Life Back Then

Chapter 4: Learning and daily routine

Author: 
Visalam Balasubramanian

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Visalam Balasubramanian was born in Pollachi, on May 17, 1925. She was the second of three children. Having lost her mother at about age 2, she grew up with her siblings, cared for by her father who lived out his life as a widower in Erode. She was married in 1939. Her adult life revolved entirely around her husband and four children. She was a gifted vocalist in the Carnatic tradition, and very well read. Visalam passed away on February 20, 2005.

Editor's note: This is Part 4 of her memoirs, which have been edited for this website. Kamakshi Balasubramanian, her daughter, has added some parenthetical explanatory notes in italics.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Nov 92.

I have been writing only about my childhood. Now I think I will go into a later phase beginning with a motor car!

Learning music

Chapter 5: Growing up with father and grandfather

Author: 
Visalam Balasubramanian

Category:

Visalam Balasubramanian was born in Pollachi, on May 17, 1925. She was the second of three children. Having lost her mother at about age 2, she grew up with her siblings, cared for by her father who lived out his life as a widower in Erode. She was married in 1939. Her adult life revolved entirely around her husband and four children. She was a gifted vocalist in the Carnatic tradition, and very well read. Visalam passed away on February 20, 2005.

Editor's note: This is Part 5 of her memoirs, which have been edited for this website. Kamakshi Balasubramanian, her daughter, has added some parenthetical explanatory notes in italics.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Business community

Chapter 6: Beyond the family: Politics in Pre-Independence Erode

Author: 
Visalam Balasubramanian

Category:

Visalam Balasubramanian was born in Pollachi, on May 17, 1925. She was the second of three children. Having lost her mother at about age 2, she grew up with her siblings, cared for by her father who lived out his life as a widower in Erode. She was married in 1939. Her adult life revolved entirely around her husband and four children. She was a gifted vocalist in the Carnatic tradition, and very well read. Visalam passed away on February 20, 2005.

Editor's note: This is Part 6 of her memoirs, which have been edited for this website. Kamakshi Balasubramanian, her daughter, has added some parenthetical explanatory notes in italics.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

I find I am writing only about my own family. I must say something from what I remember about the freedom fighters of Erode and surrounding places, as also my memories of the British days.

Chapter 7: Weddings: My sister’s and mine

Author: 
Visalam Balasubramanian

Category:

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Visalam Balasubramanian was born in Pollachi, on May 17, 1925. She was the second of three children. Having lost her mother at about age 2, she grew up with her siblings, cared for by her father who lived out his life as a widower in Erode. She was married in 1939. Her adult life revolved entirely around her husband and four children. She was a gifted vocalist in the Carnatic tradition, and very well read. Visalam passed away on February 20, 2005.

Editor's note: This is Part 7 of her memoirs, which have been edited for this website. Kamakshi Balasubramanian, her daughter, has added some parenthetical explanatory notes in italics.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

My memories of seasons and the foods we ate

Author: 
Jatinder Sethi

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Sethi with granddaughter Abha

Jatinder Sethi, shown with his granddaughter Abha, was born in Lyallpur, now Faislabad, in pre-Independence India. He finished his M.A. (English) from Delhi University in 1956, and went off to London to study Advertising in 1958. He passed his Membership Exam of The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (M.I.P.A) in1965, and joined Rallis India in Bombay. Later, for over 20 years, he worked for the advertising agency Ogilvy &amp\; Mather. Now retired, he helps his son in his ad agency in Delhi.

 

Author's note: On November 8, 2015, with the grace of God, I celebrated my 85th birthday with my immediate family, at our favourite restaurant -"Delhi O Delhi" at the India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, Delhi. Abha, my granddaughter, now 23, joined the family celebration. She takes a very keen interest in her grandparents. She had read, and commented on all my earlier stories about my personal and professional life. Since I had not written anything new for quite some time, she asked me why. My answer was that I had no more memories left to tell her. "Dadda, think, there must be some other childhood memories that you could tell us. Please, take your time, think, and write, no matter how short, long or uninteresting, I want to know about it. PLEASE!"That's what motivated me to write this story.

November 8 1930! "Kaka Is Born".

Chapter 8: Early times after my wedding

Author: 
Visalam Balasubramanian

Category:

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Visalam Balasubramanian was born in Pollachi, on May 17, 1925. She was the second of three children. Having lost her mother at about age 2, she grew up with her siblings, cared for by her father who lived out his life as a widower in Erode. She was married in 1939. Her adult life revolved entirely around her husband and four children. She was a gifted vocalist in the Carnatic tradition, and very well read. Visalam passed away on February 20, 2005.

