Book review: Monica Chanda,Of Colonial Bungalows & Piano Lessons: Memoirs of an Indian Woman: Monica Chanda

Of Colonial Bungalows and Piano Lessons is a delightful vignette of a bygone era in colonial India. Born into a privileged background where both her father (J. N. Gupta) and grandfather (R. C. Dutt) were members of the Indian Civil Service, the so-called heaven born service, Monica (1906–1995) enjoyed a protected life of ease, comfort and travel. But strangely, she missed out on formal schooling at a time when elite families in Calcutta, mostly from Brahmo backgrounds, made it a mission to patronize women’s education. Monica had several short stints in school at places where her father was posted—a Bengali one in Rungpore, convents in Shillong and Chandernagore, and as a boarder in Loreto Convent, Darjeeling. However, she found it hard to adjust and had to be withdrawn each time. Monica’s parents realized soon enough that local schools needlessly spoilt her because of her father’s government position, and convents did not spare her from racial comments and discrimination, all of which preyed on her sensitive child’s mind.

Monica’s education was in the school of life—rich experiences in the various district postings of her father which she recounts with vivid detail. She learnt English from an Irish governess while her father took charge of coaching her in other subjects. He probably reasoned, as was the thinking of the times, that women from his social background had to be educated in social refinements so that they could be suitable partners to their husbands. The concept of a companionate bhadramahila, an asset to an Indian bhadralok civil servant who had to relate socially to his British superiors, was steadily gaining ground. Education for women to help them build independent careers was not in favour yet.

What remained of abiding interest for Monica was the piano in which she was given sporadic instructions by English wives of officers in her father’s various postings. Playing the piano became Monica’s passion, and she often wished she could lock herself away with it in her bedroom. But she writes that her mother’s judgement was to place the piano prominently in the drawing room, amidst tiger skins and wicker furniture to lend elegance to the colonial bungalows where they lived. Monica’s piano training had been erratic as she was to find out once she met Mother Germaine at Loreto Convent, Darjeeling, who coached her rigorously for the licentiate examination of Trinity College. To her great joy, she connected again with Mother Germaine at Loreto House in Calcutta when her father was posted there. Encouraged by her to perform live for a radio programme at Calcutta’s Great Eastern Hotel, Monica gave a fine account of herself but remained diffident about taking up Mother’s suggestion to appear for a higher degree and go abroad for music studies. Monica confesses that she became painfully aware that not being grounded in formal education she would not be equal to taking the theoretical examinations which had to be cleared. Her father, too, was lukewarm to such suggestions. Although Monica writes ‘the indifference with which my family took my achievements hurt me’ (p. 73), she was aware that costs to send her abroad would be too steep for her civil servant father to bear since he had prioritized a foreign education for his sons. Monica mentions more than once that her ‘formal education had been thoroughly neglected’ (p. 43) and her ‘knowledge of Indian history was negligible’ (p. 109). But one is left wondering whether these were not reflections in hindsight, later in her long life, when, with a tinge of regret, she saw how women from a similar professional background had carved out independent careers for themselves.

Monica is a good raconteur recalling chronologically her father’s district postings from Noakhali to Rangpur and Chinsurah to Calcutta. Not weighed down by school compulsions, Monica clearly her father’s favourite, being the only daughter with four brothers, she accompanied her father on his district inspection tours. She recalls living in pitched tents in the wilderness, sailing in narrow creeks in the Sunderbans, hearing a stalking tiger uncomfortably close and being amazed by the sheer width of the mighty rivers in Bengal perched on the roof of her father’s launches. Monica writes with lucidity of her moments as a quiet observer of nature, astonished by the ravages of floods in rural Bengal, and almost recalling young Rabindranath Tagore’s reflections in his reminiscences. Recounting siesta time at home, she writes,

I would lie awake with my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, whilst Mother lay down and soon fell asleep. This was the most exciting time of the day for me. I would noiselessly creep out of bed and tip toe to the side veranda adjoining our bedroom overlooking the field bordered by the jungle. Cattle and goats would be grazing and so were giant lizards or iguanas who lived in the jungle along with the jackals.… I would stand fascinated, just watching them feeding as they moved slowly ahead. I knew that I was perfectly safe on the upper veranda. (p. 19)

Along with these outdoor adventures, Monica writes of living in grand colonial homes, served by a large retinue of domestic staff, becoming proficient in tennis and badminton on the sprawling courts in the compounds and sharing the joys of riding with her mother. She was gifted her own pony and was deeply attached to their two cocker spaniels. A baby fawn was also acquired as a pet and had to be eventually given away to the Calcutta zoo when he grew into an adult antler. Her eventful life made her witness to momentous transitions from suburban to urban living, welcoming the advantages of electricity and modern toilets.

What is particularly valuable in these memoirs is Monica’s description of the innovative ways of finding fun in daily life with her younger brother, Willie, in days which had not been invaded by the modern day distractions such as the cell phone, iPod, or TV:

We were never bored or demanding, we possessed practically no toys, a rubber ball or marbles perhaps, but the morning passed quickly there was so much to explore in the fields, an ant’s nest, or a rabbit’s house. Our peon friend helped us find these, the varied coloured birds, some who sang so sweetly, but were almost drab to look at…. (p. 16–17)

Monica’s history and geography lessons were not learnt in classrooms but with her parents, travelling in style in railway salons, waited on by liveried attendants, staying in spacious hotels in Delhi. Two holidays are described in some length, and she writes of taking in the beauty of Agra’s Taj Mahal by sunrise, sunset and moonlight, comparing its Mughal grandeur with that of monuments in Lahore, enjoying the virginal beauty of Kashmir from houseboats and climbing the heights on horseback. Monica’s introduction to Europe was again on a four-month family holiday undertaken with her father prior to his retirement. Earlier, she mentions, in a matter of fact manner, how her parents had introduced her to an impressive young man she had agreed to marry on return. While her mother shopped for her trousseau in Paris buying some French chiffons and Basra pearls, Monica enjoyed being invited with her parents to a reception at Buckingham Palace in London where she was thrilled to see the royals. The book ends with her return to India and being met at Howrah station by her husband to be, civil servant Asok Chanda—‘meticulously dressed as he was, right through his life’ (p. 140).

The merit of Colonial Bungalows and Piano Lessons lies in the joyful account of fun times that Monica had in the civil service life of the early 20th century. In this beautifully bound volume with archival photographs that makes fascinating reading, Malavika Karlekar, the editor and daughter of Monica, explains that the book is based on the hand-written account her mother left in exercise books, which, decades later, she was eventually able to transcribe with minimal corrections. Karlekar writes in the preface that ‘Monica’s life can be read as a metaphor, an icon of the encounter between cultures’ (p. 4). As daughter of an ICS officer, she had a Victorian upbringing and a Westernized lifestyle. Her proficiency in English, playing the piano, equestrian skills and mastery over tennis as part of an Anglicized elite put her out of sync with Bengali culture. The dilemma and confusion of this ‘ingobango’ cultural encounter was captured well in Tagore’s seminal work Shesher Kobita. Karlekar writes about her mother’s bewilderment at not being fluent in her own mother tongue and trying to rectify this by taking Bengali lessons later in life, once she was married into a family much more rooted in Bengali culture. It is to Monica’s credit that she gained sufficient proficiency to translate her grandfather R. C. Dutt’s celebrated novel on the life of Shivaji, Maharashtra Jiban Probhat, into English.