The
other side of Pupul Jayakar
RADHIKA HERZBERGER
MY
first memories of my mother go back to the early forties. I see her seated in
my grandmotherÕs veranda, writing in the accountantÕs red logbook she has
converted into a diary. She lives with her husband, Manmohan Jayakar, her
brother, Kumaril MehtaÕs family and me, her daughter, in her widowed mother
IravatiÕs house in Bombay.
We were surrounded by
servants from Uttar Pradesh, Mataprashad is the white turbaned bearer,
Mahanand, the driver with ancestral memories of the 1857 Uprising, and Hiralal
the excellent cook trained by an
Englishwoman. The shadow of colonial U.P. hung over the house. On Sundays her
three sisters would gather in the veranda and Amru, the youngest sister, the
one with the beautiful voice, sang Wajid Ali ShahÕs farewell song to his
kingdom Babula Mora Naihar Chhooto Jaye.
PupulÕs mother Iravati had
been a public-spirited woman, and a memsahib presiding over lavish households
in Lucknow, Allahabad, and Banaras. Married in Surat, she was transported as a
sixteen-year-old to a totally alien milieu of Muslim aristocrats, English civil
servants, and prosperous lawyers, in faraway Uttar Pradesh. Ably assisted by
Mrs BeatonÕs book of household management, she mastered the art of serving a
five-course meal, with appropriate wine glasses, cutlery, and crockery. She
then stepped beyond her home and established a shelter for abandoned women and
children. As president of the OudhÕs WomenÕs Conference, she promoted the
Sarada Act, and in 1928 won the ÔKaiser-i-Hind Medal of the First Class for
Public ServicesÕ.
PupulÕs father, Vinayak
Mehta, from a literary family of Gujarat, was a member of the Indian Civil
Service posted in eastern Uttar Pradesh. In 1915 the year Pupul was born, he
finished writing a biography of his novelist father Nandshankar. Pupul believed
herself heir to her forebearÕs literary legacy; unfortunately, having been
brought up as a civil servantÕs daughter by an Irish governess, she could not
read Gujarati, so her grandfatherÕs Karan Ghelo and her fatherÕs Nandshankar
Jeevan Chitra remained unread.
Even then, the values
animating these works, including what one might term a proto-feminism, came
alive in VinayakÕs household – in his relationship with Iravati and his
four daughters. He often talked to his daughters of his own feisty grandmother
who, widowed at the age of twenty-four, had refused to abide by rules that
required widows to remain in their husbandÕs house instead, strapping her young
son to her back waded across the Tapi river, to reach her maternal home in
Olpad.
In an age when it was usual to prepare girls for
domestic life, Vinayak frowned when his daughters knitted, sewed, or cooked; he
urged them to be writers, painters, and musicians. To reinforce his idea of his
intellectual daughter Pupul, he gave her a copy of the Buddha from the Mathura
Museum and sent her to study journalism at Bedford College in England. He
incorporated a rare passage from the Manusmriti into the eight
auspicious verses sung at his daughter NandiniÕs wedding ceremony: ÔThe gods
delight [in homes] where women are honoured.Õ It was like a coded message to
her future husbandÕs family.
Vinayak was not a pucca
sahib. He did not drink chhota pegs seated on the chabutras
of his large district home. Nor was he a shikari returning home after a
successful shoot with a braise of snipes, ducks, and geese. On many a wintry
evening, he sat with village elders listening to their experience of crops and
famines, and what the direction of the winds presaged. These stories, going
back Ôuntold centuriesÕ, were preserved in the form of mnemonic aphorisms. In
1926, Vinayak published the peasant aphorisms with a dedication to the farmers
of Uttar Pradesh: ÔThe enthusiastic farmer is like Tulsidas, the ideal devotee
of Ram. May the cost of cultivating rise fourfold and debts accumulate he still
is devoted to his field.Õ
The firsthand experience of
the oppressed peasantry in the feudal districts of U.P. is everywhere in
PupulÕs early stories. So is the lyricism that flavoured the oral culture of
their everyday lives. It formed the hinter-land of her consciousness, shaped
her writing and her later work. That the poor of India though dispossessed and
illiterate were not without a poetic sensibility, influenced her work with the
artisans, and played a role in her later friendship with Ivan Illich.