Editor's note: This is Part 8 of her memoirs, which have been edited for this website. Kamakshi Balasubramanian, her daughter, has added some parenthetical explanatory notes in italics.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Pindi Memoirs by a Sikh Son of the Soil - 4

Author: 
Kanwarjit Singh Malik

Category:

Kanwarjit Singh Malik was born in Rawalpindi in 1930. His family moved to India at the time of Partition in 1947. He joined the Flying Club in Jalandhar, and was later selected by the Indian Air Force. After the retirement from the Air Force, he served as a senior captain in Air India and Air Lanka. He got married in 1961, In 2011, when they were living in Chandigarh, his wife fell ill, and passed away in spite of the best available medical aid. Then, his daughters, who live in Dubai, California and Hong Kong, requested him to move back to his old flat in Mumbai, as it was easier for them to visit him there. He has started writing a book titled From Khyber to Kanyakumari and Beyond, which will be about his work experiences and tourist experiences in various countries.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Some events become Dreams\; you remember them again and again like year 1934! Some random old memories follow. I have also added some of my opinions, looking back at how life has evolved over time

Childhood recollections: Deoghar

Author: 
Suchandra Banerjee

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Suchandra Banerjee was born in 1939 to Tapogopal and Usha Mukherjee. After she got married to an Army officer in 1958, she made her husband's family and the Indian Armed Forces' family her own. She moved with her husband from city to city, ending in Lutyen's Delhi when her husband, late Lt. General Ashish Banerjee PVSM, served as the Director-General of the National Cadet Corps. Known as a person of great spirit and generosity, she has helped several people, outside her family, whose start in life was disadvantaged. She nurtures a large extended family and contributes to endeavours and institutions serving to uplift communities and the arts. She lives in Noida in the home she retired to with her late husband.

Editor's note: Leena Brown, Suchandra Banerjee's daughter, submitted this story.

When I was young, my siblings and I spent our vacations were spent in Deoghar, where our grandparents had settled down. Three of us sisters and thirteen first cousins visited Deoghar at the same time. It was a riot! Deoghar was our brindavan where we had few restrictions and were free as birds.

Suchnadra Age 2 Deoghar

Suchandra Banerjee, Age 2, Deoghar

First Steps in Life in Ranchi and Patna

Author: 
Suchandra Banerjee

Category:

Suchandra Banerjee was born in 1939 to Tapogopal and Usha Mukherjee. After she got married to an Army officer in 1958, she made her husband's family and the Indian Armed Forces' family her own. She moved with her husband from city to city, ending in Lutyen's Delhi when her husband, late Lt. General Ashish Banerjee PVSM, served as the Director-General of the National Cadet Corps. Known as a person of great spirit and generosity, she has helped several people, outside her family, whose start in life was disadvantaged. She nurtures a large extended family and contributes to endeavours and institutions serving to uplift communities and the arts. She lives in Noida in the home she retired to with her late husband.

Editor's note: Leena Brown, Suchandra Banerjee's daughter, submitted this story.

I was born in May 1939 to Usha and Tapogopal Mukherjee in a red brick house called The Burdwan House in Ranchi. Half of this house was my father's office and the other half our residence. I had an older sister, Shreela (nicknamed Bubu, and called Didi) five years older than me. On my father's promotion to the office of Additional Post-master General, we moved to Patna when I was a couple of weeks old.

Burdwan House Ranchi

Burdwan House, Ranchi. Late 1930s

Growing up in Dharwad

Author: 
Tara Bhadbhade

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Tara Bhadbhade (nee Pandit), born in 1930, has had many avatars over the past eight decades. She has been a lawyer, a lecturer, a sportswoman, a writer, a travel enthusiast, a loyal and loving daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. She is able to juggle all of them and give of her best from every facet of her personality. She is now taking classes in painting and music. She retired as a professor of English in 1989.  Throughout her adult life, she has enjoyed writing and continues to write. She is the author of two published books Light &amp\; Shade in Life's Glade and To Mummy with Love.

The city of Dharwad lies east of the Western Ghats and is surrounded by hills and lakes. The town had the honour of being crowned as the centre of education even during the British regime.

For centuries, it acted as a gateway between the western mountains and the plains. The home of Hindustani classical music, many eminent musicians like Mallikarjun Mansur, Gangubai Hangal, Basavaraj Rajguru, and Bharat Ratna Bhimsen Joshi - one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century - hail from this place.

There is a saying that if you throw a stone in Dharwad, it will hit a poet. Right from D R Bendre, we have any number of poets who have contributed to different genres of the poetic muse.

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