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"There are two good reasons to visit Amritsar.
One is to see the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs; the
other is to stay at Mrs. Bhandari’s."
This perfectly
preserved late-Raj family residence is situated off a leafy road in
Amritsar’s Cantonment area. Yet, in the enclosed world
that Mrs. Bhandari and now her daughters have created, something of that
dream world lives on.
Definitely not for sybarites
but, for those happy to rough it a bit, this place is fun.
It owes its merry, relaxed atmosphere to the warmth of Mrs Bhandari
Junior and her family (To whom the original Mrs B. has handed on the
baton).
The house is 1950s and unassuming, in a quiet area on the outskirts of
town, not far from the magical Golden Temple.
It’s presiding
spirit, the original Mrs. Bhandari, is now living on through her
daughters.
Mrs B had been living in the house since 1930 and took pride in the fact
that “nothing has changed” – apart from such newfangled additions
as air-conditioning in some of the guest rooms, and a fax machine in the
office.
Fax and telephone/internet
facilities are available in the office. However regretfully, no collect
calls are possible.
It is true: to go
through the red brick gatehouse marked No.10 is to enter a time warp.
The main house is in colonial style with Art-Deco touches, softened by
climbing bougainvillea.
It is surrounded by an English garden with
brick paths, pergolas and arches, the whole screened off from the hubbub
of the outside world by mature trees.
Dinner is served
either in the garden or the parlour.
With its Army & Navy Stores’ stoneware water filter, its orderly
piles of patterned crockery (including Mabel Lucy Attwell children’s
plates, circa 1945) and vast soup tureens, this room would have made an
impeccable set for The Jewel in the Crown.
The menu is pure Anglo-Indian; cream of vegetable soup, butter chicken
and roast potatoes with three veg., followed by crème caramel.
Mrs Bhandari serves
excellent Punjabi food – she’s quite likely to ask what you fancy
for your three-course dinner – and you’re welcome to go into the big
kitchen and watch meals being prepared.
The family’s green credentials are impeccable, the mango pickle is
superb, and everything is organic and home-grown.
Large, pleasant gardens – and a family of buffalo for milk and butter
- surround the house
Breakfast at Mrs.
Bhandari’s tends to be a leisurely process.
Sit on a terrace beside the sunken rose garden, watching a flock of
electric-green parakeets assemble on their favourite branch, while
plates of papaya with fresh lime, and toast with home-made jams, and
perfectly poached eggs follow each other in slow succession.
The guest wing is a
long single-story affair, with a verandah looking onto lawns. The
layout of the rooms is similar to “chummeries” – the bachelor
quarters allocated to junior Raj officials and box wallahs.
Furnishings are simple, almost Spartan, with colonial-style furniture
and faded prints.
There are 12 double rooms with bathrooms attached, running hot and cold
water. Extra beds are available.
These rooms have individual air-conditioning units which function on the
mains power supply. This also applies to any heaters.
In case of a power-cut or general power breakdown, the generator is
switched on for the use of fans and lights.
All rooms have
functioning fireplaces, there is a small extra charge for their use, in
your room there will be a new bundle of wood to build up the fire.
The sheets will be fresh from the dhobi and will have had the sun on
them that afternoon.
Plain, basically furnished bedrooms vary in size and colour and each has
an open fire. The bed linen is spotless and the no-frills bathrooms are
clean.
The rooms do not have
telephones or televisions, however, general viewing of cable television
is possible in the communal guest area .
Laundry/dhobi services
are of course available.
A cupboard full of
books in the sitting room ensures that you don’t run short of reading
material.
There’s an outdoor
swimming pool, which has a
filter. it is open from March to November for residents only and there
is a well-maintained children’s play area.
A small lawned area is available for a tent or two, as occasionally
fellow guests may be backpackers.
Credit cards (3% surcharge) are accepted for any extras.
A Parsi in Amritsar.
The very last one !
A noted Parsi in the
city and Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw’s childhood friend, Tehmi Bogga Bhandari
(Mrs.B),
was a woman who was much ahead of her time.
She rebelled when it
was unheard of for a girl not to conform.
