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Monthly Archives: November 2022
Neighborly Chats – Covid Era
Thank God, the worst is over. One year has passed and Covid restrictions are gone in Delhi. Neighbors no longer need to chat through masks and fences.
A Magical Rainbow
Always live in the present. Keep moving, because rainbows can happen anytime…like this one I saw today…near a water sprinkler to contro air pollution.
Shrouded In Mystery
Mother Nature’s mysteries will never cease. Winter is here in Delhi now and my old spinach plant has covered itself with a thin veil. It is growing seeds and no new leaves are coming. The existing ones are getting shriveled.
Oats & Potatoes Cutlets
There is so much you can do with roasted and powdered oats.
Here’s a recipe I tried out last Sunday, 21 November 2022, for breakfast. This time, I made cutlets with powdered roasted oats and mashed potatoes. See the pic on top.
Here are the step-by-step pics.
1. Dry roast two cups of oats on medium heat. Keep stirring every minute and switch off the gas after 3 minutes. No need to turn it brown.
2. Grind roast oats in a mixer-grinder till you get a coarse powder. Take out this powder in a mixing utensil and add 2 slices of bread, 10 medium-sized mashed potatoes, one chopped green chilli, chopped garlic, some grated ginger, and spices (salt, red chilli powder, amchur, whole coriander seeds powder, whole cumin seeds powder, heeng), and chopped green coriander. Mix with your hands and mash everything till you form a dough as in the pic.
3. Take out small balls from this dough and flatten them as in this pic below.
4. Shallow fry the cutlets on a non-stick tawa on medium heat till they turn light brown all over. Do this in batches and avoid overcrowding on the tawa.
5. Take out the cutlets on a plate once they are ready. Enjoy!
For more on my experiments with oats, click here. https://jasbirchatterjeephotoblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/experiments-with-oats-part-2/
The Last Maharaja Of Faridkot
On 6 September 2022, a story about the last Maharaja of Faridkot appeared in the Hindustan Times. I overlooked it, as it was somewhere deep inside the newspaper towards the bottom. At night, the newspaper hit the scrap bin.
There, it would have remained and got discarded a week later, had Britain’s Queen Elizabeth not died two days later.
While searching for the pic of the smiling Queen in her last official engagement just three days prior to her death, my gaze fell on the Maharaja’s story.
Out of curiosity, I read it and found it so intriguing, filled with sharp twists and turns. It was like a fairy tale where someone wins in the end after a long struggle.
Amrit, Maharaja’s eldest child, is the heroine here and I could find so much of myself in her.
Just in case you missed that story, here’s my version; in a fairy tale style we like to use for the royals…
Once upon a time, there was a kingdom of Faridkot. Its rulers had descended from the royal family of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. During the colonial rule, they supported the British instead of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. It was a matter of survival. Under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, they would have been mere jamindars or landlords. The British made them kings.
In 1918, when the last ruler Maharaja Harinder Singh Brar was just 3 years old, tragedy struck. His father died. The colonials took care of the kingdom till the heir-apparent grew up. At age 19, Maharaja Harinder Singh was formally installed as the King of Faridkot.
Here is a chronological sequence of events that unfolded in this story.
In 1933, the Maharaja got married to Narinder Kaur. They had four children, Amrit Kaur, Deepinder Kaur, Harmohinder Singh, and Maheepinder Kaur, born in 1934, 1936, 1937, and 1944 respectively.
British colonial rule ended in 1947 and the Maharaja opted for accession to India. It was the most logical thing to do then.
The wheels of time rolled on and the royal family’s private assets accumulated; huge palaces, homes and apartments, horses, horse-driven carriages, vast plots of land, fat bank accounts, weapons, vintage cars, an aerodrome, precious jewelery, antique pieces, paintings, etc. See the photo below. It will give you a good idea about the legacy that the Maharaja has left behind.
In her memoirs, Amrit Kaur, Maharaja’s eldest daughter, mentions that her Dad was gentle and soft-spoken. But her Mom, Narinder Kaur, was a tough disciplinarian.
Together, the two made great parents. They ensured that their children grew up as normal human beings; not pampered royal brats, unable to handle the terrible vicissitudes of life.
