As mentioned in Amma’s Daughters, a number of pictures, documents, along with several thousand books, were damaged in Amma and Babu’s neglected library on the rooftop terrace in Jaipur. The surviving images that appear on this page withstood assaults by mice and silverfish, long spells of desert heat, and even a flood, before being recovered by Surekha.
PEOPLE
Amma (Prakashwati Sinha), photographed in Wardha in 1941, around the time of her marriage to Babu. As so often, the faraway expression on her face is hard to read—a sober commitment to building a future, with a hint of past sorrows in her eyes.
Babu (Rajeshwar Narayan Sinha), as a young man. Born into a landowning family in Bihar, Babu abruptly left his ancestral home when he was barely in his mid-twenties, moving first to Patna and then vanishing into the revolutionary underground.
Rekha (Surekha Sinha), age 8, in the hill station of Nainital, not far from the government training centre at Jeolikot for which Amma—then the deputy director of UP’s Social Welfare Department—was responsible. Many years later, Rekha acquired a puppy of her own, whom she named Neelu (“Blue”), for the sparkling colour of his eyes.
Shankar chacha (Shankareshwer Narayan Sinha), one of Babu’s two younger brothers, then in his early twenties. The fifth of six sons, Shankar chacha assumed responsibility for the family estate in Bhagalpur, which gradually dwindled in size during the land reforms following India’s independence. Although Babu was estranged from his family, his daughters loved their visits to their uncle in Bhagalpur, where they were embraced by the warmth of their kin.
Abha (17) and Surekha (13) at their home in Jaipur. Pictured here with rescued rabbits, 1959.
Didi (Abha Choudhary) (18), Jaipur, 1960.
Surekha performing Bharatnatyam at the age of 16, Jaipur, 1962.
Abha (21) with her early object of passion—the sitar. Both daughters were given lessons in music and dance, but it was Didi who dedicated herself to the study of a single instrument. Her long hours of practice perhaps allowed her to escape into a private world, away from the emotional cacophony of her family.
Hamir Chand Choudhary (24), Dhar, 1962.
Rekha (top left) and Didi (top right), in a family portrait taken in 1964 around the time of Didi’s marriage to Hamir Chand Choudhary. Following the wedding, Didi moved with “Jijaji” (“sister’s husband,” as Rekha called him) to his family’s opulent home near Dhar, in western Madhya Pradesh—some 600 kilometres distant from her friends and family in Jaipur.
Rekha in 1966, at the time of her graduation from the master’s program in music at the University of Rajasthan. Initially attracted to the study of painting, Rekha discovered herself increasingly drawn to classical Hindustani music, the field in which she ultimately earned her doctorate.
Surekha with Neelu, Jaipur, 1966. In the background you can see the back wall of the Devi Temple and a corner of the asbestos sheet that covered the library on the rooftop terrace of their house.
B. P. Sinha, at the age of twenty-nine—the man destined to become Rekha’s husband. At first, Amma refused to consider the match: “I would rather push my daughter into a well,” she declared, “than consider a marriage proposal from a zamindar family in Bihar.” She came around, however, once she realized that the proposed groom had firmly rejected the feudal attitudes that still prevailed in much of eastern India.
Surekha and her husband, whom she addressed as Sinha saheb, in their home in Dhanbad, not long after their marriage, in 1970. Located in the coal-mining districts of eastern Bihar, Dhanbad came as something of a shock to Surekha—the place where she faced the blunt force of traditional social hierarchies.
Amma with Rekha and her infant daughter (and author of this book). Although Amma lived to celebrate the birth of her first grandchild, she died of a heart attack the following year, at the age of only fifty-four.
Later additions to Surekha and B. P. Sinha’s family: Meenal (9), Peeyush (8), and Amit (3),celebrating Amit’s birthday in Dhar, 1980.
DOCUMENTS
British Library declassified document (Confidential memorandum on the internal situation in Rajputana and Ajmer-Merwara for the period ending the 15th August 1930, No. 53-C/187-GL/28, 465-PC/30) mentions the “intemperate” effects of the speeches of Shanti Devi of Muttra at meetings held under the auspices of the Congress. It also notes the emergence of a new phenomenon: “meetings for women only” which were very well attended. In her autobiography, Amma records her first arrest for sedition on August 13, 1930 in Ajmer after a series of public speeches (Sinha 1962, pp. 7-14). At the time of her arrest she lived with a benefactor’s family in Mathura (Muttra) under the name “Shanti Devi.”She was only twelve years old.
A water-damaged picture of Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Mrs. Rajvanshi Devi with Prakashwati Sinha in the middle, Wardha, late 1930s.
Prakashwati Sinha welcoming Indira Gandhi to the All India Convention of the Youth Congress in Jaipur, December 1960.
A water-damaged letter from Mahatma Gandhi offering the young couple blessings on their wedding, Wardha, 14 June 1941
A water-damaged letter from Dr. Rajendra Prasad. Dr. Prasad was making apologies for his inability to attend their wedding and sending his blessings to the newly married couple. Wardha, 15 June 1941.
Prakashwati Sinha (first from left in the front row) with members of the Rajasthan Board of Education and the Governor Gurumukh Nihal Singh, Jaipur c. 1961.
PLACES
Bada Rawla Dhar, 1964.
Surekha (first one on the right) visiting B. P. Sinha’s ancestral home for the first time in Lehna (Bihar), 1970.
One of the few unaltered walls around the courtyard in Babu’s ancestral home in Bhagalpur. Meenal with Shankar chacha’s son (Indra Kumar Sinha) and grandson (Niket Sinha), 2013
All the cities and towns mentioned in the book are plotted on this outline map of South Asia (map compiled by Sanjiv Shrivastava).
