Amrita Sher-Gil by Yashodhara Dalmia

Author:Yashodhara Dalmia [Dalmia, Yashodhara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184759211
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

9

An Improper Suitor

At the outset it was clear to the young couple that they would not get much support from Amrita’s family. Umrao Singh congratulated them reluctantly, but Marie Antoinette remained unwaveringly hostile. Umrao Singh spoke for both of them in a candid and somewhat troubled vein when he wrote to Amrita from Simla:

You were for under nine months carried by your mother in her womb, then you were taken care of and brought up, and are being supported even to this day. Suppose that for some years past you could have been independent of our help through your artistic work or marriage, still you could be dependent on the purchasers of your pictures and your husband. And when so much has been spent on your artistic education in Paris etc. and when one is always anxious to see you prosperous, then to show such dislike of even the expression of mere opinion is a thing which cannot be expected from you. You may be sure that if you think Victor is a good and faithful person and likely to bring you nothing but happiness through his behaviour in married life, then most certainly we would approve of your marrying him. For if you are willing to pass your life with him as the wife of a country doctor in Hungary, as Blanka [Victor’s mother, Marie Antoinette’s sister] says is his only chance, or if you wish to suffer all sorts of privations through his being unable to make a decent income as a doctor here, for not only the heavy expense of an office in central Simla will be necessary, but a practice in expensive Delhi also, which will be most impossible to supply from our present income and which in any case must cease with my death, and as a lawyer and a doctor need to live on their own previous capital before they can establish themselves as successful practitioners, if they ever succeed in doing so for many fail when a few succeed not only in Europe but also in the now overcrowded profession [in India], then what is to happen? [He then goes on to speculate about his wife’s death.] She was saying that she does not like to be buried at Sanjauli, nor does she like to be cremated, but would like to rest in a grave at Dunaharaszti where her family members could bring some flowers to her grave on the death anniversary. And so she would like to have a little pension from her daughters if she loses all her income through my death. What a distressing and melancholy thought this is.1

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.