From Kambhat to Agra & Beyond– The story of our roots from Dadaji

Throughout my life whenever I introduced myself, I was immediately labelled as someone being from Gujarat, and I have had countless conversations explaining people  about my northern connection and me hailing  from the one of most beautiful northern parts of India i.e. Haldwani Nainital. 

I have never really known about the actual story, till my Grandpa called me one evening few months ago and told me he wanted to write about  our roots, and the journey of our family from Kambhat to Agra. He would have ideally liked to do it himself, but his slow typing speed after his hand injury  did not encourage him. So I told him Dada, don’t worry the next time I come to Bangalore, I will definitely write it down.

Battling through   the limited time and a noisy  construction surrounding, Dadaji lovingly narrated the journey of our roots. Here it is in his words. Dada is the only surviving sibling amongst all his brothers & sisters,  so this is indeed a treasure for all of us

 From Kambhat to Agra

( as narrated by Dadaji)

In around 1500 my ancestors moved from Kambhat and settled at  Agra. Akbar when visited Gujrat had selected persons knowing Persian and Arabic for interpretation of laws  in the Mughal courts. My ancestors knew Persian and Arabic and thus  they were selected as courtesans in Akbar`s court. They travelled with the family on horses and bullock courts, palkhis escorted by the Mughal soldiers. They arrived in Agra and the family set up their house  in a an area called Namak Mandi which was close  to the Agra fort and with a view of the Taj from the terrace.  

For a family which grew up in a Gujarati surrounding this was like a different country, with mosques surrounding all over  the house.  However the area where the family was lived housed many wealthy Hindu business man and traders. The family members who attended the court had a special horse escort every day to take them to the court and bring them back.

Food

Living in Agra, the family  created a culture of its own absorbing the local  customs, food from the locals. It is because of this that our family has just such distinct food, very different from the sugary cooking of original gujratis. Sweets are loved by one and all in the family but only as dessert  and not as part of the food.  From pethas, to  jalebi & rabidi, to bal mithai, rasgolas , ras malai  and our Agra special Bedaiya puri  and alloo jhool sabji  are  on the hit list.

Kapadwanj connection

In 1820  or earlier due to the floods in Gujrat people could not reach Kambhat, so they had to consider brides and bridegrooms from a village known as Kapadwanj. It was a tough time to fulfil the mission called Marraige, as lot of opposition went around, as the rumour had it that this men from Agra who were of fair complexion and handsome, were so because they used to  eat meat and fish, and thats why they were looked as a different race from that of the typical gujratis. However inspite of great opposition, Ghanshamdas( my grand father ) got a bride from Kapadwanj, called Ichaben, he paved the path for many such marriages of the Das families in Agra and various families in Kapadwanj.  Ichahaben died immediately after she gave birth to her younger son, my father( Brijbhushandas). Ghanshamdas and  his brother Madhuvan both remarried in Kathiawad. It is rumoured in those days, families instead of paying dowry to get daughters married used to actually take money in return for giving their daughters for remarriage. Both of them remarried in Kathiawad, Madhuvandas got married to Maniben and Ghanshamdas got married to Radhabai.. Madhuvandas practiced law  whose practice was later inherited by my father Brijbhushand Das.

Madhuvandas ( my grandfather’s brother) &  the Gandhi connection

Madhuvandas ( my grand father`s brother) has 2 sons, one was Jattu Kaka, and the other was Haru Kaka  and daughter was Putli who was a child widow.  Jattu Kaka  joined the freedom movement from his college and become a freedom Fighter, His brother Haru Kaka also joined in the same because of  Mani ben their mother who introduced the Gandhi movement in  the household. Mani ben has embraced Gandhisam, and Gandhiji would come to their house whenever he visited Agra.

