Reminiscing Minoojji

  On my recent blog on Sunny Jeejaji who passed away two months back, Juhi ( Shefali) commented that she would love  to read a  blog by me on Minoojji, her late mother and my sister, if I find the time to do one. I made up my mind then, that I shall.

 Minoojji, chronologically the second of our seven siblings family who grew up together in a cottage in Meerut  Cantt.  was  the smartest, most intelligent, independent minded, and confident . Also the only dusky one among my five sisters. She had very sharp features, as you would see in her pictures I carry with this blog. She was Pitajee’s ( our father’s)favorite. You  would notice the  oodles of love flowing between him and Minojji  in one of the pics.  So given the freedom to pursue a degree in Science, for which she had to leave Meerut and live with Tau ( my father’s elder brother), then a Judge of the High Court of Allahabad. After her Bsc. from the Alld Univ. when Minoojji  returned to Meerut  she did an  LLb. from the Aligarh Muslim University!  Because Meerut College was not an appropriate school for girls from certain families to study but AMU offered admission to “ Burka clad’ Muslim women, who could study at home and take the University Exam! That’s how Manjula  Chowdhry became a  BSc. L.L.B. Much later, she   also did a correspondence course to get a B Ed. degree . Circumstances forced her to opt for a career in teaching and not Law, though Pitajee and the other elders  in the family were pretty  convinced that  she would have made a brilliant  lawyer. Perhaps it was Pitajee’s frustration at not being allowed to pursue a career in Law by his domineering mother when his practice was showing signs of picking up, in Moradabad, that prompted  him to encourage Minoojji to take up a career in Law.

 Minoojji   was  married to Jadish Nigam, the youngest  in a family from Dehradun, who then worked as a manager for a private steel rolling mill in Sham Nagar, a  suburb of Calcutta, miles away from Meerut. The marriage took place in traditional style from our Meerut Cottage home, I think in December  1960. Minoojji and I enjoyed a very close, warm and humorous bond. But both being strong personalities, sparks flew when we differed ! A few days before the wedding, I ( a 15 year old then) told her that there was no way that I would cry on her  “Vidai” and would be quite happy to be rid of her! Later, when she told me that she ‘did notice the tears in your eyes, Anil when I was leaving home”,  “ Oh those were tears of sympathy for Jeejaji my dear”, I quipped.! She would regale Jeejaji , family and friends  by relating  this anecdote  till very late in our lives……

 While Minoojji was a vivacious and scintillating personality,  Nigam Jeejaji was a ‘bon vivant’ ( a nafeez, shaukeen, shakhsiat) who liked to live, eat, drink and dress well. Minoojji’s  smile was “ killing” and Jeejaji’s  laughter, heartwarming and contagious.Both shared Jois de vivre in pleny between them. His propensity to spend lavishly and  compulsively on food and clothes used to drive Minoojji up the wall. On the weekends, after his exercise& ‘ tel maalish”, Jeejaji would return loaded with the best quality of mutton and fish from the market and tell his wife, Partner , aaj parsande/ pullao/kachche keemey ke koftey/ patley shorbe ka kaliya / sarso bata banado to zindagi ka lutf aa jaaye !’Then he would go to his 'gusal' and emerge in a spotless exquisite white chikan  work malmal ka kalaf kiya hua kurta with ‘chunnat’ on the sleeves, wearing either khas or gulab Ittar. And  turn on  the radiogram  to play records of Sehgal, or Begum Akhtar Ghazals. A glass or two of chilled beer and he was ready to do full justice to Minoojji’s  exceptional culinary skills . After a hearty meal, he would invariably take an afternoon nap telling Minoojji  to give him only a “simple” dinner with Bengali fish curry, daal and rice with began bhaja  and tomato chutney on the side! A little more on Minoojji’s amazing cooking skills. I don’t think any other lady in  our family can match up to them. She was fast and had a great variety to her culinary repertoire- From Bengali cuisine to kashmiri koftas; from fish mayonnaise  with Russian salad to poori, kachauri and heeng rase ke aaloo: to caramel custard and Trifle pudding; and a variety of mouth watering  pickleswhich she generously supplied to the entire family. I think what made Minoojji special was that had the taste for good food and was genuinely interested in the art of cooking, a trait disappearing fast among housewives of India today1

