its wise head, but he began to find an atmosphere imbued with the inequities of Dogra rule so stifling that he decided to accept a completely fresh challenge in 1943, which he faced with tremendous aplomb. And so we left the land of shikaras and peaches and strawberries and mouthwatering buggoo goshas, and travelled to a Raj stronghold of great elegance and style. And thus the story continues…

Simla in 1943 was poised between two worlds… the world of the great Raj days, when India was the Jewel in the Imperial Crown, and the India of a creaking empire which was reeling and tottering on its heels. Yet the mid-40s retained much of the glamour of the past, and there are many buildings still standing today which bear testimony to this.

In the 19th century Sir John Lawrence, the then Viceroy of India, took the decision to move the seat of government for six months each year from the burning heat of Calcutta to the salubrious climate of ‘The Queen of the Hills.’ Later the change was made from Delhi. Simla also became the Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army. Many wives and daughters of men who remained in the plains shifted to Simla as well, and these became part of an upper crust which helped to form a society imbued with frivolity and intrigue. The New York Times described it succinctly as a popular pick-up centre for lusty British officers and flirtatious maidens, and said it was filled with an atmosphere of idle gossip, romantic conquests and military brown-nosing. No one could have depicted this ambience more effectively than Rudyard Kipling in his short story anthology, Plain Tales From the Hills,1888, in which his predatory character Mrs Hauksbee, The Stormy Petrel, a mixture of malice and mischief, epitomizes this Simla Society.

The magnificent Viceregal Lodge designed by Henry Irwin and completed in 1888 was intended as a proud symbol of Empire. The then Viceroy, the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, a diplomat of exceptional brilliance, was the first to occupy it. The Lodge was the first building in Simla to receive electricity, and as the Vicereine, Lady Dufferin switched on the system. Today it has been converted into the Institute of Advanced Studies. Crucial meetings between Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Mohammad Ali Jinnah were held in the Lodge during the Indian Independence Struggle, and negotiation papers during the period preceding Partition were prepared here. Those pillars and walls witnessed events of great historical importance. But Sir Edwin Lutyens, the architect of Delhi, thought the Lodge was a monstrosity.

Simla was named after the mother goddess Shyamla, an incarnation of Kali Devi, and a temple dedicated to her is situated near the Mall. The highest of the seven hills surrounding Simla is Jacko, at the top of which stands the celebrated temple of Hanuman the monkey god, perhaps the most popular deity in the Hindu pantheon. He is called Bajrang Bali, being as strong as thunder and as swift as lightning. As the son of the wind, Pavan, he is Poot Pavan.He is the epitome of wisdom, loyalty and friendship, being the supporter of Ramchandra in his desperate attempt to rescue his wife Sita from the clutches of the Rakshasha king of Lanka, Ravana. During the battle, Hanuman succeeds in setting fire to Lanka, using the burning tip of his tail.

The town is spilling over with monkeys, and they have always proven to be a nuisance, Hanuman or no Hanuman. When we first arrived there, for my father Dr M.D.Taseer to join the Labour Department as Deputy Director for War Propaganda, we shifted into a flat in the Abergeldie Estate halfway up Jacko Hill. I can still recall a monkey leaping into our dining room through the open widow, glaring ferociously at me, and making off with a banana from the table. Then there was the apocryphal tale of a monkey kidnapping a newborn baby who was never heard of again… a 20th century Tarzan story.

As the Son of the Wind flew towards the Himalayas in search of the magical herb Sanjeewani, which was needed to save the wounded Lakshman, brother of Ramchandra, he is said to have paused on Jacko to take a breather. The monkeys who swarm there today, ‘handsome reddish-gray rhesus macaques the size of cats,’ according to Claire Wrathall in the Financial Times,2008, are ‘clearly descendants of Hanuman’s acolytes’ as they appear in the miniatures of the British Library’s exquisite 17th century edition of the Ramayana.An attractive thought. But today it seems that these rhesus macaques saunter nonchalantly along the Mall, which is a trifle off-putting.

