Vidya Bhushan Soni was Indian ambassador to Senegal, Jamaica, Fiji and Ukraine, but this memoir deals with his ancestral ties with New Delhi from the time the British Raj decided in 1911 to construct a new Indian capital. This book is not about leading contractors like Sobha Singh, but ‘ordinary people’ who created Lutyens Delhi, which is now being disfigured by the current government.
Soni has compiled the history from available records, family narratives and visits to his great-grandfather Nathuram’s village of Achnera in Rajasthan. It was the decision of Nathuram and Soni’s grandfather Nanig Ram to mine the ‘very best in the world’ marble in Makrana that proved key to the family fortunes.
Nanig Ram followed the Arya Samaj, whose rites are still observed by the family. He wore a beard and turban and his wife Indra followed Sikh tradition in using the name Kaur. Their son, Soni’s father Bankey Lal, was born in 1908.
The decision to locate the capital in Delhi and use marble and red sandstone from Rajasthan for the new buildings was instrumental. As Nanig Ram’s reputation for cutting and polishing increased, more work followed after 1918 when the family moved to Delhi to create ‘the eternal beauty of classical architecture with Indian features’ like sun breakers, lattices, domes and lotus replicas. Nanig Ram associated with Sobha Singh in the Viceregal Palace, Durbar Hall and the Legislative Chamber and smaller projects were added; India Gate’s memorial arch, the pedestal and canopy for a royal statue, the fountains along Rajpath, and Edward Vll’s memorial. Nanig Ram died in 1929, by when he had purchased property on Hanuman Road near Connaught Place and Hanuman Mandir, and what was to house the Imperial Cinema in Paharganj.
Soni describes the atmosphere around Connaught Place during the inter-war and post-Second World War years, and the dignitaries that frequented the locality, especially after the influx of refugees from West Pakistan while horror and chaos affected the capital. Meanwhile, the family was growing under the matriarchal control of Nanig’s widow Indra. Soni gives a dispassionate account of illness, alcoholism and failed business ventures in his extended family, noting that succeeding generations made use of Nanig Ram’s name and assets ‘even when they did nothing to deserve it.’ But his uncle Sohan Lal fared well in the wider film industry using Imperial Cinema as his base, and his three daughters married men from the civil service, starting a tradition that Soni followed in 1967.
Soni’s father Bankey Lal was the youngest son of Nanig Ram. Despite poor health, he became honorary magistrate and then Municipal Commissioner (1948-50), and one of the first to own a home telephone, which was much in demand from neighbours. Bankey Lal had nine children with his deeply religious wife Kishan Devi from an opulent Agra-based footwear industry family, the author being the third child and first son.
Soni’s descriptions of life in an extended family are frank and interesting. The toilet was some distance away across an open courtyard. ‘Ladies bickered…leading to tension on a daily basis’ resulting in the kitchen space being separated into three units. “In practical terms it made sense,” writes Soni, since the three families learned to coexist under the same roof. Two status symbols, old and new, of driver- driven car and horse-drawn tonga were not jettisoned but retained till 1954. In course of time, since ‘joint family matters can never be resolved amicably. Till today … a challenging proposition’, the Hanuman Road property was partitioned. Soni describes festivals, food served at festivities, the green cover, birds and monkeys, sleeping arrangements, his games and monthly cinema visits, the boat rides beside Rajpath, the visits of the mattress winnower, bed weaver and metal polisher and the absence of security other than the sole night watchman. In the 1950s, ‘mosquitoes had not yet assumed menacing levels.’ Weddings were organised in-house and alcohol only served to a select few. “That did not stop many from getting drunk or making a spectacle of themselves,” Soni notes wryly. Similarly, he observes that the custodians of temples, including the nearby Hanuman Mandir, made personal use of public donations and rents from temple properties.
The passage of time made its mark. In 2015, the family’s iconic Imperial Cinema, which showed silent films from 1932 and had its heyday in the 90s, closed down, affected by adverse trends, especially cable TV and multiplexes.
Soni admires B.R. Ambedkar (who once mistook the 4-year Soni for a girl) and others who struggled for justice, social and civil rights against caste-based prejudice. His role models were father Bankey Lal, a strict disciplinarian who strongly encouraged scholarly effort, brother-in-law Anant Ram of great honesty and integrity ‘my philosopher and guide’, aunt’s husband Vimal Chandra prominent in the Scheduled Caste Welfare Association, and father-in-law Justice Ishwar Das Pawar, ‘a fair and upright judge’. Among ladies who influenced him were his grandmother Indra, custodian of family jewels and unquestioned matriarch who survived her husband by 35 years, mother Kishan Devi, and grand-aunt Puniya, widowed twice and childless, who lived for 90 years when ‘with advancing years her alienation became more pronounced.’
Two other relatives find mention; brother-in-law S.K. Chander of the Indian Revenue Service, and first cousin Inder Kumar, who dreamt of Bollywood, but whose life remained unfulfilled. Soni concludes that family fortunes tend to follow a cycle. The first generation is dynamic and entrepreneurial, the second builds on that legacy, the third starts the decline through luxury and lack of financial stewardship, and the fourth dissipates the inheritance. He shows, however, that his own family is an exception to the rule.
The many photographs are often indistinct, but had they been better reproduced, the book may have been more expensive. The family tree in the book is an invaluable reference for the multiple names and family connections. VB Soni’s work is an enjoyable stroll down the decades.
The reviewer is a former foreign secretary
Untold Story of Lutyens Delhi: A Journey to the Modern Incarnation of the City through the Generations
By V.B. Soni
White Falcon, Chandigarh, 2024
290 pages, Rs 699/-