Teji Bachchan's Lahore Days

Dear Amitji,

“It is past the hour .. it is now with Mother and her birth ; 12th August !” (DAY - 3055)

Sir, allow me to pay my respects to Maaji, though belated due to time difference between India and the U.S.:

“Maa Tujhe Salaam

Yahan vahan saara jahan dekh liya

Ab tak bhi tere jaisa koi nahin

Main assi nahin, sau din duniya ghooma hai

Naahi kaahe tere jaisa koi nahin

Main gaya jahan bhi, bas teri yaad thi

Jo mere saath thi mujhko tadpaati rulaati

Sab se pyaari teri soorat

Maa tujhe salaam, maa tujhe salaam

Amma tujhe salaam

Vande maataram, vande maataram

Vande maataram, vande maataram

Vande maataram, vande maataram

Janam janam tera hoon deewana main

Jhoomoon naachoon gaaoon tere pyaar ka taraana

Main jeena nahin soch nahin duniya ki daulat nahin

Bas lootunga tere pyaar ka khazaana

Ek nazar jab teri hoti hai pyaar ki

Duniya tab to meri chamke damke maheke re

Tera chehra sooraj jaisa chaand si thand hai pyaar mein

Vande maataram, vande maataram

Vande maataram, vande maataram

Vande…” - A. R. Rahman

Sir, throughout my life I have always been proud of my beloved city of birth - LAHORE - as all our dear Ef know, but never so much as after knowing that Maaji spent most part of her life in Lahore before marriage to Babuji in the 1940s:

“Teji was the youngest of the four daughters of Sardar Khazan Singh Suri. He had no sons. After three girls the parents had put all hopes on the coming fourth child being a boy, and when it turned out to be another girl, she was looked on as an honorary male. The ancestral home of this Sikh family was Kallar, Rawalpindi - a place famous for the beauty of its girls. Sardar Khazan Singh had studied Law in England and practised as a barrister in Lyallpur, which is where Teji was born. Later he became Revenue Minister for the princely state of Patiala, before settling in Lahore in retirement. Up to Matriculation, Teji was educated at the Sacred Hearts Convent in Lahore where she started at such a young age that the Sisters used to carry her around in their arms; she did her Inter and B.A. the Lahore College for Women, and her Teacher Training at the Lady MacLagan College in the same city. When she was qualified she taught at Fatehchand College for a little over a year.”

• Hari Vansh Rai Bachchan - IN THE AFTERNOON OF TIME - An Autobiography - Edited and Translated from the Hindi by Rupert Snell.

Interestingly, Lahore College for Women where Maaji did her Inter and B.A. was very familiar name in our family when living in Lahore before the Partition, because my elder sister Satya Behn had been a student of  the college for studying up to M.A. in Psychology. Since they were both around the same age when studying, may be Maaji senior to my sister by a couple of years, there is every possibility that they knew each other, at least my sister must have known her well because Maaji was a very popular student, participating prominently in all the extra curricular activities, especially staging plays and concerts. And what a coincident, both had Bollywood connection after their marriage - my sister getting married to singer-actor Surendra in the 1940s and Maaji being the proud mother of Megastar of the Century.

MAA TUJHE SALAAM!

With regards and best wishes

Tilak Rishi