More Dadi Nani Stories

Home

Capture Memories

Videos

Shenoi, a civil engineer and MBA, rose to the rank of Deputy Director-General of Works in the Indian Defence Service of Engineers. He has also been a member of HUDCO’s advisory board and of the planning team for Navi Mumbai. After retirement he has been helping NGOs in employment-oriented training, writing articles related to all aspects of housing, urban settlements, infrastructure, project and facility management and advising several companies on these issues. His email id is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Midwifery - this profession had its heyday in Indian cities from 1900 to 1950. Modern maternity clinics came up one by one In the 1950s, and by the end of the 20^th century, most Indian cities were full of them.

Editor's note: This story is reproduced, with permission, from Mr. Nagarajan's not-for-sale book of his memories, A Pearl of Water on a Lotus Leaf & Other Memories, 2010.

I decided to marry at 25, two years after I got a job in Delhi as an official photographer in the Information Ministry. I wrote to my parents in Mysore asking them to look for a suitable girl for me, preferably from Tamilnadu.

Jeet is a Registered Professional Engineer. He is the Lead Civil/Structural Engineer and Capital Budget Planner for the real estate subsidiary of a multinational automotive manufacturer, and lives in Metropolitan Detroit. Jeet is a fitness enthusiast, and enjoys reading and travelling. He is a member of the Jain Society of Greater Detroit, where he teaches Jainism basics to Middle School children at the temple on Sundays.

My mother's name is Diwali, one of India's most prominent festivals, because she was born on Diwali day. This happened in 1929 in Kolhapur (in present day Maharashtra), which was a Princely State at that time, nominally independent but in practice a part of the British Raj in India. She was the eldest surviving child of Vanaji and Santokbai Nibjiya.

Sujata Srinivasan is a Connecticut, U.S.-based journalist specialising in business and economic development, as well as community and general interest features. She and her husband Arun enjoy the theatre, travelling, and classical music, among many other things.

I loved to nestle against my Patti, which means grandmother in Tamil. She smelled of all my favourite smells – Mysore Sandal soap, shikakai, and soft, sun-dried Pochampalli saris. And when she smiled, which was often, I felt as though all was indeed well with the world. My world, at least.

Renuka (Chatterji) Khanna, born in 1927 in Lahore, studied psychology at London University. She supported and encouraged her husband, Krishen Khanna, in quitting his prestigious job at Grindlays Bank to become a full time painter. Thereupon, she became the school psychologist and taught English at Modern School, New Delhi until retirement. An avid reader, a dilettante painter of birds, and an inventive embroiderer, she has raised her three children to follow their own stars. The eldest, Rasika Mohan, is a classical Bharatnatyam dancer, Malati Shah is a painter, and the youngest, Karan Khanna, is a professional photographer. She is a most loved grandmother to five grandchildren, who know her favourite word to be “comfortable”, which is what she wants everyone to be.

Editor’s note: This story has two parts. Renu Khanna’s story is followed by her daughter Malati Shah’s memories of Mrs. Khanna’s nani.

Dadi - Kumodini Das (1858?-1949)

On Dadiji’s eightieth birthday my parents celebrated by lighting up the house with about two hundred diyas (oil lamps in earthen containers), and having a party at which delicious food and sweets and clothes were given to our domestic servants and their children.

Magan Potdar retired in 1985 as Superintending Engineer of the Bhakra Nangal dam, and is proud to have contributed to the building of what Prime Minister Nehru called as one India’s modern temples. He lives in Pune with his wife Suman.

She sacrificed everything for her son – her only child. In this materialistic world of today, one would be hard-pressed to believe that such a person actually lived.

Surjit was brought up in many different places in India, went from Delhi University into the Indian Foreign Service, and subsequently joined her husband in academics, shuttling between India and the United States. Now a semi-retired professor with two grown-up sons, she lives with her Himalayan cat, music, books, and walks in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

My Dadi lived with us for the last years of her life when my parents and I returned from two years in England and were reunited with my three elder siblings. She was, in fact, my father’s bhua (father’s sister) who had adopted him when his own mother died shortly after his birth in 1904, and was known by us as Beji.

Dida by Partho Sengupta

Partho studied at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and XLRI, Jamshedpur. Cutting short a professional career, he is now enjoying teaching at an ordinary management school in Orissa, where students come from ordinary Indian families. He is married, and his daughter and son are university students.

She was called ‘ma’ at home by all her five daughters, never called by her first name by her husband, and always referred to in third person singular by her three sons-in-laws. She was born in Khulna District, Bangladesh, and her in-laws were rooted in Dhaka.

Dadi Nani Foundation

Charitable Trust