The three daughters, in particular, learned embroidery, singing, playing the piano, driving, and horse-riding and got the best possible education including home schooling by English governesses.
In due course of time, under normal circumstances, the Maharaja would have got all the three daughters married off into royal families and bequeathed his entire wealth to Harmohinder, his only son.
But destiny had other plans.
In 1952, Amrit, who had a mind of her own and followed her heart, got married to someone she fell in love with, Major Harpal Singh, her father’s aide-de-camp. Her parents were on a world tour at that time.
Although Major Harpal was a much-accomplished soldier from World War I and an IPS officer, her family did not, initially, approve of their marriage; mainly because he was the Maharaja’s employee, not a royal, and it implied lowering of social status for Amrit. Having lived in palaces as a princess with legions of servants, she now had to adjust herself to life in government accommodation.
Later, in 1971, the Privy Purse ended and all the royals like the one of Faridkot were on their own. Many royal families got ruined. But the one of Faridkot was smarter. Their real estate kept giving huge returns. Even the luxury cars, it is said, are still in a well-maintained condition.
Maheepinder, the youngest sibling, did not marry at all and lived in Mashobara Palace in Chandigarh till her death. Deepinder got married into a royal family in Burdwan in West Bengal.
In 1981, Harmohinder, age 44, educated in Doon School and Oxford University, UK, still a bachelor, died in a road accident.
Harmohinder’s death dealt the Maharaja a terrible blow. It threw him into severe depression.
In 1982, his will appeared. It excluded Amrit completely and gave the management of his entire wealth and estate worth more than Rs.25000 crore to Meharwal Khewaji Trust with Deepinder and Maheepinder as trustees.
The reason given for excluding Amrit was that she offended the Maharaja by marrying against his wishes and this was his way of punishing her.
In 1986, Rani Narinder Kaur died and the Maharaja passed away in 1989.
Deepinder and Maheepinder got about Rs.1500 every month as trust allowances. The Trust carried out different kinds of commercial and philanthropic activities, such as running a charitable hospital, a school, a museum, turning a palace into a resort, providing educational scholarships, etc.
But wherever big money is involved, corruption and greed are unavoidable. Maheepinder’s death occurred under mysterious circumstances and several items disappeared from the palace soon afterwards. As per palace gossip, the Trust is behind all this. She lived alone and owned just one Maruti 800, which she used to travel around occasionally.
Maharaja’s will became public in 1991 and Amrit subsequently filed a case against this will.
It was, she said, not for money, but to get back her honour and dignity. She was with her father till his death and there were no differences at all.
According to her, her father had been unwell before his death and he never made any will. She claimed that the will was fake, as the properties in question are ancestral. They fall under different laws and cannot be handed over to a trust.
She argued that the family’s servants created a Trust and made a dubious will with the help of some lawyers. They exploited her father’s feeble condition and took over control of everything. They played this game for almost 24 years until she filed a case.
In September 2013, Amrit won the case. But there were several appeals and counterclaims from both the trust and her uncle’s family.
In September 2022, the Supreme Court reiterated the same ruling as before.
1. The will is null and void. It has serious grammatical errors, which the Maharaja, considering his caliber, could not have overlooked.
2. The rightful owners of the Maharaja’s property are his daughters, not the Trust. So the Trust is also invalid.
Since Amrit is the only surviving child now, she has inherited everything that belonged to the Maharaja. Isn’t that dramatic? As in fairy tales?
What will she do with so much money? The journalists asked her this question after hearing about the good news. She said not much is going to change, as life has always treated her and her family well. She will continue to live in the same house that she and her husband Harpal built.
How I wish this fairy tale ends here and everyone lives happily ever after.
Amrit is, unfortunately, in her 80s now and her husband Harpal is 90. They have only a couple of years left. Who knows what the future holds? Only time will tell.
Two After-lives – A comparison
After-lives generally resemble what those lives were like before death. See these two photos below and you will understand what I mean. Do post your comments on this in the comment box. I look forward to reading them.
Tracing My Roots In Old Delhi
In March 1984, when I boarded a DTC bus (number 753) from Kamla Market, Delhi, to go to my cousin’s house in Janakpuri, I thought I had turned my back on the congested, suffocating Gali Kali Masjid for good.
