Jung Bahadur was born in a middle class family in UP in the early 1900s. He lived with his step brothers and stepmother and father. His fondest childhood memory was of seeing Gandhiji in Kanpur perched on his father’s shoulders. He got married at a very young age. As fate would have it, he was ill treated and thrown out of his home with a young wife to fend for. Not one to give up easily and with a plucky wife who sold her ornaments, he continued his studies and did his LLB or graduation in Law. He became an Attorney at law. A man of deep intelligence, he was well-read in Persian and English having a keen interest in Urdu shairi too. He used to translate his Court papers to Persian, such was his mastery over the language. His awkward Hindi script (in the letters he wrote to his daughter) looked like it would be dissolving into Urdu any time soon :).
Days got better, and he started doing well at his law practice. He was now an established and an important name in the town of Unnao, close to Kanpur in UP. He built a huge bungalow designed by his wife who saw a similar bungalow in a movie and watched it umpteen times to get the design right. He had many children, but unfortunately most of them died in early childhood. His youngest daughter and son were the only ones who survived beyond adulthoold. A mild-mannered man, he loved his wife dearly, and came up the hard way in life. A very learned man who could hold a conversation in any subject, Jung Bahadur Srivastava was my maternal grandfather, my nana!
My mother was his elder daughter, and I have some really fond memories of my childhood vacations spent in my nana’s home in Unnao. He died in his 80s, and he lives in our memories and as an inspiration to us. My only regret is that I never saw him live in Court.
And yes, he was an extremely health-conscious man. Maybe, I got that from him or from my own dad :)!
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