When his daughters came of
marriageable age, Iravati and Vinayak reverted to the traditional pattern
governing womenÕs life and proposed alliances with a range of suitable men from
wealthy families across India. They had suitors lined up for Pupul, too, but
she set aside her parentsÕ choice of dazzling grooms and the security of wealth
in favour of a tall, handsome, and dashing young barrister she met in England
at the London School. Pupul and Jackie were married in Bikaner, in 1937, where
Vinayak was Dewan.
The young couple moved to Bombay, rented a flat on
Breach Candy, close to her childhood friend Krishna Hutheesing, Motilal NehruÕs
daughter, and not far from the Willingdon Sports Club. Jackie played tennis,
bought a two-door sports car and Pupul entered the card room to become a
prize-winning bridge player. They lived extravagantly, well beyond their means,
so in 1940 the couple moved in with her mother.
In 1939 Pupul was six-months
pregnant, when she faced her first tragedy. She developed eclampsia,
a life-threatening condition accompanied by soaring blood pressure and
convulsions; she lost the baby she was carrying and went blind for ten days.
Blindness, she discovered is not absolute darkness but its opposite, Ôan
explosions of colour, the like of which one does not otherwise know.Õ
ÔÉblindness was not absolute, colours started sweeping across the darkness.
Colours born of the night, untouched by the sun – startling oranges, the
green of parrots, the blue of the peacockÕs throat, the red of blood spread
over the darkness to tint the canvas of my blindness leaving me entranced
and in ecstasyÉÕ
A few months later, in January 1940 her father died.
ÔAnd suddenly the ground gave way beneath and I felt myself plunged into a dark
bottomless void – I would never see him never–
never-never-never-never – my heart tore within me. I wanted to see him
again just once – to hear him call me – Pupli – to talk to
him to touch him to feel his presence.Õ
ÔWhen you go through an
experience like that, you come through with a new perception of life.Õ So began
PupulÕs search to make something of her life – ÔLet me forget everything
let me start afresh,Õ she wrote in her diary.
The path that would lead
Pupul to public life began with her association with Mridula Sarabhai, the
elder daughter from the distinguished Sarabhai family of Ahmedabad, who were
family friends. Mridulaben was a staunch Gandhian and a leading figure in the
freedom movement. In 1940, she was member secretary of a committee Jawaharlal
Nehru and Subhash Bose had formed to study womenÕs role in a planned economy.
WomanÕs Role in a Planned Economy (WRPE) was a sub-committee of the National
Planning Committee (NPC) that the two young socialists set up in 1938. Pupul
assisted Mridula in writing the final report of the NPC.
The report was well ahead
of its time, its recommendation that women have complete control over their
earnings and Ôthat economic value of house work should be recognised and in
lieu of payment all facilities and rights as workers should be extended to
women for domestic workÕ rattled even some the members of WRPE.