From Abergeldie we moved on to a spacious home, also with a Scottish name: Aberfoyle. Even today Simla is filled with decaying cottages and bungalows in mock-Tudor or neo-Gothic styles, many of them with Scottish associations, and these two particular names carry interesting histories. Abergeldie Castle is close to Balmoral and is allegedly haunted by the ghost of a French maid, Kittie Rankine, who was accused of witchcraft in 1603, found guilty and burned at the stake. Aberfoyle is a village in the region of Stirling, is close to Loch Lomond, and has many historic and romantic associations. Rob Roy the Scottish hero hid in this area to escape the law, and Mary Queen of Scots visited there as a child. Moreover, the local mystical Doon Hill or Fairy Knowe is reputed to be the gateway to the land of the Fairies, and you cannot get more romantic than that. So we were surrounded by Gaelic magic.

Aberfoyle was situated at the bottom of a slippery slope, and the road above this led to Lakkar Bazaar, inhabited by Sikh carpenters who came here a century ago from Hoshiarpur and set up shop. It was in this bazaar that my father found a wizard of a carpenter who crafted a splendid double-storeyed doll’s house for me according to my father’s design, with a garden set with cypress trees, and surrounded by a picket fence. The one hitch was that it could only be accessed from its removable roof, and the lower storey remained sealed. It stood in solitary splendour in a room all by itself, and people came to gaze at it in wonder. My platinum blonde sister Mariam and our visiting brunette cousin Salima Faiz, born in Lahore in 1942, were found eying it speculatively, but the ever-vigilant Mai Soma succeeded in steering them off. Salmaan being still a baby, born in 1944, did not count as a potential marauder. And I was able to save my Louis Quatorze doll, complete with a golden wig and a lavender taffeta gown, from the little girls’ exploring fingers as well. Louis Quatorze has a menacing anti-Huguenot ring to it, incidentally.

Here in Simla we were able to bond with Uncle Surjeet Singh and Aunty Jewell and their two lovely daughters, Bonny and Deepak, who remained our ‘best friends’ for many years to come until Partition set its pall upon this relationship, among so many others. However, we visited with them in 1954, and found the love and affection between us was as fresh as ever. Aunty Jewell, a member of the Cambridge and London ‘set’ of the 30s, came to India in 1938 to marry Uncle Surjeet, travelling on the same ship as Aunty Alys, and Margaret who was to marry Yuvinder Raj, and who stayed with us in Abergeldie. (Margaret Raj later became secretary to Indira Gandhi.) There are many delightful memories associated with the Surjeet Singh family. Salmaan took his first faltering steps in their house, and many were the naughty forays up the khads filled with stinging nettles that we girls made over the years, during summer visits from Delhi. Our adventures included throwing stones at itinerant Afghan knife-grinders.

[blurb7]I attended the school attached to the grand Christ Church Cathedral on the Ridge above the Mall, a school presided over by the fierce Miss Clegg, who wielded a cane with which she lashed out at the outstretched hands of trembling girls accused of nothing more dreadful than talking in class. I narrowly escaped one such caning by the skin of my teeth, and this may have been one reason why I never liked going to this school, even though it enjoyed an enviable reputation.

The school was poised above Scandal Point which was situated at the upper end of the Mall. A very outrageous event is said to have taken place in the early part of the last century, causing the area to be given this name. One fine day a notorious Maharaja from one of the Sikh princely states was riding along the Point, when he caught sight of the pretty daughter of a Colonel in the British Army strolling past. He was so taken with her that he had her kidnapped and placed in his harem. The then Army Commander-in-Chief immediately had his entry into Simla banned, whereupon the Maharaja established a rival hill station, Chail, close by for his own personal use. This was indeed a scandal to surpass all others. The Maharaja’s father was also careless of social proprieties, for he married the daughter of his Irish groom and converted her to Sikhism.

