Celebrating the end of war at the Great Eastern Hotel, Calcutta

The hotel, then known as the Great Eastern Hotel where this image was taken is now called the Lalit Great Eastern Hotel. An extremely popular place, the colonial era hotel was originally established as a confectionary shop and then grew into a grand and plush hotel in the early 1840s, a time when Calcutta was the top seat of the East India Company.

The only valuable he saved while fleeing to India in 1947

On October 2, 1947, during partition, my father Anand Bakshi’s family was informed that within an hour or two their Mohalla- Qutabdeen in Chityian Hattian, Rawalpindi (now Pakistan) was going to be attacked by rioters and marauders belonging to another community.