The young Nigam couple  led a happy and contented life in the company of just a few friends ( all from UP) in  Sham Nagar :the Sahay family and Bansiji are the names I recall. Their oldest child Shivani,  lovingly called” Chicky’  at home and “ Shunno” by her father  was born a few years after their marriage  when they  moved to  Calcutta where Jeejaji continued to work for the same Co.( NICCO). In Cal. they lived in a small but nice three bed room flat in BallyGunj a posh locality not far from where Jeejaji’s older brother  Shri RC Nigam, an anthropologist  lived with his wife and three kids. Jeejaji was quite fond of his brother and family.

Have added  few more pictures from the Nigams family album to illustrate my blog- Minoojji in college before her marriage; as a bride; with Jeejaji at their home in Sham Nagar which they kept very spick and span; at one of their several “ honey moons” on  the hills which Jeejaji was so fond of; at the Hawan in their Calcutta home after ' Chicky' was born; and with my parents and Anand Bhai ( my late brother)in our home in Alld.

Although Minoojji took quite well to life in Calcutta and even picked up a smattering of Bengali, Jeejaji  forever yearned to go back to UP and particularly missed the “ tehzeeb “and the easy pace of life in Lucknow. He, therefore, jumped at an opportunity to go to Lucknow to work on a new business venture of an entrepreneur form UP called Suraj Prasad Srivastava, who  had plans of setting up an  iron and steel rolling mills in UP. This Mr Srivastava managed to lure both Mr Sahay, a highly qualified and experienced Metallurgical engineer and Jeejaji to join his new venture. He even managed to persuade them to   invest their life time  savings in the venture. Jeejai plunged headlong into “ Suraj Iron and Steel  Co.” despite Minoojji’s  words of CAUTION.

Life in Lko. initially ws easy and comfortable but not war long. It gradually began to dawn  on the Nigams and the Sahays that S P Srivastava was a fraudster whose plans were only on paper. But not before their life time savings were gone!It was while they were going though a hard finacial phase in Lko. that I landed up there during our Bharat Darshan from Mt Abu And it was typical of their hospitality that they invited me and my friends to their home for a lavish meal which wec all enoyed immensely.During this visit, I couldn't get even a whiff of the hard time they were facing in Lko. And then Minoojji swung into action- She found a job for Jeejaji in a rolling iron mill near Meerut and she herself got a job as a school teacher in Meerut. It was during their stay in Meerut that Saurabh ( Rinkoo at home) their second child arrived. From Meerut, they moved to Ghaziabad where Jeejaji started working for a marwari owned iron and steel Co. and Minooji  began teaching  at  Ingraham,the local convent school . They lived in a nice rented house in Kavi Nagar called “ White House” owned by an old Sardarji. About the same time, we moved to Delhi from Goa. The Nigam home in Ghaziabad was the weekend   get away for me  from the drudgery of life as a  Desk AD in IB and life in the one bed room apartment in Asia House for a family of four + a maid-servant. Occasionally, Latajji or Anurag  my other two sisters who lived in Delhi also landed up  there to enjoy Minoojji’s company and hospitality. We used to have a ball on our weekend get aways in G’bad with Taash sessions and Paans, fruits.And return loaded with sweets and a full tank in my Fiat  car courtesy Jeejaji , which was a luxury indeed  in those hand-to- mouth days when we  never had enough money to buy more than 5 or 10 Litres of petrol at a time!