The Mall itself was a place filled with attractions of various kinds. There was the Gaiety Theatre, meant only for Sahibs and their Memsahibs, as well as the Viceroy and his spouse. The building was part of a larger town hall complex completed in 1888, obviously a pivotal year for Simla, designed by Henry Irwin to reflect the select milieu of ‘the upper five hundred.’ The theatre was a major focus of social life in the hill station, and the young Rudyard Kipling became very much a part of this scene. When he acted in Victorien Sardou’s farce, A Scrap of Paper, Lord Dufferin found his performance ‘too horrid and vulgar’…and this was in spite of the fact that the Dufferins had more or less adopted Kipling and his parents as a surrogate family. The Gaiety was still only meant for the European community in the 1940s, but after Independence it was open to Indians, and many distinguished thespians have acted there since then.

By all accounts of Simla in the late 1880s, Lord Dufferin and his elegant wife were the life and soul of the city, and they appear to have been a couple who were the epitome of upper class sophistication. Many many years later, in 1982 to be precise, my husband and I were very pleased to be able to invite their grandson, Sheridan, the fifth Marquess of Dufferin and Ava to dine with us in our Sharjah home. He had come to the UAE to participate in an international bridge tournament. He proved to be a delightful guest, witty and urbane, and a dedicated and serious collector of modern painting as well as a patron of the arts. Like his father, Sheridan died far too young, and with him died the family line.

Meanwhile, back to the Simla scene of the 1940s. There were bookshops filled with delectable volumes which my father enjoyed buying for me, and in spite of a World War going on in the distance, there were excellent toyshops on the Mall as well. Oddly enough, dolls were sold in the Bata emporium, one of which I still remember being given for my sixth birthday. And Davico’s Restaurant was a welcome stopping place for those who needed a rest from their shopping forays, with delicious vanilla ice cream and scrumptious pastries on tap, and a ballroom on its upper storey.

During the summer of 1944, Victor Kiernan and Dr Nazir Ahmed came to stay with us, while they worked on Uncle Victor’s translation of selections from Allama Iqbal’s poems. The person missing from our happy family was Bebeji, who could not manage the difficult hill journey to Simla on her own. She had accompanied my mother and myself to Srinagar by taxi in 1941, and remained with us for our entire stay. On the way, however, she was so car sick that she made us stop, staggered out onto the roadside, and pleaded with my mother, ‘Beti, leave me behind here to die.’ However we finished the journey in one piece, arriving late at night with the whole of Srinagar out on cycles and tongas, wielding lanterns and torches, looking out for the Principal’s family. I can still remember the jubilant shouts of ‘Here they come!’

In Simla my father’s entire career took a U-turn, from the world of academics to a bureaucratic one, and he performed his new responsibilities with remarkable success, working under the Directorship of his good friend Nawab Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani, who later became Governor of the Punjab after Partition. The world had turned topsy-turvy, and British India was already facing the possibility of disintegration, but the bureaucrats had to soldier on as though all was well.

My father was working in two offices at the same time, and had begun to suffer from the gout which was to plague him for the rest of his short life. He did not lose his sense of humour however, and Uncle Victor wrote of how he bore little resemblance to a true bureaucrat. He was in no danger of becoming pompous or over-dignified as his importance in the world increased. He had no objection to a joke against himself; for instance during one period in Simla there was some amusement which he himself shared, at a touch of the gout which obliged him to go to office wearing his carpet slippers, in a rickshaw swollen by rumour into a gigantic vehicle borne by a dozen panting coolies.

Despite his prestigious position he had begun to yearn for a life of letters, in which he could read, write and publish fine books. He expressed this desire in a number of letters to friends, some of whom urged him to re-establish the prestigious artistic journal Caravan. He bewailed a lack of seed capital for such a venture in a letter to Abdur Rehman Chughtai. He admitted to being unable to amass large amounts of money and also stated that he had a loathing for such a talent.

Simla brought with it a spate of childhood illnesses such as measles for Mariam and myself, and a month-long quarantine for the scarlet fever which overwhelmed me, during which I was nursed back to health by our good friend and family physician Dr. Ghulam Bheek, the Civil Surgeon. Uncle Bheek escaped from Simla during the terrible communal riots of 1947 in the most dramatic manner possible.