A notable image in the report transforms the Soviet
image of a man and woman marching forward hammer and sickle in hand into the
more tender image of a man and a woman progressing towards a common future with
a child, perhaps to mollify the outraged committee members. ÔWe would like to
displace the picture so deeply impressed upon the racial imagination of man
striding forward to conquer new worlds, woman following wearily behind with a
baby in her arms. The picture which we now envisage is that of man and woman,
comrades of the road, going forward together, the child joyously shared by
both. Such a reality we feel cannot but raise the manhood and womanhood of any
nation.Õ
The war intervened and the
report was completely forgotten, so MridulabenÕs attention turned to rural
Gujarat and GandhijiÕs programme for the upliftment of womenÕs lives. ÔOur women joined the salt satyagraha, they came out of their homes.Õ
Gandhiji once wrote to Mridula: ÔIt is now your duty to see that they should
not be imprisoned within the four walls of the kitchen.Õ Pupul, who had hardly
ever entered the kitchen, let alone been imprisoned within its four walls,
followed Mridula to the interior villages of Gujarat, and was active in
organizational matters related to village womenÕs welfare, and setting up
cooperatives for artisans. For her Ôit was a tough and vigorous initiation.Õ
In the course of her
travels she discovered IndiaÕs rich artisanal tradition and its Ôenormous
repertory of skillsÕ. ÔColour is lifeÕ, she wrote as her vision enlarged, and
the hitherto private sensibility found a counterpart in the rural world of
craft. ÔThe indigo, alizarin or madder and roghan processes are employed
by chhipias (printers) in villages and towns where printing is a
traditional craft, with a long and ancient historyÕ she wrote with passion.
Mridula went to jail during
the war years, Pupul did not. During the Quit India Movement she tended Jackie
who fell ill with a life-threatening case of typhoid, then she herself needed to be operated for appendicitis. She did not
compensate for these missed opportunities by spinning the charkha or wearing
white khadi sarees, symbolic acts that might have given her a certain
legitimacy in the eyes of GandhijiÕs followers. In short, she lacked what Ram
Guha describes as Ôsturdily nationalist credentialsÕ. Even though she did not
conform to a Gandhian identity her love of country found expression in the
MahatmaÕs constructive programme, in particular his vision of IndiaÕs future
built on a flourishing artisanal base.
Her one recognizably Gandhian gesture was to transfer
me from the J.B. Petit School, where we sang hymns, shouted hip hip hurrah at
the warÕs end to New Era, the Gujarati school dedicated to the Mahatma. Here,
on Fridays, we recited prayers from the Bible, the Avesta, the Quran and
chanted Ôasato ma sad gamayaÕ from the Upanishad, and I read my grandfatherÕs
classic Surat ni Aag from our prescribed prose reader. I lived with my
grandmother throughout the years Pupul travelled the countryside and even after
she set up house in New Delhi.
In 1944, Mridula Sarabhai
as organizing secretary of what became known as the Kasturba Gandhi National
Memorial Trust, chose Pupul as organizing secretary of the Mumbai central
office. But Thakkarbapa, the Secretary of the trustÕs executive committee,
ÔvehementlyÕ disagreed with MridulaÕs choice. After all, Pupulben, as a daughter
of the Raj and a card-playing member of BombayÕs Willingdon Club, did not quite
fit the Ônew womanÕ of GandhijiÕs vision. Despite the setback, Pupul remained
associated with the Kasturba Trust and with Mridulaben as mentor she travelled
throughout village India.
My memories move to Himmat Niwas, to a flat across the
road from her motherÕs house Pupul rented in 1946. Nostalgia is absent in the
flat, but there is sorrow, for Pupul gave birth to a child who died two weeks
later. The anguish of loss went into stories published a few years later. In
ÔTwo WomenÕ, a mother on her way to join a convoy about to cross the border to
safety lays her sleeping child under a tree as she stops to take a last look at
her ancestral land. The child wakes up and wanders away. She searches
frantically for her son, but it is too late, the convoy departs as the killer
mob begins to arrive.
Pupul covered over her
sorrow with fierce ambition, for Pupul was a woman of action, with confidence
in her capacity to build an independent future as social worker, writer and to
eventually climb the political ladder. She has been a member of the Congress
party since 1941. Inclined towards its socialist wing, Ashok Mehta, Minoo
Masani, Acharya Narendra Dev and Yusuf Meher Ali were friends. Her connections
in the Congress extended to her fatherÕs friends Gobind Vallabh Pant and
Jawaharlal, the future prime minister. She had a solid record of social work in
the countryside behind her and was active in resettling refugees from Sindh.
