My Amma’s kaleidoscopic life

This image of my Grandparents, Om Prakash Gupta and his wife, my grandmother, Ramkali Gupta is one of the oldest photographs we possess. The original image was photographed and hand painted in a photo studio in Bhopal around 1975, right after the birth of their fourth son, Sanjay. While the original photo print was lost, a bigger duplicate still exists, framed and hung in a corner of our home. While my grandfather’s past exists in a few blurry anecdotes within the family, it is my grandmother who has really lived and witnessed a kaleidoscopic life.

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.