Eventually we moved on to Delhi in the latter half of 1944, with my father still working for the Labour Department amidst troubled times for India.

In November of 1944 my father, Dr M.D. Taseer, wrote to the artist Abdur Rehman Chughtai from Delhi that he had been unwell, was now better, but was feeling at a loss in a city which was filled with Americans and ‘Tommies’, and where it was difficult to meet anyone congenial. He was grateful for the comforting presence there of Uncle Faiz and Aunty Alys, who were married in Srinagar in 1942 in the marble annexe attached to Maharaja Hari Singh’s summer palace, where we lived for six months. Uncle Faiz was to become a Lt. Colonel in the Indian Army, and was posted in Delhi until 1946 when he resigned in order to become Editor-in-Chief of The Pakistan Times in Lahore.

However, fairly soon my parents were able to adjust to life in Sir Edwin Lutyens’ grand capital, an imperial city with ancient origins, and we were established in a colonial-style bungalow on Lodhi Road, and were able to hold gatherings of like-minded Indian friends such as the Faizes, the Somnath Chibs, the Majeed Maliks, Badruddin Badr and A.S.Bokhari among many others, most of whom gradually came to Delhi on assignments. Friends such as Sheikh Niaz the generous-hearted publisher would travel up from Lahore as well, as did Victor Kiernan. His brother Norman was posted in Delhi in the Imperial Police Force, and became a frequent visitor. There were also homesick American G.I. friends who were Socialists, and who found a home away from home at Lodhi Road. The Chibs were latecomers to Delhi, since Uncle Somnath was working for All India Radio in Calcutta until September 1946. However, their daughter Achla, my babyhood friend, enthusiastically joined our boisterous activities once she arrived, which included the lively game Kikeri learned from Susan Coolidge’s ‘What Katy Did’. She can still remember a terrifying experience when the predominantly Muslim area in which she and her family lived, in Thomson Road, was dangerously close to riot-stricken Daryaganj. My father arranged for the Chibs to be brought to Lodhi Road in the middle of the night to keep them safe with us.

In 1954 we visited Delhi and Simla for nostalgic reunions with the Chibs and the Surjeet Singhs. The Chibs lived at 4 Akbar Road, Delhi, and the Surjeet Singhs in Eddleston, Simla. Uncle Somnath, who was soon to become the first Director General of the Indian Tourist department, drove us children up to the gates of our old home, 58 Lodhi Road, and asked me if we would like to look around. I experienced the most painful pang, as though I had been knifed in the chest, and said I didn’t want to go in. To view those rooms where so much laughter and merrymaking had taken place just seven years earlier? Oh no. It was then that I fully understood the significance of Tennyson’s lines in Tears Idle Tears:

Tears from the depths of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather in the eyes… Thinking of the days that are no more.

Many might call Tennyson a sentimental fool, but he certainly knew how to tell it like it was in certain situations. These were days that would never come back, ever.

On a more cheerful note, we had a wonderful time in Delhi, and were much taken with the ready availability of yellow taxis in Delhi, just a phone call away, and we also enjoyed our first taste of Coca Cola at the nearby Gymkhana Club.

Our family was living in very comfortable conditions in Delhi, where my father was once again Deputy Director in the Labour Department, but he was already planning to resign from this job and begin an enterprise in Lahore to be named Sangam Publications. He yearned for his native city, but I wonder what he would have to say about it today. Alas by the time he arrived in Lahore in the early part of 1947, the roiling clouds of Partition were already lowering over the horizon of the Punjab. The shareholders in Sangam departed for Delhi, taking my father’s life savings with them, and leaving behind a litho-offset press which was to have printed fine art books, but was not able to fulfill my father’s long-held dream. The horror that was to follow was of course beyond all conception. In the words of Amrita Preetam:

Dharti te lahoo varsiyaa, kabraan paiaan choan, Preet diaan shahzadiaan ajj vich mazaraan roan.

