The German garden designer of the Indian Subcontinent

During World War II, when the Dewan of Mysore, Mirza Ismail, appointed GHK as an architectural consultant to Mysore, Jaipur & Hyderabad, the British Residents in Mysore staged a huge protest. All Germans in India were declared enemies. Moreover, his letters show that he was quite vocal about his support for India’s independence. My English grandmother too, was labeled a traitor, because she had married a German.

The Captain of a State Hockey Team

This is a picture of my late maternal Grandfather, Surendra Behera (Right most in a striped blazer) from his Utkal university days when he played Hockey for the Orissa state team in 1949. At the time, he was 24 years old and studying Law, after graduating in Arts from Ravenshaw College (he did not complete his law degree). The people in the photograph were from different colleges under Utkal University.