My Childhood-from the Memory Lane-Grand Parents Interview--
January 27, 2017.
Background Note
Our grand-daughter : Ms. Rhea Sinha, FM, 7 years ( daughter of Mr. Praveen K Sinha and Mrs. Priyanka Sinha )asked me for an interview. It was part of her ( a IInd grader )school project in San Jose, California, U.S.A. It was all about my child hood. I was amazed as had almost forgotten those memories of my child hood, because I never thought of remembering thm , as to of no avail.
Her questions made me alive again. I had a surge of memory and remembrances, making things as fresh as those were of yesterday. I am delighted to now write them, so I can read them any time later and may other people in the family read and know about the era of 1940s and 1950s in which we lived and enjoyed our part of life. This time is not going to come again.
The Family:
We are Hindu by religion and from a community called Kayastha. The sub-caste is Srivastava, a descendant from one of 11 children of our ancestral deity : Lord Chitragupta. Srivastava's are the eldest and most respected out of the 11 siblings. Srivastava's are basically inhabitants of northern states of U.P. and Bihar in northern India but currently scattered in all over the India and most of the developed Western world including Britain, U.S.A.,C anada, Australia, Europe and now middle east and Africa. Kayastha community has had always been very good at scholarship and administration. Raja Todar Mal, one of the nine jewels of Emperor Akbar, in current times Dr. Rajendra Prasad, first President of Indian Republic after Independence, Lal Bahadur Shastri, the second and most respected and in-controversial Prime Ministers of Independent India, Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan, the true leader of Jan Kranti-which compelled the then PM: Indira Gandhi to impose emergency on the country, Super star Amitabh bachchan, poet of repute : Maha Devi Verma, Dr. Hari Vansh Rai Bachchan, Dr. Sampurna Nand, etc are some of the big names from the Srivastava s.
My grand-mother once told me in my childhood that our family some times 250-300 years back migrated from Srinager -- present day J & K state of India. One of the royals of North-Indian states of U.P., during one of his visits to Srinager offered our ancestors royal positions and states / zamindari to allure them to come to U.P. The family title was 'Bhandari'--probably as in charge of the royal treasury and weaponary / armaments. However, It could not be verified any time , through from any written documents. But our family deity is ' Ma Devi Durga ' and still we have a temple in our ancestral village : Gaura, Post and Tehsil: Bansi, Distt. Siddhartha Nagar (earlier part of Basti District), where a puja is performed annually. Since last about 35 years I could not attend any, being far away .
The Gotra of our family is 'Kashyap'.The family tree is as follows:-
My Great-Great-Grandfather : Mr. Dheeraj / My Great-Great-Grand-Mother: Mahadei
My Great -Grandfather: Mr.Ram Sahai / My Great- Grand Mother: Ramkali
My Grandfather : Sri Satya Deo/ My Grand-Mother : Mrs. RamRaji alias Lakhpati.
My Father : Sri Gopal Ji / My mothar: Mrs. Savitri Devi.
Me. : Anjani Kumar / My wife: Mrs. Shanti
Enclosure;- The questionnaire as received from Rhea and their answers / reply .
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Interview of Grand Parents
(or old relative)
Interviewer's name : Ms. Rhea Sinha, 7 yrs., FM, Grand daughter.
Name of person being interviewed : Dr. A. K. Srivastava, 70 yrs. Male, Grandfather.
When you were born : I was born on October 27, 1946.
Where you were born: I was born in and at (both city, District) Basti, U.P. state, India. (now Postal PIN 272001.)
What was your home like? What kind of home was it ? Did you live in a house or an apartment? How many families lived in the house? How many people lived in the house?
I lived in a big, single story pakka house, having a big compound, having many fruit and other trees and lot of greenery in a big courtyard, along with my family. In my family we had 4 adults,4 children and generally 4-5 servants. The half of the house was an office of my father and many people visited that portion for official work. The building was situated in a posh area with the name 'Pakka Bazar' and later called as 'Gandhi Bazar', on the main artery-road of the city and we shared our neighborhood with the then main police-line, where many police-officials of different ranks, visited and stayed on official duty. The house is still there, but the vicinity has gone big change.
In our family we had two grand-mothers, my own grand mother, her widow younger-sister (we called her Mausi- Dadi), my parents, four of our brothers ( two elder to me and one younger). I had an younger sister also, who died when she was only 1 1/2 month old ( of some disease ), along with a battery of 4 or 5 full-time servants, who did all sorts of house-hold chores / jobs, including serving as cook, maids, guard and mending a cow, a horse, pet dogs and occasionally some goats. In those days motor car was not that popular in my city and people used horse-driven carriages ( called bugghi). In my house there was no electricity, no piped water-supply, no piped gas connection, like most of the houses in the city. We had no refrigerators, A/C's, Washing Machines, TV's, coolers, Land-line or mobile phones. In summers ,for cold water we had earthen water containers called 'Surahi' or pitcher called in Hindi 'Ghada'. The dirty clothes were washed / cleaned by washer-men, who frequented our house once or twice a week. Clothes were washed out side mostly in a river or a pond, along with theirs other customers. They had a peculiar system of marking the clothes , different for each family, and it seldom got mixed or stolen.
