Playing Host to
History
Priya Kapoor meets
Tehmina Bhandari and comes away charmed by the old-world feel of her
Amritsar guesthouse.
It’s a hot summer
evening in
Amritsar, Campers who have traveled from England to Nepal in a caravan
cool off with beer near the tiny pool at Tehmina Bhandari’s
guesthouse. Bhandari (nee Boga), one of the last surviving Parsis in
Punjab, sits close by, waiting for dinner to be served. The backdrop is
a grand, colonial style house, witness to fascinating stories of the
Boga Bhandari family.
This is the
guesthouse where Charlton Heston stayed when he came to Amritsar as a
roving UN Ambassador. Writer
Bapsi Sidhwa remembers walking across the Wagah Border and spending the
night at the Boga residence before taking the train to Mumbai.
Mulk Raj Anand, a one-time neighbor used to drop in for tea here
after his evening walk.
Bhandari, who grew up
at a time when young ladies lived in Amritsar and shopped in Lahore, has
a lot to share. She has lived all 95years of her life in Amritsar, in fact,
it’s been 35 years since she last left it.
Born into a wealthy Parsi family, she was brought up by her
maternal uncle, who also built the house in which she lives.
Her husband, Padam Chand Bhandari, also belonged to one of
Amritsar’s big families. A
marriage between a Hindu and a Parsi in those days raised many eyebrows. Bhandari smiles; “We studied together and fell in love.”
They had three daughters and a son.
Padam was the executive officer of Amritsar.
In 1953, he died of a heart attack and Bhandari was forced to
convert her house into a guesthouse.
The guesthouse soon
gained the patronage of the embassies and foreign media, which sustains
till today. During the 1965
war with Pakistan, a journalist from Newsweek stayed at the
guesthouse. One day, after
returning from the front, he saw Bhandari sitting outside the kitchen,
instructing the cooks. He
named that area Commando Bridge.
The interiors of the
red brick, bougainvillea-clad house are spectacular.
The guesthouse boasts of original Italian tiles in the bathrooms,
Burma teak furniture, brass switches, even a ’56 model fridge and
stove. Over the years, very
little has changed in the house. Water is heated through a boiler, which works on firewood.
The only concession to modernity are air conditioners. The house
is filed with articles from the past – framed etchings, a grand piano,
photos of the Bhandari's with Lord and Lady Mountbatten.
The Bhandari’s, no
doubt, lived in style. Cars
brought from the Maharaja of Indore were serviced on a specially built
ramp in the front porch of the house.
Today, a small shed neighbors the ramp; it houses three
buffaloes, kept on Bhandari’s insistence.
Three of her children
live abroad, but they take out time annually to spend with their mother.
“We can’t sell the house because it is located in the Cantonment
area and the government won’t let us. So the best way to maintain it
is to continue running the guesthouse,” explains son Bimal Bhandari.
By now, an evening of
reminiscing has drawn to a halt. Bhandari
retires for the night, but continues to pine for the days gone by:
“It’s all like a dream now.”
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