She was a figure in
BombayÕs cultural world. Mulk Raj Anand recently returned from England, and she
jointly edited a childrenÕs magazine. Raj Thapar, Raj Malhotra at the time, was
assistant editor; M.F. Husain contributed a Ôearly colour drawings of a horse
and bull-driven cartÕ, and Shivax Chawda illustrated childrenÕs stories. She retold the life of the Buddha and
stories from the Ramayana for the children. The magazine featured a painting by
Jamini Roy on its cover.ÔI write, I am in politics, I
work for distress relief, politics, art. There is so much action, so much
doing, so much livingÕ, she wrote with obvious relish in her diary.
In 1948, being at a loose end one Sunday, she
accompanied sister Nandini to meet a sage newly arrived on the scene. She
expected the typical guru dishing out the usual array of homilies. But was
startled by KrishnamurtiÕs challenging stance – he seemed to be holding
up a mirror to her, in which she discovered the hidden side of her being, ÔI
had covered up my sorrow with layers of aggression I had never spoken of this
to anyone – not even to myself had I acknowledged my loneliness: but
before this silent stranger all masks were swept away. I looked into his eyes,
and it was my own face I saw reflected.Õ
Pupul withdrew from
politics and abandoned the card room at the Willingdon Club. The emotions anchoring her socialist
ideology – a sympathy for the destitute, and her commitment to public
life – nonetheless survived. Her experience of craft communities of
Gujarat, their mastery of colour, the grim poverty of their lives now led her
to a small outlet for handmade products run by the Provincial Industrial
Co-operative Association of the Bombay Presidency. She had been a member of its
board since it was instituted in 1946.
Playing designer, sales
assistant and publicity manager, Pupul launched the shop, which soon acquired a
zing. It drew the smart set, ladies who wore georgettes and chiffons and
decorated their home with gingham table cloths and polka dotted curtains to
cotton textiles printed with tribal, folk and prehistoric images. A surviving
catalogue draws attention to the material on sale – a bride and groom
painted on the walls of village huts, a horned deer painted on prehistoric
pottery, a knight errant on horseback all configured as designs for curtains
and bedspreads in a modern home. Her aesthetic sensibility now channelled
through an entirely novel and successful business enterprise, enhanced her
credentials as a capable woman.
PupulÕs connections with the Sarabhai family at this
point found common ground with MridulaÕs younger siblings, Gira and Gautam. ÔDo
you own a textile millÕ, the great Indologist Ananda Coomaraswamy had asked
brother and sister in 1946; ÔIf you do not have a textile museum then sponsor
one.Õ The suggestion introducing aesthetic and conservation dimensions to their
fatherÕs Calico Mill appealed to the young Sarabhais, who asked Pupul to join
them in the task that lay ahead.
The historian Aparna Basu
with privileged access to the extensive collection of Ôpapers, diaries and
letters preserved in the Sarabhai FoundationÕ, identifies PupulÕs fundamental
role in the founding of the museum. ÔThis [the conversation with Coomaraswamy]
was the genesis of the Calico Museum of Textiles that Gautam and Gira, together
with Pupul Jayakar, founded in 1949, arguably the best of its kind in the
world. They worked together as a team in putting together the collection, as
well as in displaying it.Õ
Jackie was transferred to Delhi as ACCÕs representative
to government in 1948. A flat in Sundar Nagar, a swanky new area of the city,
came with the position. Dividing her time between Bombay and Delhi, Pupul
worked on two fronts – in Delhi she established an elegant household, and
renewed her connections with government; in Bombay, she worked at the emporium
and became part of the fabric of her maternal home. In 1952, soon after the
All-India Handicraft Board with Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay as head was
established, Pupul was appointed member of the board.
