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Bimla Sehdev is a remarkable young woman of 80, whose
birthday was recently celebrated by all her near and
dear ones. The celebration came to her as a complete
surprise; and she, normally a very self-controlled
woman, could not help bursting out in tears at the
sight of such huge family get-together. And it was the
whole extended family not only her own but even that
of her late sister and the brother who is a retired
Brigadier from the Indian Armed Forces. They came one
and all, to pay their homage to her. The credit for
all this goes to Bimla herself, who has always been a
source of strength to all the family members whenever
and wherever she feels the need for any kind of
support, emotional or otherwise. In turn she is loved
and cherished by her sons and brothers along with
their wives, a rare phenomenon indeed, and almost all
relatives and friends.
Bimla
is a cherished daughter of the well-established Masson
House of Lahore. Her father was a doctor, as well as a
magistrate. He had been granted the title of Rai
Bahadur by the British Government in the days of
their colonial rule in India as a mark of
appreciation for the services rendered by him in Tibet
where he worked for six months in a year. For those
six months the family residence would shift to Simla,
and he proceed to Tibet with a retinue of six to seven
attendants, all in the right royal British style.
Bimla
was born in Thikriwal, a suburb near Lahore, Pakistan,
on the 24th of March 1921, and raised in
ideal circumstances of love, friendship and
understanding. She reminisces: "I never witnessed
any kind of discord, or even a difference of opinion
in my family. I did not even know that such things
could ever take place in a house. Ours was a perfect
household; full of love, affection and complete
understanding of each other."
She
was married in 1937 when she was hardly 16, but in
those days this was considered to be the ideal
marriageable age. Her husband also came from a very
well placed family in the Jind state of the Punjab
where her father-in-law worked as a wazir to the then
ruler. Her husband, Basdev Saran was a responsible
accounts officer in the bank. As time went by, she had
children, all boys, which must have, further, raised
her status in the family.
In
the societal value system of those days, the women who
gave birth to daughters were generally considered to
be unlucky because a daughter meant economic drain-off
in the then prevalent dowry system. Moreover,
the status of the bride’s father stood at a level
much lower than that of the groom’s. Thus Bimla
passed the ultimate test of an ideal wife and a
revered daughter-in-law.
Meanwhile,
Rai Bahadur Kanshi Ram had retired. He had managed to
build a grand mansion as his permanent residence in
Lahore, and a summer resort at Jagjit Nagar, in Simla
Hills. Every thing went fine till the holocaust of the
partition of India, with the loss of property and
resources at Lahore.
Bimla’s
family, however, was not affected because they lived,
first in Sangrur and then in Patiala situated on the
Indian side of the Punjab. But the merger of states in
the Indian Union, and the growth, as well as the
desire for the proper and productive education of the
children did impose certain financial constraints on
the family resources.
In
due course, one of Bimla’s sons Satish, qualified as
an engineer, and migrated to USA. His wife Indira, a
doctor, accompanied him too. When the couple had a
child, a son, they needed Bimla’s help to look after
the house as well as the baby. So they planned
to have the parents over, and Bimla and Basdev Saran
migrated to US. Another son was born to Indira, and
the older couple became a permanent part of the
household.
Back
home in India, one of Bimla’s nieces used to hold
exhibitions of her paintings in various art galleries
of New Delhi. Bimla used to watch her paint and
yearned to do so herself. But she never got the
favourable conditions required for going ahead with
her urge for painting. Moreover, she did not know
sketching. She was convinced that she would never be
able to dabble with colours.
But
opportunity did knock at her door in New York ten
years ago, when she was already 70 years old. One day,
her daughter-in-law, Indira, got hold of some flyers,
advertising three-month summer courses in swimming and
painting. Indira wanted to learn swimming and asked
the mother-in-law if she was still interested in
joining the painting classes. Bimla had some
reservations about jumping at the offer because she
did not know driving, and did not expect anybody at
home to be able to find time for dropping or picking
her up if she joined the classes. Indira solved the
problem for her by making the appropriate schedule for
her swimming lessons.
And
thus Bimla set out on the program of fulfilling her
lifelong desire. She started with that particular
course, and then went on and on attending classes
whenever or wherever they were available. Till now she
goes to her teacher in all earnest, paying her double
the amount in order to get double the time for
herself. Now it is her grandson who drives her to and
fro.
Today
Bimla’s persistence has paid off. She paints still
life, as well as a lot of landscaping in breathtaking
colours. All her children are the proud owners of her
beautifully framed, lovely paintings. Now, her
children are planning to hold an exhibition, and we
here wish her the best of luck in the new ventures.
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Portrait by Dr P. Suri
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