India

= **Chapter 8** = = = = **The Passage to India** =

I met Shanta Gidwani for the first time in 1975 at an international meeting in Brussels. For a considerable length of time the relationship after our brief encounter was of a purely professional nature. We wrote to each other on a regular basis to discuss our film projects. I worked and lived in the United States; Shanta worked and lived in India. Only in 1979 did Shanta come on her first visit to America, and we were married soon after that.

Shanta was born in Karachi in 1941, where both her mother and father came from. In 1947, Karachi became part of Pakistan, having previously been part of the British Empire. Her father worked as a civil engineer and was sent by his company on all sorts of assignments to different places. He frequently travelled back and forth between Burma and Afghanistan. As a result of his work, his family moved regularly. After his wife had given birth to Shanta, the Gidwani family remained in Karachi for only one more month. They moved on to Assam and then Manipur in the northeast region of present day India, where the British were fighting on one of many fronts of the Second World War. Shanta’s father was at the disposal of the Allied Forces, often building and repairing roads and bridges that had been destroyed. In fact he worked for sometime on the famous (or infamous) road that joined India to Burma, now Myanmar.

While Shanta has no memories of the time of the war, she does vividly remember the terrors of the Indian struggle for independence and the horrors of partition: how her land was violently split up into Pakistan, a Muslim state, and India, which is inhabited mainly by Hindus. The partition and its mass migration caused much grief. Millions of Muslims left India for Pakistan, millions of Hindus fled from Pakistan to India. The great Mahatma Gandhi, who had played a major role in the fight for the independence of India from Great Britain, tried in vain to exorcise the demons of death and destruction and to reconcile the fighting parties through his famous hunger strikes. But all hell had broken loose. The country was divided and it seemed impossible for people to live together in peace. The consequences are still visible in the problem of Kashmir, which exists till this day.

In 1945, after the end of the Second World War, Shanta’s father together with a friend set up a business in the densely populated town of Calcutta in Bengal. In 1946 the first riots between Muslims and Hindus broke out. When she remembers these events, Shanta still sees the houses burning in the night and hears the cries of hunted people. She remembers that boiling oil was kept ready to pour over the heads of possible attackers if the house was besieged.

The Gidwani family are Sindhis, The Sindhis were the people who lived in the area that is now Pakistan—in the Valley of the Indus River, the local name of the Indus river is Sindhu—thus the name Sindhis. There were both Muslim and Hindu Sindhis living in the area under the British rule. The Hindu Sindhis were in general Hindus who also followed the tenets of the Sikh religion as preached by the original founder of Sikhism—Guru Nanak. For their daily religious observance, many Sindhis attend ceremonies in their own Sikh temples, but for birth, marriage and death they often follow the Hindu rites. Shanta’s parents, for example, were married as Hindus, but her brother Prakash opted for a Sikh marriage, which to him seemed more meaningful.

The business which Mr. Gidwani had started in the Bengali town did not survive the religious and nationalistic riots. Because of the fierce unrest, the family left for Ranchi in Bihar in the eastern part of India. Here Shanta’s father organised motion picture shows for the soldiers of the city’s garrison. Shanta was educated by the Irish Catholic nuns of the Loretto Convent, a school which enjoyed a good reputation. It was in Ranchi that Shanta’s brother Prakash, her only sibling, was born in 1948.

After India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, the army garrison at Ranchi was sent to fight on the Kashmir front—the beginning of the on-going skirmish between Pakistan and India. As a result, Mr Gidwani lost his livelihood once again. The family drove by car to Delhi, the Indian capital, where an aunt put them up. They continued their journey by train to the port of Bombay (Mumbai), on the southwest coast of India.

In Bombay, Shanta’s father took up working as an engineer again and joined the same company in which he had started his career. He stayed with them until he retired in 1968. Shanta was first sent to a Jewish school and later joined the Protestant Queen Mary High School run by the Women’s Bible Medical Mission. She graduated from high school in 1957. Although her parents did not pressure her to pursue further studies, Shanta wanted to go to college and get a bachelor’s degree at a minimum. Since she was rather shy and very timid at that time, she opted for a highly reputable but smaller college. She was very interested in studying English literature, but she did not like the professors, so instead she went for history. She thought Art and Religion of Ancient India, which had just been introduced as an elective, sounded interesting and enjoyed every minute of the classes. She graduated in 1961, but found herself on the street with no job. She had always been very interested in books and libraries and had attended an evening course in library management outside the history curriculum. She silently hoped to be working as a librarian somewhere, a job perfectly in line with her somewhat withdrawn nature. She was given an unexpected opportunity to realise her modest ambition, but in a place she had not anticipated.