Aj sabhi Qaido ban gaye, husn ishq de chor, Aj kitthon liaaiye labbh ke, Waris Shah ik hor.

Uth dardmandnaan dia dardia, uth tak apna Punjab. Blood poured onto the earth, the graves burst open,

The beloved princesses of the land now weep among the tombs. Everyone is a villain, a destroyer of beauty and love;

Where can we find a new Waris Shah today? Arise, oh friend of the afflicted, arise, and look upon your Punjab.

In the meantime, we children were unaware of these smouldering future tragedies, and played our wild games throughout Lodhi Road, the nearby beautiful Lodhi Gardens and right up to the banks of the River Jamuna. Sister Mariam and Cousin Salima (Cheemie) were constantly on the lookout to join in with us hooligans, but their legs were too short to cycle down the avenues or climb the old peepal tree in the nearby real-lif jungle. Eventually I had to give in to my father’s pleas to let the young ones have a share in our exciting activities, so as a compromise we occasionally used the large hollow bushes which separated our bungalow from the neighbours, to play ‘house house’ in, since three bush-rooms could be used for our make-believe dramas. There were indoor dramas as well, staged in the drawing room, to which parents from all over Lodhi Road were dragged by their enthusiastic children, and where multi-racial adults mingled perforce.

My bolshie friends were mainly English classmates from the Convent of Jesus and Mary, but there were two truly nasty Indian sisters who lived next door and were obviously jealous of this supposed racial supremacy. They would jeeringly call me ‘Simla Toast’, since I had come from Simla, as though that was some sort of social stigma, and would also chant ‘Seven-year Old Girl’ at me, as I was much younger than my classmates, and that really riled these two sisters. One day I lost my cool and confided in my father, who thought for a bit, then asked me the names of the culprits. They were called Rita and Marjorie. ‘Next time you see them, don’t wait for them to say anything. Just shout out, Rita Papita, Marjorie Baandari,’ my father advised with an anticipatory smile. I did just that, and never heard from the Papaya and the Monkey again, much to Daddy’s delight. That was one of the advantages of having a master of linguistics as a father.

Bebeji was a frequent visitor from Lahore, and she found to her delight that the Lodhi Road front lawn had a henna bush growing in it from which she and her maid Chiragh Bibi would pluck fresh leaves every day for making a paste to apply to hands and feet as well as hair. She would then conduct her storytelling sessions sitting next to the fragrant henna bush, with Mai Soma and Chiragh Bibi along with myself listening in rapt attention. Mai Soma was engaged in a real-life romance during those days with our cook Adalat Khan, the ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’ from the Amritsar days, and whenever he crept into her quarter right at the back of our bungalow, we could hear the loud protests of his irate wife. Matters eventually reached explosive proportions, but Partition finally solved that particular problem, though even then there was a last minute crisis in Srinagar.

We revelled in family picnics at nearby Safdar Jung and Humayun’s Tomb, as well as on the banks of the Jamuna River, with the Faizes and ourselves enjoying food cooked on the spot for our delectation. Those were definitely the days. I can also remember clip-clopping off in a tonga on holidays to Connaught Place with my father, for a peep into a bookshop and a refreshing interval at Wenger’s Restaurant for vanilla ice cream and a Vimto drink.

Apart from our reluctantly watched amateur theatricals, a real-life drama was soon to burst upon us, a surprise to surpass all possible surprises. Our faraway George grandparents had decided to retire from the Hoe Street shop and book passage for India to visit their two daughters whom they had not seen for more than a decade, as well as their five grandchildren. Later they planned to visit racist Uncle Geoffrey in South Africa. And so one fine day in early 1947, two figures emerged from the Punjab Mail, which operated from the Ballard Mole Pier Station at Bombay, connecting with the P&O ship from Tilbury Docks near London. One figure was small, stout and vivacious, and the other tall and debonair. Granny and Grandpa in person, laden with gifts from abroad. We screamed for joy as we fell upon their necks. Could things get any more exciting? They were soon to be whisked away by us to Srinagar before the hot weather began, as Granny was a blood pressure patient and could not go to Simla. This was just as well, since the communal killings began very early in Simla, and Srinagar was saved from slaughter.