 In 1930`s they set up a medical shop in  the sabji mandi, which still exists in the name of National medical. Jatu kaka died when he was 97, and Haru Kaka died when he was 84. The shop is currently run by  Jatu Kakas son. Any time you are in Agra and want to get a tour of  our ancestral home in Namakmandi , u can go to National chemist, and someone from the store will  take you to the house. ( you will have to use Haldwani- Agra direct connection of Manu Mahara  aka Harish in HaldwanI)

Ghanshamdas( my grandfather)

Ghanshamdas my grand father was an MA LLB from Agra and he went into judicial service and worked as a District sessions judge in various places in Uttar Pradesh( now Uttarkaand) including Kumaon, Ghadwal, Almora, Nainital. He had  4 sons. All his sons grew up in Agra and moved with him wherever he was posted. Rajan kaka the eldest son studied medicine from Lucknow and become a doctor and set up his practice in Agra and was popularly called as Doctor Kaka, Rattu kaka  was a BSC AHBTI  from Kanpur and  after his wedding he moved Kathiawad as an oil and paint technician for  some laboratory in Bhavnagar, while the family was staying in Jamnagar, Janardan Das   was a  BA LLB  from Allahabad and then went on to become an IAS in government service, retired a secretary of UP government and one of his sons Rajiv Ratna shah went on to became an IAS officer and retired recently as secretary for planning.  Brijbhushan Das  my father  studied law from Agra become a BA LLB and inherited the law practice of 7 generations in Agra.   He had a very lucrative practice in Agra, he used to fight cases for temples  like Dwarkadesh from mathura and vrindavan and other private mills and trusts. 

 
My  great grandmother & other relatives

Gopi ben  was my  great grandmother, basically Ghanshamdas mother who was alive upto the age of 99 lived in the palace along with Tribhuvandas called Raghho kaka jee.  My wife often called his wife Kunji ben as Mehelwali kaki. The entire family of Raghho Kaka was called Mehel wale.

It was called Kale Pathar kaa mahal ( Palace of Black stones) in Agra. In backyard of which, there were a number of stables for horses,  a cow shed and a gymnasium where my father used to have a  wresting exercise, the akadha as it  was known and we used  to play cricket.

 She  lived in the palace with  her youngest son Tribhuvandas  toll she died. Tibhuvandas ran a business in shoes. After the death of Gopi Dadi he sold the house to Laxminarayan book sellers and moved himself out of Namak mandi. He had 8 sons so they moved to the outskirts of Agra near Sikandra.  Now this place is called as Das kothi, where all  his sons have a plot. The area is called Das compound. The biggest mansion is of Tribhundas son who is a doctor called SK Das.

My father has many sisters, but his eldest sister Dhanlaxmi  was married to Ishwarlal Vakil in Mumbai. Ishwaralal used to work in Africa, when he was asked to leave Africa, he came to Mumbai and he got a flat in Sheetal Baugh in walkeshwar. Dhanno fais daughter, husband was  Suryakant Dani who was one of , the founders of Asian paints

From Agra to Haldwani

My father Brijbhushandas got married to Revaben from Kapadwanj. Brijbhushand Das elder son, my eldest brother Birju kaka used to study in a government school in Agra, and was trying his luck at experimenting something he had learnt at the laboratory in his school  to make explosive crackers. In his element, he tried to burst a cracker and lost the fingers of his left hand. 

Brijbhusandas got mentally worried after this incident and worried about what his son would do in his life, the accident took place in 1934, various business investments were made, like a atta mill which failed.  During this time  Rai Bahaudur Ghanshamdas, a title given to my grandfather by  the government  was practicing in his capacity as  judge of Kumaon courts .During this  time the government offered various facilities to clear the jungles and develop farms You could select around 100 acres of land, for which government would give subsidy for wire, fencing. After developing the land it would be granted to developer. So cost of getting land was equivalent to developing it. The land was tax free for 20 years and then it could become the developers property. So my father sent my brother Briju alone to Haldwani first he was around 18 years, and slowly sent things to set up a home there. Got lot of bullock carts and  bulls and slowly moved to Haldwani. 

Brijbhushandas had 5 sons & 4 daughters, Birju Kaka, jeetu, myself Satish, Shashikala, Sant, Veenu, Sanu, Krishna, Devkanya.

