Probashis and Independence

The Probashi Bengali community in Delhi was a little one. Everybody knew everybody more so when a wedding was being celebrated. Brides came all the way from Bengal or from other probashi communities. They brought with them the flavours and the sartorial styles of the lands they had left behind.

My maternal grandmother came from Bengal to marry my Dal-Bati-Churma eating grandfather. His childhood, you see, had been spent in the arid Sambhar Didwana region of Rajasthan. He was a true-blue Bengali but Rajasthan had not failed to leave its mark. They made a pair, the two of them: my grandfather, towering and benign at his six-feet-one-inch and my grandmother at a proud four-feet-eight.

It was perhaps in the year that India became independent or the very next one that they went to attend the celebrations at Rashtrapati Bhavan. But of course nobody that day would dress in anything but traditional wear. Ladies draped their sari pallus over their heads in the manner of the day and were escorted by elegantly attired husbands who had discarded the European garb that had become synonymous with office wear.

Stewards bore trays of little cakes and sandwiches and poured out steaming cups of tea. The finest china and silverware had been put out for the guests. Afternoon tea on the lawns. The scene had remained frozen in time. Only the actors had changed.

A steward plucked at his elbow. ‘Mr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee wishes to meet you.’

My grandfather hurried to his side. This was the son of the famous judge Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee.

A broad smile split his face into two. ‘So good to meet a fellow Bengali.’

‘But how did you know?’

‘Arre Moshai. Your sleeves gave you away. No one but a true Bengali would wear his kurta with sleeves as loose as these.’

Shyama Prasad Mukherjee held up his own arm.