Late one morning in Bombay,
as she stood behind the counter at the Bombay Cooperative Sales Depot, two
foreigners came into the store. Edgar Kaufmann Jr. and Alexander Girard were
shopping for a forthcoming exhibition on Indian craft design to be held the
following year at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). A chain of consequences
followed this chance meeting as Pupul steered the two men to the network of
craft centres, museums, emporia and village bazaars in the country. She introduced them to Gira Sarabhai in
Ahmedabad, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay in New Delhi, to private collectors like
Sheila Bharatram, who loaned them objects for the exhibition in New York.
The Museum of Modern ArtsÕ
(MoMA) extraordinary exhibition, ÔTextiles and Ornaments of IndiaÕ, drew a
large number of visitors. Pupul was invited to attend and along with John Irwin
of the Victoria and Albert Museum commissioned to write the introduction to its
lavish catalogue. She lent her voice to Charles and Ray EamesÕ exquisite
documentary, which was filmed to the strain of Ali Akbar KhanÕs sitar and
Chattur LalÕs tabla, with snatches of Shanta Rao dance. She returned from New
York with dazzled sensibilities. She, who had always been deeply engaged with
objects, with a textile fragment or seal from Harappa, learnt about the orchestration
of sound and light in the display of objects in the exhibition and museums. Her
visit to Charles and Ray EamesÕ house and their studio in California, two of
the great design spaces of the 20th century, became an enduring source of
inspiration for her later work.
Pupul JayakarÕs engagement with the Government of India
in New Delhi officially began in 1955 after T.T. Krishnamachari, then minister
of Commerce and Industries, divided the Handicraft Board into two sections, the
Handicraft Board headed by Kamaladevi and the Handloom Board of which she was
appointed the head. Aware that handloom weaving was after agriculture the major
source of employment in the country, and that poverty was the weaversÕ lot,
Pupul hesitated. ÔGo do it; you will learn as you workÕ, she quoted
Krishnamachari as telling her.
So began her national
presence in the fields of design institutions, export promotion and
conservation. The WeaversÕ Service Centre, Handicrafts and Handloom Exports
Corporation (HHEC), National Institute of Design (NID), National Institute of
Fashion Technology (NIFT) and Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural
Heritage (INTACH) were among the organizations she helped found. NID and NIFT
have since multiplied, INTACH has extended its reach to Chapters in various
parts of India; the Handloom and Handicrafts Boards have been eliminated. She
was appointed chairperson of the Festivals of India held in the 1980s in
France, the United States and Japan, which was perhaps responsible for why she
came to be known, ironically, as the Tzarina of Culture.
In 1982, Pupul was invited to speak at the Institute of
Management in Ahmedabad. She presented herself to the graduating class as
lacking in management theories but in no way handicapped by the lack. ÔThe last
place in the world I expected to speak was at the Institute of Management,
AhmedabadÕ, she told the students. ÔI am one of those survivors from the days
before independence, who entered the stream of economic, social, cultural
nation building, with no proper training or experience. I am an outsider in the
field of management, but, over the last four decades, I too have been
responsible for the building of a large number of cultural, social and economic
institutions in this country.Õ
From the mid-eighties Pupul
turned her attention to her literary past to write biographies of J.
Krishnamurti and Indira Gandhi. She formally resigned from government in 1990,
retired to Himmat Nivas in Bombay and her family of sisters. She died in 1997
at the age of eighty-two.
References
Aparna Basu, Mridula Sarabhai: Rebel with a Cause. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1996. Aparna Basu, As Times Change: The Story of an Ahmedabad Business Family: The Sarabhais: 1823-1975. Sarabhai Foundation, Ahmedabad, 2018.
Pupul Jayakar, God is Not a Full Stop. Kutub Publishers, Bombay, 1949. Pupul Jayakar, The Children of Barren Women: Essays, Investigations, Stories. Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 1994.
Maithreyi Krishna Raj, ÔWomenÕs Pers-pective on Public Policy: An Incomplete or Lost Agenda?Õ Gender, Technology and Development 4(2), 2000, pp. 161-200.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12179948/
Vinayak Mehta, Nandshankar Jeevan Chitra. M.N. Tripathi and Sons, Bombay, 1916.