She may have been old enough
to have heard the shooting on April 13, 1919, the day of the infamous
Amritsar Massacre, but Mrs. Bhandari remained in her last years, a frail
but very lively lady.
Guests have sat entranced as she spoke of the “old days”, before the
partition of India and Pakistan, when she used to “pop over” to
Lahore for shopping and a the-dansant.
“Oh, Lahore used to be such a beautiful city,” she sighed,
“but those days are gone... I haven’t been back since 1947…
It’s like a dream now.”
In a letter written on January 19, 1948, a few months after
Partition, Lady Edwina Mountbatten, wife of the first Viceroy, Sir
Edward Mountbatten, praised her for her relief work for
Partition-ravaged refugees. Later she was invited by the lady to
Shimla, says her daughter Rattan.
In fact, Tehmi met the challenge of attending to the refugees during
Partition in 1947. She stitched clothes for the refugees who arrived
in Amritsar and were given shelter at the Govindgarh Fort and other
camps. The cloth was provided by the government and the All India
Women’s Conference (AIWC).
“I worked with nearly 25 tailors at my residence in the cantonment
and stitched clothes. I saw ‘kaflas’ of penniless and semi-clad
refugees crossing over to Amritsar,” she says.
Tehmi completed her 100 years in January 2006, and had been abstaining
from medicines, says her favourite granddaughter Shirin Tehmina
Bhandari.
Born in a rich, conservative Parsi family in 1906, Tehmi continues to
live in the city, though her children are abroad. She was the second
child in a family of five sisters and a brother. Her father, Adeshwar
Bogga, was the owner of ice factories in Amritsar and Ludhiana. She
had rebelled when it was unheard of a girl not conforming to social
norms. She was a woman who has been much ahead of her times. Perhaps,
she was the first woman to own and drive a car. She drove it herself
for her sojourns to Lahore and back. Her uncle, Rustomjee Mulhaferot,
always chaperoned and accompanied her and later bequeathed to her the
sprawling mansion at the cantonment as he died issueless.
Owning a Lincoln 12-cylinder car in the mid- 1930s, she used to drive
in the open car to Lahore. She shopped at Anarkali, went for silent
movies, and after coffee at Fallty’s Restaurant, which is still in
Lahore, returned to Amritsar before the “forbidden hour”.
She was lovingly called “guldasta” by her friends and admirers,
among whom were writer Mulk Raj Anand, and Surjit Singh Majithia, who
went on to become Deputy Defence Minister of India in 1958.
While she was studying for her Masters in English at Khalsa College,
Amritsar, she fell in love with a Hindu gentleman Padam Chand Bhandari
and married him. He was an executive officer (EO) in the Improvement
Trust. She says, “The famous ‘Bhandari Bridge’ was named after
my husband in 1954. He had executed the marvellous vision of a
multi-lane bridge, a modern concept of a flyover, which connected the
walled city areas with the Civil Lines.”
Ostracised by many, including family and friends, for a love marriage,
and that, too, outside her community, Tehmi had to fend for herself
and her family after her husband died when she was just 48. She had
three daughters and a son to look after. Undeterred, she rose to the
challenge and converted her palatial “red bougainvillea home” into
a guesthouse with the help of an engineer D.D. Kaila.
She became the first woman in these parts to run a business. To ward
off unwanted attention, she took on a tough demeanour. She says she
had to use “abusive” language so that she could protect her own
self and her children.
Four years after losing her first husband, she remarried at a time
when remarriage of widows was unheard of. She married D.D. Kaila, an
engineer, who provided the transport and conveyance service to her
guest house. In 1962 during the Chinese aggression, the flow of
tourists lessened and Tehmi’s business suffered. The 1965 Indo-Pak
War, too, took its toll. She lost her second husband to a heart attack
just before the Indo-Pak War of 1971. Family and friends urged her to
move to a safer place, but she preferred to complete her swimming
pool.
The decade-long terrorism in the 1980s caused loss to her business,
however she struggled to maintain her guesthouse for more than ten
long years.
Tehmi Bhandari, the grand old
lady of the Parsi community in the city, shares a close rapport with
her granddaughter Shirin Tehmina Bhandari. (Photo by Rajiv Sharma)