I was wrong.
My parents were working abroad at that time. They were unwell, and I felt so lonely and homesick. I had just passed out of 12th standard, and my future appeared bleak.
Four decades later, on 13 November 2022, inspired by Mayank Austen Soofi’s Old Delhi series in the Hindustan Times and overcome by childhood nostalgia, I re-visited the same place. This time too, my parents were not around. They have both passed away. But I had the company of my husband Sukhangshu.
I hoped to click photos of the houses where my terrified grandparents came post partition in 1947 and rebuilt their lives with courage and determination.
Though I remembered the exact address, I just couldn’t locate the place I was looking for. We kept ending up where we began and walking through the narrow bylanes was so scary.
So we clicked a few pics of the locality and visited some well-known landmarks, such as Gurdwara Sis Ganj, Town Hall, Ghalib haveli and Razia Sultan’s tomb.
I haven’t given up yet, mind you, and I will keep visiting till I find my grandparents’ houses.
Here are some of those pics we clicked with our mobile phones.
Ride in the Delhi Metro
Walk through Gali Kali Masjid, Sita Ram Bazaar
Gali Kali Masjid gets its name from this Mughal-era masjid you see above. While clicking its pic, I wondered why my parents never mentioned it or pointed it out while taking me around during our Delhi tours. This mystery cleared a moment later. From the corner of my eye, I noticed men wearing white fez caps casting suspicious looks towards me. We hurried out right away.
Razia Sultan Tomb
It was rather heartbreaking to see the tomb of Delhi Sultanate’s only and much-accomplished female ruler in such a terrible condition. She deserved better.
Haveli Mirza Ghalib
The original haveli of Mughal era’s Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib was much bigger and had nearly disappeared, as the locals had grabbed it. But after several scholars protested against the loss of this important landmark in our history, the government got the area cleared and re-created it.
The sculpted Ghalib was presented by poet Gulzar and unveiled by Delhi’s CM Late Shiela Dixit in December 2010. The sculptor is Shri Bhagwan Rampure.
Town Hall, Chandni Chowk
A prominent feature of this important building is the statue of Swami Shradhanand. It replaced the statue of Queen Victoria in 1947 after India became independent.
Living in a nation’s memories as a statue isn’t easy, is it? I wrote a poem on this subject with these two photos as photo-prompts. Click here to read it. https://jasbirchatterjeephotoblog.wordpress.com/2022/11/14/woes-of-a-statue/
Also read this post: https://jasbirchatterjeephotoblog.wordpress.com/2022/11/15/two-after-lives-a-comparison/
A Steep Staircase
Staircases like these are quite common in Sita Ram Bazar. My grandfather’s brother’s house adjoining his also had it. Mayank Austen Soofi describes them in his blog as “Where a staircase is more than just a fire exit.”
Guruwara Sis Ganj
You might wonder now why a grand Mughal era royal Razia Sultan rests in such a shabby place while the memory of a beheaded Guru fighting against injustice lives on in the hallowed and well-maintained premises of Gurdwara Sisganj (see the pic on top).
It’s all a matter of one’s karma, I guess.
Woes Of A Statue, A Poem
Inspired by these photos I clicked yesterday, 13 November 2022, here is my latest poem,”Woes Of A Statue.”
Woes of a statue
On a cool, balmy evening
Of November,
We gazed through the metal gate
At the statue of Swamiji;
A reformer, educator, politician;
Mounted on a high pedestal;
Looking so dignified,
Lost in thought…
A bunch of pigeons,
Sat near his feet,
Nibbling the grains,
People kept on scattering.
On the ground near his feet.
Someone waved at the pigeons.
Alarmed, they hurtled upwards,
Flapping their wings.
A moment later, they returned,
Hovering around him,
Perched on his head, face, and arms.
The sloppy ones
Eased themselves on him.
So much like when he was alive,
Dealing with so much public shit.
Someone behind us spoke
Into his cellphone.
“How to find this place, you ask?”
“There’s a huge statue of Gandhiji.”
It made me smile.
Gandhiji and Swamiji
Would have smiled too,
Had they been alive today.
—Jasbir Chatterjee
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