Family Photographs: Memories and Histories

Riziya Sahay was born in Kobe, Japan in 1929. She was the daughter of Anand Mohan Sahay and Sati Sen, both Indian freedom fighters and who lived in exile in Japan from the early 1900s. Four children were born there. They all went to school in Japan and integrated Japanese life. The eldest daughter, Asha, joined the Rani Jhansi Regiment. Riziya and her younger siblings stayed and looked after their mother who was ill. Their lives were not easy and especially during World War Two when there was no food at all in the home. But she recounts that the Japanese neighbours were very kind and often gave the family food. The whole family returned to India when the country became independent in 1947 and the family settled in their native village of Bhagalpur, Bihar. Her father was then sent to West Indies as Commissioner for India in 1950s. Riziya accompanied him on these travels as her mother was unwell. In 1953, he was posted to Mauritius as Commissioner and it was here that she was introduced to Boodhun Teelock, then a young medical doctor working for the Ministry of Health. They married in 1955 and lived in Quatre Bornes. She passed away in 2008.