FROM KIPPERS to KARIMEEN A LIFE

 Author : Psyche Abraham

Publisher : Athena Press (in UK) – Year  2006, Roli Books (in India)- Year 2006,

pages 214 + 16 pages of 28 B&W photographs

 

Review by Indra Mani Lal

Excerpts :

( ) My passage to India really began, I suppose, in Nov 1953, at Mount Pleasant post office, the main sorting office for London, where I met my future husband, Jhupu, an Indian from Bengal. I had the kind of face that people seemed to want to paint or photograph. Nobody who met me for the first time thought I was English. An Italian woman who used to frequent the restaurant asked if she could paint me, I agreed. She was a self-taught painter and not very good but the painting was exhibited the following year at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition.

( )  My mother was horrified when I broached the subject of marriage to Jhupu. “Your children will be half-castes!” she said. Father was less forthright but the gist of his argument was much the same. Until Jhupu had finished at the Central School and before he got a job at the London Press Exchange, we lived a hand-to-mouth existence, especially during the last week of every month by which time his allowance from home had dried up. I remember one Saturday morning setting out with several of his paintings under my arm with the idea of selling them, we were dead broke.

( ) We booked passage on the SS Batory, sailing on 10^th Jan 1956 from Southampton; docking into the quay at Bombay docks on 29^th Jan 1956. Jhupu’s parents had come all the way from Calcutta to meet us, were waiting outside the Customs area. I think one of the reasons that I was able to adjust fairly easily to such a strange and new environment was that I had made a firm commitment to myself that I was going to make a go of it, come what may. I knew it would be difficult and often trying but I never entertained the idea that it would be impossible. I had formed a vivid picture in my mind of what it would be like. I was young and malleable. I was excited at the idea of starting life afresh, in a new environment – and with almost a brand new identity.

( ) Nothing in my early life had prepared me for Jhupu’s family home in Calcutta, where I was to find myself. His was a multiple joint family, that is to say there were three generations of six families living under a single roof. His grandfather, Aghorenath Adhikari, the progenitor of these families, originally from East Bengal had started his working life as an educationist in Silchar Assam and was rewarded with the title Rai Bahadur by the British Government. As his family multiplied they moved into 25, Hindustan Park in Ballygunge in south Calcutta.

( ) From Bombay we went by train –first class, as father in law was a retired railway officer – to Calcutta. I had arrived while a wedding was under way at the house. One of Jhupu’s cousins was getting married. A horde of people were lined up to greet us. Everyone was exclaiming, ‘Ki sundar, ki phorsha !’ – how pretty and how fair she is.

( ) The wedding was a three day affair, with mealtimes a huge affair. Vegetables, fish and meat were being cut up by the womenfolk and great cauldrons were on the boil. I had never seen anything like it. Although I wanted to help with the cutting, I couldn’t because this involved sitting on the floor with a bonti, a curved scythe-like thing fixed vertically into a piece of wood, which required a great deal of practice and skill to use. So I was given simple jobs like shelling peas etc. the gathering of the womenfolk to chop fish, meat and vegetables was a daily affair and one of the most enjoyable times of their day. Their husbands and children were off to office and school, and here they would gather for a bit of gossip and laughter. I made it a point be present though I mostly didn’t do any of the work.

( ) Evenings were more fun because when the younger men, Jhupu’s brothers and cousins returned from work or college, we would all go together for what Bengalis call adda, where they sit around and chat about anything. Or we would go out in cars to the centre of the city, buy kathi kabab from Nizam’s , or go to the maidan. Sometimes we’d go and sit on the banks of the River Hooghly. It is so huge, by comparison makes the Thames look like a  storm drain.

( ) I left by train to join him at Bombay. The flat Jhupu had found for us was in a brand new building in Colaba, a one room affair with French windows opening out onto a largish verandah from which we could sometimes glimpse the sea, a bright and airy bathroom and a ‘kitchen’ which was about four sq feet, a hole in the wall. Jhupu’s salary was six hundred rupees, rent one hundred seventy-five, dinners & Sunday lunch at nearby Parisien Dairy for both of us one hundred fifty rupees, leaving two hundred seventy-five for Jhupu’s transport, cigarettes, a part time maid and other sundries such as potatoes, rice, dal, eggs, tea etc. It miraculously covered everything. I made a primitive lunch for myself of rice, dal, a boiled egg on a Primus stove, the pumping kind. Jhupu had some snack at the office, an Ad agency, where he was Art Director..

( ) It was during those first few months in Bombay that the Suez Affair erupted and I realized that my perspective of the world had changed. I could see the larger canvas from where I was, east of Suez. Growing up in England, it was easy to form the impression that the English were somehow superior (even to the French!) and that the English way of life was the only one worth living. The rest of the world was somehow inferior. After coming to India, my eyes were opened and I could see the sheer arrogance and smugness behind this supposition.

( ) Soon after my daughter was born, we moved into our own house in Bandra at the bottom of Pali Hill. It consisted of a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom and a small garden. We began to lead a more social life, going to parties and having people over to our place. I got a job at the Alliance Francaise Library, with a Goan maid to look after the children. I enjoyed commuting into town on the local train and being out of the house environment for a while each day. The advertising crowd were competitors, but also all friends and led a fairly riotous social life where much flirting took place and affairs started. An advertising man (who shall remain unnamed) would often drop in at our house, on his way to work, or in the middle of the afternoon. He was dashing, had a brilliant smile and a deep throated laugh. Walking up our garden path holding his jacket over his shoulder finger hooked through a loop. One day we met at a friends flat where he intended to take the relationship a step further. At the last moment, he held back, saying he didn’t want to make love, and the affair gradually petered out.

( ) Meanwhile, Jog Chatterjee had suddenly begun to take an interest in me. I left Alliance Francaise, as Jog introduced me to Russy Karanjia the editor of Blitz who employed me to write a short story for them every week. I would often meet Jog during the lunch hour. Very soon Jhupu began to sense that things weren’t quite right, and asked me what was going on. I told him I was in love with Jog. He went berserk, smashing up the furniture and set off in a taxi to Jog’s house yelling ‘I’m going to kill him’. I followed in another taxi and found them engaged in a scuffle with the servants trying to break it up. The upshot was that Jhupu was transferred to Calcutta office, and we were back at 25, Hindustan Park. I continued to keep in touch with Jog with connivance of a friend, while continuing to work for Blitz. Jhupu was mad with hurt, ranting and raging when at home. Finally it was decided that I leave for England for few months.

( ) I was writing to Jog everyday and he to me. I continued to look for a flat for us when he would come over and we live together. In the meantime I was in relationship with two persons, one after another, becoming pregnant from one. I tried for abortion (illegal then) which was unsuccessful, so it proceeded to full pregnancy. Jog gave up his Managerial job at Bombay and came to London, we moving to the flat I had rented and furnished, He had to take a menial clerical job. What a letdown. Officially not divorced from Jhupu, I could not give the upcoming baby for adoption without his permission, which I was loath to take, so I registered at a ‘unmarried mothers society’ who did these things. A baby girl was born and I had to stay there for six more weeks till she could be given in adoption.

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My take : A British girl falls in love and marries an Indian, moves to India. Details of life as faced and how she overcame in a very delightful manner from 1955 to 2002, with in-law’s in Calcutta, moving on to Bombay, then Kutch with the next , New Delhi, ending in Kerala with the final one. The world of Ad Agency, its men and life. A book which gives lots of insight of the period.

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Subject type : Partial Autobiography, mainly of life in India

Narrative Style : Engrossing

Readability: Good

Reader’s Interest : Excellent

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