Our grandparents were the essence of love and affection, as well as being full of gory stories of London during the Blitz. Needless to say, we hung upon their every word as they regaled us with descriptions of how Londoners valiantly and stoically lived through the Battle of Britain, during which our Uncle Peter was shot down twice over the English Channel. He was a pilot in the Royal Air Force, and looked devastatingly handsome in his uniform, with those dreamy Crucefix eyes he had inherited from Granny. The second time around Uncle Peter floated in the icy waters of the Channel for two whole days before he was rescued. Granny was sure that it was the St. Christopher medal she had given her favourite son that saved him, as St. Christopher is the patron saint of all travellers. Uncle Peter went on to become a chartered accountant and retired as a Vice-President of Pepsi Cola in Atlanta Georgia.

Among many anecdotes, Grandpa told us with great relish, in a typically London style, of a neighbouring lady whose posterior was partially sliced off by a flying piece of plate glass. Everyone on Hoe Street had stopped going down to the outside air raid shelters when the sirens went, and dived under their dining tables instead. Perhaps the neighbour was not able to dive down in time.

It was a wrench to leave Delhi behind forever, but at the same time the thought of going back to Srinagar was very exciting. I was to attend my old school, the Presentation Convent in Rambagh, and we rented one of three cottages nearby, Harmony I, II and III, belonging to a distinguished Kashmiri family. The garden of our house, Harmony III, was abrim with strawberries, cherries, baggoo goshas and peaches. Nothing can ever rival the succulent fruit of Kashmir, indeed the very air of the valley is imbued with its fragrance. Needless to say, Granny and Grandpa were delighted with their new surroundings, and we were soon joined by Aunty Alys and our two cousins, Cheemie as well as Moneeza who was born in 1946. From riot-torn Lahore came the germs of whooping cough which attacked all the children in the Harmony III cottage except for myself. For some reason I was immune, and so I did not join in the terrible coughing and whooping of the other four.

Whoops or no whoops, Mariam and Cheemie once again joined together in their favourite occupation: Get Salma. They shadowed me and stalked me wherever I went, hoping to become part of whatever comparatively grownup activities I was involved in. But they met with their comeuppance on one memorable occasion. I was off to attend a houseboat party hosted by my doppelganger, Helen, a British classmate with an ethereal air, a girl who did not welcome tiny intruders. I shooed my stalkers away and stepped into the houseboat. The two of them turned tail reluctantly, having given up their hot pursuit, but were soon very excited to see what appeared to be a pile of black shiny reethas or soap nuts by the roadside, which they picked up and put into the skirts of their frocks. When they got back home, it was discovered that the reethas were actually goats’ droppings! They were scolded roundly, shaken hard, and the droppings were brushed off their skirts. Mariam also recalls Salmaan eating dead ants at the bottom of the garden, so the young ones were obviously firmly tied to Mother Earth.

There was a brief revival of the Delhi romance when we came upon Mai Soma wheeling a baby pram along the Bund. She must have been informed of our whereabouts by her paramour, and she begged us to take her to Lahore. After much thought we had to refuse, as it would not have been feasible for her to come with us in such explosive times, and so she left our lives forever.

Daddy departed for Lahore after having deposited his family in Srinagar, for he had to begin a new life there. He did make occasional visits though, and during one of these, Sardar Ibrahim, the Kashmiri leader who was living ‘underground’ at the time, came to meet him for consultations on strategies for Kashmir. The future history of the valley, so fraught with tragedy, could not be foretold at that time, and all Kashmiris were filled with hope and idealism.