Then came another turning point in Minoojji’s life – when she was expecting Shefali, their third child the Mother Superior of the convent refused maternity leave  to her. Minoojji returned sobbing to the  School  Staff room. She related how the Principal had humiliiated her to Usha Sethi, her colleague and close friend. The enraged Manjula Nigam and Usha  Sethi   jointly marched into the Pricipal's office and gave in their resignations. Next they decided to set up their own school in the Nigam rented house in Kavi Nagar! After mustering up the requisite teaching staff, they inserted an ad in the local papers announcing the launch of “ Silver Bells “ an English Medium  Junior School by two experienced Ex teachers of  Ingraham. The day was January 15, 1976. Minoojji and Usha Sethi were sitting in the verandah of the house  pretending to read the news papers  with their eyes glued to the approach road  for signs of approaching parents to seek admission to “ Silver Bells”. And they did come…..In a trickle first and then in hoards- forcing Silver bells to move to  another bigger rented premises in Kavi Nagar. Silver Bells was a big hit because both Minoojji , the Principal and Usha  Sethi  the Vice – Principal were smart, hard working and could speak English fluently!! In the prosperous city of Ghaziabad, speaking of English was a much sought after virtue in their kids.

The success of “Silver Bells” story became the buzz word of G’bad town. They bought their own piece of prime land and constructed  a building, with Monoojji and Usha Ji working very hard to see that the standards were kept high on all fronts. Minoojji was very focused and hard working and also knew  how to enjoy leisure. She and her friends would sit in one of the homes in Kavi Nagar and later in  Raj Nagar where the Nigams made  to play several rounds of serious “Paploo” with high stakes.

 Silver Bells continues to flourish as a leading school of Ghaziabad ,a  legacy left behind by Minoojji  to her family and the city. She once invited me to be the Chief Guest at the School  Annual function when I was an unknown entity locally and a mere Joint Director ( IG) in the IB in Delhi. Such was Minoojji’s affection for me that she gave  precedence to me over the local  District Magistrate and SSP  to preside over her school annual day function!

When Minoojji  and Jeejaji were struggling to get back on their feet after being taken for a ride by Mr Suraj Prasad Srivastav,I did two postings at beautiful touristy places – Goa and Srinagar which brought  lot of friends and family to these places. But not Minoojji  which she really regretted. So when I got posted to Washington DC, she told me “ Anil I couldn’t come to you in Goa and Srinagar but will surely be your guest in the US” And she did make it along with our youngest sister- both leaving their families behind. I tried to take them around as much as I could including Canada, which she enjoyed immensely. Tue to her nature, she was not very fond of doing the museums and parks for which DC is famous and made the excuse of pain in her knee joints to skip it.When I forced her to visit the museums, the only exhibits which held her interest were the gems and precious stones where she stood gazing afscinatingly at the " Kohinoor" for several minutes. But she

didn’t miss an opportunity to visit every shopping Mall, far and near, where she would forget all her aches and pains and run up and down shopping to her heart’s content !

Fate struck cruel blows to her life in quick succession. First she lost her husband  very suddenly and prematurely in 1997. She overcame the loss  using her vast reservoir of grit But just 5  years later  in 2002, her young son –in –law, Sharad  was also snatched away. Sharad was a very affectionate and considerate person and is dearly missed by all. Within a few months after Sharad’s demise,  Minoojji was  herself diagnosed to be critically ill. Although she fought bravely till the end came and never lost her spirits, my regret to this day is that I was not able to meet her. I made a dash on Emergency Home Leave from DC when told that she may not live long. Drove straight to the hospital from the airport. But she passed away literally minutes before I reached her bed side on December 6, 2002.How could she have gone back on the promise she made to me on phone ( very bravely as usual), “ Anil please come; Am waiting to see you. And don’t worry will not leave before that”? .

We in the family have several lessons to learn from the legacy left behind by Minoojji. Her grit, her zest for life and her great sense of humour, even in the most trying times. She was indeed a pillar for me! May all her kids and grand kids be blessed and happy from her immense sacrifices made for those she loved.