For fuel we used fire-woods, for lighting purposes Kerosene lamps or petro-max on big occasions, for drinking water a hand-pump was erected near the kitchen. We had no modern
Pg.2-3.
toilets with flushing facilities and it was then cleaned manually / taken away by people called 'Zamadaars or Mehtars'.
What chores did you do at home ?
Apart from our schooling in a neighboring school , we had private-tutor coaches, who visited us every evening. Practically we did nothing except reading / writing, playing in the neighborhood, and occasionally I had a duty to accompany to the weekly market with the servants. I still remember with great wow the then cheap prices of different commodities / essentials,we used to purchase form the market, which were about 70-80 times lower than the current prices.(Then the Indian currency Rupee was at par with US dollar).
What kind of school you did go? How many grades where there? What grade did you finish ?
I did go 4 years to a neighboring Government Primary School, about 500 meters away from my home--I used to go on foot , where the education was almost free. We had no table and benches or chairs, but used to sit on a large runner type rag, on the ground. A class typical must be of 40-50 students, both boys and girls, with one teacher--who used to take all classes on all subjects. The school timings was 10 AM to 4 PM, with a half hour lunch time, 6 days a week. We used to carry our own lunch-box, books, stone-slates-tablets, writing exercise books and pencils. In smaller classes a black-wooden small board was used for writing with chalk solution and a cane-pen .There was practically no pressure to do good in the class. Even parents were very relaxed and never questioned much about the marks obtained in different examinations, except whether you passed through the class?. I was good in studies and did jump classes from class 1 to directly into class 3, without any difficulty. There was no formal school dress code and we used to play in the school compound during lunch time or when the teacher was away.
There were no nursery or KG classes at that time . The school was up to class 5. I did class 1 to 5 in my primary school in 3 1/2 years.
How did you get to school?
I used to go to school by walking , as it was very near to my home and only one road was to be crossed over. most of the times some of my servents in the house would accompany me to the school.
What would the teacher do if you got in trouble for something?
The teachers were very co-ordeal and helpful. They used to find out solutions to the problem then and there. If, some one got wounded during the play, first-aid and local remedies were provided. Medical facilities were a few and not easily accessible.
What did you do after school ?
Practically we did nothing after school, except reading / writing, playing local games with friends
in the neighborhood, and occasionally I had a duty to accompany to the weekly market with the servants. There was no radio or TV in the house-hold then.
What did you do on the week end?
There was no concept of the week-ends. I do not remember doing any thing special on the week-ends, except some friends or relations or family members used to visit us and stay for weeks/ months. Once a two months or three months, we used to accompany our parents to local only cinema theatre to watch a religious our patriotic movie.
What were your favorite games or toys?
We used to play local games, mostly with the toys made by us or locally available. Chess, Gulli-Danda, playing Glass-balls called Kancha, Hockey in schools and a game like present-day 'hide-n-seek' while hiding by climbing on trees, jumping from the branches to touch the stick lying on a central place, without getting held by the police. Swimming in the pond was another past time.Folk dancers, acrobats and country singers were regular and we enjoyed them.
What were your favorite foods?
We had mostly vegetarian foods. There were two type of foods served in the house. In the day time the lunch was made up of home-made wheat-bread (roti , without butter), rice, lentils (Dal), and green vegetables, Curd and green-Salads. Dinners most of the time were deep-fried items like Puri, Parathas, Spicy curries, vegetarian-cutlets, Milk-puddings and Halwa-- all made in Deshi Ghee ( clarified butters). In those days the hydrogenated fats /oils were rare and non-refined oils--like Mustard oil, Sesame oil, butter, deshi Ghee were used for all preparations.
Did you have any pets?
We had a jet-black, without any white spot, cow for milk, a horse for horse-carriage, 2-3 pet dogs and occasionally some goats in the house. Some times we had a few birds like Parrots who were served green chilies and it was children' responsibility to serve them food and water.
What was your favorite Movie, TV show or book?
Those days in the whole city only one movie theatre was there . Children did accompany the parents to watch a religious or patriotic movie, only on the recommondation of elders. There was no TV those days. Besides, our course books, we used to read news papers and occasionally some religious magazine : like 'Kalyan' subscribed by our grand-parents.
Was any thing else different?
Those days the life was simple, without any frill. People had lot of love, time and passion for each other. All the religious and national festivals were celebrated with pomp and show, with full participation. All our activities and resources were environmentally friendly and based on local produce, as transport facilities like roads, rail electricity, etc. were limited. The country had just got Independence from British and were more engrossed in the nation-building than to ask for many more facilities. Pg.3-3.