River of Fire by Qurratulain Hyder

Author:Qurratulain Hyder
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780811204422
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2015-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

36. The Moon Garden

“Pledge we our faith dear Chand Bagh to thee, through years that onward roll . . .”

The college song was set to the tune of ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes’ and was sung with gusto by the students while the pianist, Mrs. ‘Music’ Jordan, sat ramrod straight on the stool and gravely pounded the keyboard. She also played the organ in the College chapel. She pinned her anchal neatly to her left shoulder with a brooch and wore her sari four inches above floor level. Both Mrs. ‘Music’ Jordan and her sister-inlaw, Mrs. ‘Economics’ Jordan, were Lucknowites. Then there were two Bengali Brahmo ladies, two olde-worlde, courteous gentlemen who taught Urdu and Persian, and a kindly Hindi-Sanskrit panditji. Mrs. Constance Das was the college’s first Indian Principal and had recently taken over from the American, Dr. Mary Shannon, who had retired.

Mrs. Das was gracious and handsome, a very high-caste, upper-class Indian Christian. She was the younger sister of Lady Maharaj Singh—Sir Maharaj belonged to the Christian branch of Kapurthala’s Sikh royal family. Vice Principal, Miss Sarah Chacko, was from Kerala. Indian society was a cocktail or potpourri, cheerful co-existence was the norm.

The rest of the college staff was white American, except for the ever-smiling Miss Downs who was a Black nurse, in charge of the King’s Daughter’s Infirmary. A Methodist missionary, Miss Isabella Thoburn had come from Ohio in 1862 and founded this college in Aminabad. It became a degree college in 1895 and was shifted to Chand Bagh across the Gomti in 1922.

Isabella Thoburn College was popularly known as Chand Bagh. Before 1857, Chand Bagh was part of Ramna, or royal parkland, where deer and bison were kept and where the rulers of Oudh came to watch elephant and ram fights. In Lucknow, various localities were known as Baghs or gardens, laid out by the Nawab Vazir and later kings. The residential areas were called Ganj or treasure-houses.

With its magnificent buildings, beautifully furnished drawing rooms, well-tended playing fields and gardens, Chand Bagh looked like a college campus, Anywhere, U.S.A. All the buildings were inter-connected through long, gleaming corridors. The eucalyptus grove was called the Forest of Arden. The three college hostels were named Nishat Mahal, Maunihal Manzil and Maitri Bhavan. Hindu and Muslim boarders jointly celebrated the festivals of Id and Diwali. Some Hindu girls wore ghararas and solemnly lighted joss sticks on the occasion of Milad Sharif, the Prophet’s birthday.

The American teachers of Chand Bagh were the finest emissaries the U.S.A. could have sent to India in its period of isolation. The Americans were aliens and steered clear of Indian politics. Still, instead of the British governor and his lady, they often invited personages such as Sarojini Naidu, leading Urdu poets and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to address the girls on non-political subjects. The college was affiliated to the University of Lucknow: the method of teaching was American. Sociologically, however, the term ‘Americanization’ was unknown. The continent of America had not really been discovered by Indians yet, except by those Punjabi farmers who had settled in California in the Twenties.

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