“I am a refugee in love!”

This is a photograph of my paternal grandparents Kewal Krishan Puri and Reva Puri whom I call Dadu and Granny, taken at the Bombay Photo Stores Pvt. Ltd Studio in Calcutta, (Kolkata), West Bengal. My granny’s maiden name was Barbara Dorothy Reynolds, and my Dadu was devoted to her. This is their love story.

The bittersweet legend of a family mansion

In 1715, my ancestor, an Afridi Pathan teacher Husain Khan migrated from Kohat (now Pakistan) to Qaimganj (now Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh). Kohat was mainly a tribal area and Qaimganj was closer to Delhi, the capital of the erstwhile Mughal Empire and may have offered him better employment opportunities. Family legend says he lived for more than a 100 years and was known as ‘Bade Ustaad’ (The Great Teacher). His next three generations (sons, grandsons and great-grand sons) chose to serve in the army.