The forgotten Hathiwalas of Surat

A few years ago, while I was trying to piece together my extended Surati Bohra (Dawoodi Bohras from Surat, Gujarat) family tree, I chanced upon a few photographs that had lain forgotten between photo album sheets for over a century. Photographed circa 1904, this picture could very well be one of the oldest family treasures we have, and it took me some time to ascertain who the people in these photographs were. That little girl in the photograph is my paternal grandmother Kulsum Bengaliwala (née Hathiwala), and the adults are her parents – my great-grandparents. But we didn’t know their names, and even my father’s sister, my aunt, couldn’t remember.

The Sikh Families of Assam

It seems that he went along on a trip with a transport contractor for the army all the way to Assam, and then simply began driving trucks. That his own uncle (chacha) was already working here in Tezpur, also driving trucks, would have helped. After working for a few years as a driver, he started a small kirana/gelamaal (grocery) shop in Tenga Valley in Arunachal Pradesh. He also founded a hotel that ran for around seven years. Eventually he got around to buying some trucks and built a transport business for himself – a few contracts with the Indian Army hastened the cause.