As the month of October approached, the situation on the road between Kashmir and the newly-formed state of Pakistan became extremely dangerous. One day my mother received a telegram from Lahore: ‘Leave at once!’ Aunty Alys and our cousins had already gone, so Mummy had to now pack up house hastily and hire a bus to take us and our grandparents to Lahore. Granny and Grandpa were full of excitement, and in view of the horror stories circulating about the killings going on along the road to Pakistan, they armed themselves with packets of ground red pepper to throw into the eyes of any attackers. As our Pindi-Murree Transport bus operating from Srinagar trundled across the Kohala Bridge, Grandpa enthusiastically shouted, ‘Pakistan Zindabad!’ We arrived safe and sound, stayed in Murree for a month, then went on to Lahore, and some time later Granny and Grandpa left for South Africa from Karachi. We children never saw them again.

Once in Lahore, we were allotted a house, 6 Masson Road, in lieu of the last piece of land left behind in Ranian. This house could have been bought by Mummy after Daddy’s untimely death of a heart attack in 1950, on the eve of his being appointed Vice-Chancellor of Punjab University, but she was not able to muster up the necessary capital. Daddy began to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and was chosen as a member of a delegation headed by Sir Zafrullah Khan, which included Nawab Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani, that was to plead Pakistan’s case regarding Kashmir at the UN Security Council. He had to sell the litho-offset press that the Sangam shareholders had left behind, and incurred a major financial loss thereby. A year after our arrival in Lahore he was appointed Principal of Islamia College, Railway Road, and began sterling work in organizing the academic foundations of the institution. He was also able to rehabilitate large numbers of young men from East Punjab who had arrived in Lahore as refugees in a destitute condition. They were provided with scholarships, hostel accommodation and free books through Daddy’s good offices.

The owner of Caravan Book Shop in Anarkali told me many years later that he had been helped most generously by Dr. Taseer when he came to the college for admission, and he refused to take any payment for the books I had placed on his counter. This was one of the most moving testimonials to Daddy’s kindliness, and I was reminded of Uncle Victor once telling me that Taseer was the most completely moral man that he had ever had the privilege of knowing.

These memories of our Huguenot ancestors began with a description of Robert and Pierre Crucefix who fled to London in 1686 to escape religious persecution, so it is only fitting that a startling piece of current Crucefix history should wind up these adventures. In August 1998 we stood like Shakespeare’s wonder-wounded hearers to learn from a lawyer in the United Kingdom that a distant relative of Granny’s on the maternal side, Alice Smith, had died intestate in Cheltenham, and her property and savings had been scrupulously divided up between each one of her descendants. Granny’s only surviving son Peter, and all her grandchildren received 1000 pounds sterling each or sums to that effect. In addition we received beautifully compiled family trees, meticulously researched and produced by Martyn Crucefix, a distant poet cousin, who traced back the entire family history to 1686.

Our own personal history could have developed differently if Mummy had agreed to leave for London in 1950 when Granny and Grandpa urged her to bring the children with her and come and live with them. She decided that she should stay on in the city that Daddy had always loved so much, and bring up his children as Pakistanis. It was indeed a heroic decision, as those who should have looked after her interests failed to do so, and Uncle Faiz was in custody for several years after 1950 in connection with the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. Had it not been for the backing of several good friends, Mummy would have been unable to cope. However, she struggled on and managed to support the family as best she could, educated us in the most exclusive schools and colleges, and she will always be remembered for her courage in the face of adversity. Never forget that she was a Huguenot by descent, and this race includes Sir Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, among many other notables, as well as two ferocious Caribbean pirates, one of whom was nicknamed The Exterminating Angel.

Note: In my research for this series I received invaluable help from my childhood friends Deepak Crawford, (nee Surjeet Singh), Achla Eccles, (nee Chib) and her sister Ratna Sahai, (nee Chib). My sister Mariam Awan, (nee Taseer) provided me with a crucial date which completed the complicated jigsaw puzzle of our family history. My cousin Moneeza Hashmi (nee Faiz) supplied me with rare family pictures courtesy of our cousin Cathy in California, and my cousin Salima Hashmi (nee Faiz) was able to retrieve some beautiful pictures from Mariam’s cache.

The Friday Times