There were 2 pieces of land one at Bhawnipur and the other at chokhi mukhani, Bhawani pur was 7 miles away and Choti mukhani a km away from Haldwani. Both the lands were under development and suddenly  in 1936, my  father Brijbhusan Das said good bye to  the law profession and our schools ended  and were asked to  move to Haldwani . With only 5 rs to buy ticket. my brother Jeetu nd me  arrived in Haldwani where there were no facilities for school. One day the huge hut which was built on the farm with mud and thatch roofs, gave way in the monsoon. So we had to move various houses in the city till our pucca house got ready.

Just to establish  the family  we built a temple under the mango tree and the pucca house with huge pillars and big veranda that still exists as testimony of a bygone era.

Dacoits as our security guards

Security was a great concern in Haldwani, as it was then surrounded with nothing but jungles and  a lot of Dacoits used this path to move around. My father Brijbhusandas had saved some Dacoits from getting death punishment. In return this dacoits decided to serve the family. So we had 2 servants Dayaram and Hublal both big dacoits become helpers and security guards for the house. At this time  we lived in a jungle infested with leopards and tigers. For about 4 years in succession there was  always good crop of sugar cane, clean land was good but full of stones.

The journey from Haldwani  to Bombay and across the globe

I was around 15 years old when we moved to Haldwani, had not even completed 10^th. After a lot of deliberation with my father, I went back to Agra to complete my studies. I stayed in a hostel  completed my school from  a private  institute and then decided to pursue engineering from vrindavan Prem Maha vidyalaya. Did a 3 years diploma in engineering. After completing my studies I worked in a sugar factory called Kesar Sugar Mills near Haldwani as an apprentice.  

The Frontier Mail to Bombay

After 6 months of working at Kesar Sugar Mills, I took the frontier mail from Mathura and travelled to Bombay  and went to my father’s brother Balkishanda`s son`s house Ballu  who used to live in Jogeshwari. Ballu was also an oil and paint technician. He fixed me up with India united mills in Bombay as an Assistant engineer. United Mills was in chinchpokli.  In 1947 my brother Ballu had to go to USA, so I moved to Gordhan Kakas house in Bhuleshwar. Gordhan Kaka was my mother Rewa ben uncle. He had one son, called Shashi. I lived with them till I got married and moved to Bandra

While I was in Mumbai and trying to study, my  brothers and sisters decided to live the jungle life. My father had  purchased about 90acres of land in the development scheme.  So family lived on the land and some bit of crops.

Few years after I moved to Bombay, I  got married to Ashrumati,  we had a grand wedding, one of the first families to have a wedding reception. After my marriage we set up our house in a small 2 room kitchen in Nutun Nagar, facing the Bandra talao. As the family grew, 3 sons and 1 daugther, by chance we happened to come across an apartment in Bandra on an insistence of  our neighbour who was moving to that apartment. At that time we really could not dream of affording a big house like that, but  with the help of my determined wife, we some how  managed to buy our very own apartment in Bandra. After we moved to that house and I  got a job at Marshal & sons I took my first journey abroad on a ship, when I was sent by  company  to England  France and Germany.  

With APE  Bellis, I set up their office  at my home in Bandra, and spent most of my working years travelling to various parts of India.

After my retirement I along with my wife moved to  America for a decade,  to live with my sons family in Memphis. This was a different phase where I  spent time nurturing my hobbies, growing vegetables in the field, reading, driving the grand children, doing grocery shopping, and holidaying on some world class cruises  on Caribbean, Pannma canal, Mexico and  Alaska

 Some time in 2000, we decided to spend half the year in India and half in America, so we spent the summers in America and the winters in India. We had moved to Kandivali by then to a much more advanced building with lifts and amenties compared to our old building in Bandra.

 Hema our daughter moved to India on deputation for IBM. Then we began spending time between Gurgaon, Bombay & Memphis. Finally after a years gap when she moved back to Bangalore, we came to stay with her. We loved the weather in Bangalore, and  we just could not live in Bombay.

It seems like a long journey, when I had taken the frontier mail to Bombay almost 65 years ago I had never imagined what this would have in store for me. Looking back I feel content about all the experiences and things that life has given me

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