My grandmother’s private past

This is a picture of my maternal grandmother Joan Thompson (right) with her maternal grandmother Ethel Minnie McNair (left). It was taken in Calcutta (now Kolkata) around 1945. My grandmother Joan was born in Ranchi in 1930, illegitimately. Not much is known about the events surrounding her parentage though photographs in our family archives show her father Frank Thompson and mother Kathleen Chaplin, both in each other’s company and with friends, as young people.

Ethel, my great-great grandmother in the picture, was married to a British reverend Joseph Chaplin and had three daughters and a son including Kathleen and they lived in Calcutta. She was a matron at La Martinere and I remember my grandmother Joan saying that Ethel worked with midwifery too, since we also have photographs of her working with babies. Joan described Ethel as being born in Srivilliputtur, Tamil Nadu and as half-caste which could mean she was Anglo Indian (Eurasian), but could also mean that she was instead of mixed Indian ethnicity who had adopted Christianity. I have been told that Kathleen always wore gloves and make-up to conceal her heritage.

The school teachers who went on a twelve-day satyagraha

This is a photograph taken in 1977 of my mother, K Jagadammal (right) with her peer and friend Jayshree Sawant (left) in Bombay. They were on a strike, outside a school compound, protesting the injustices served by the school they both taught in. My mother, K Jagadammal was born in 1949 in Kalanjoor, Pathanamthitta District, Kerala. Her parents were farmers, and she was one of five sisters and a brother. Her father later ran his own grocery shop, exactly opposite Kalanjoor Government School, that all of his children attended. My mother and her siblings all grew up to have careers as school-teachers.