During a bus ride, she had an informal chat about her future plans with a lady who used to be the leader of the Girl Scouts at her school. The lady told her that the School of Social Work at the Institute of Social Service, popularly known as Nirmala Niketan was looking for a part-time librarian. The lady got her in, and Shanta was offered three days a week for a monthly salary of 75 rupee, the equivalent of about six dollars. Shanta understood she was not going to earn a fortune, but she was happy. She got on well at Nirmala Niketan, and was in charge of setting up a new library, which she enjoyed. She was soon offered assistance by an American woman named Dorothy Clark, who was the librarian at the American library across the road and who helped her acquire the right kind of furniture etc. that would make the reference materials more accessible than the locked cabinets used by the older college libraries where librarians were more interested in keeping materials safe than having them used by students. For Shanta this was the beginning of a very important episode of her life.

The Nirmala Niketan school, located in the heart of the city, is famous in Bombay. Officially the school is called the Institute of Social Service and it is run by Catholic nuns, the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. Young women are trained for social duties or can attend higher studies in social sciences. The sisters of Nirmala Niketan work amongst the poorest of the poor in the Dharavi slums. Shanta often went herself to the slums and took other visitors there.

Shanta’s immediate boss was Dorothy Baker, the Director of the School of Social Work. Miss Baker was a straight forward, good-humored, American nun full of common sense. She took Shanta under her wing and soon promoted her to be the Administrative Assistant to the Director, and since Miss Baker was responsible for the fund-raising program for the entire Institute, she made Shanta the Secretary of the fund-raising committee. This committee was made up of some very important people from Bombay’s social and business community. As Shanta’s responsibilities grew, Miss Baker found her an assistant to take care of the library. Shanta became proficient with using visual aids which explained to lay people Nirmala Niketan’s social mission She also was introduced to the Indian advertising agency, Lintas, which supported Nirmala Niketan’s activities. From them she learned more about presenting slides and films.

Since Miss Baker was also raising funds from International agencies, there was a constant stream of visitors from different countries with whom Shanta had contact. As a result of this, Shanta overcame her innate shyness, and was encouraged by Miss Baker to develop her potential. Shanta travelled to Europe a few times to attend international meetings, where she met with various donor organisations. On these trips, Shanta developed some close friendships in many, different European countries.

As her work developed, Shanta became increasingly interested in communication and communication techniques. Her work helping to organise the South East Asian Conference of Schools of Social Work in 1970, was noticed by several people who helped her obtain a grant for a course on developing countries’ communication problems at the UN offices in Bangkok, Thailand. This was a fascinating experience for her, and it helped to further reinforce her special interest in projects involving children. This interest in children and communication had an enormous impact on the rest of her life.

Shanta worked full-time for Nirmala Niketan for almost 14 years, during which time she became very close to the nuns, especially Miss Baker. At one time she seriously considered becoming a Catholic and entering the order of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. She liked her working environment, contacts with her colleagues were excellent, the tasks she was given had fitted her skills well, the nuns’ spirituality appealed to her and life in the commune gave her a sense of security such that she wanted to become part of it. Her mentor, Miss Baker, was thrilled. Shanta, however, wanted to think things through and consulted the Mother Superior first. The Mother Superior turned out to be a down-to-earth, peaceful and wise person with lots of experience. She had sympathy for Shanta’s desire, understood Shanta’s motives well and appreciated Shanta’s dedication and her generosity. But she also looked beyond Shanta’s present state of mind to the distant future and realised what risks a young and fairly inexperienced Indian woman would run when she left her Hindu traditions - even with the best of intentions and the noblest of aims - for a totally different world of Christian inspiration. The Mother Superior dissuaded her from converting to Catholicism. She encouraged her to break away from her familiar environment for a while, to move elsewhere and work more independently and then look again at whether she wanted to stick to her plan to become a Catholic nun.

In 1974 Shanta left the permanent staff of Nirmala Niketan to join the Jesuits’ Saint Xavier College in Bombay where she was in charge of a communication project sponsored by UNESCO to study the use of television for educating people in both urban and rural low income communities. However, she continued to teach at the School of Social Work where she had designed and introduced a course on communications and social work offered to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Her work at the Saint Xavier College lasted for about a year. Partly because of the positive response to her work there, she was selected to head The Children’s Film Society run by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in New Delhi. The Children’s Film Society of India, wanted to promote quality, Indian children’s films. It produced its own films, commissioned films elsewhere in India and imported foreign films which were adapted for use in India. The Society was a member of the International Center for Films for Children and Young People known as CIFEJ, Centre International de Films pour les Enfants et la Jeunesse. It was a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), under UNESCO. At the time, the organisation was presided over by Henry Geddes, chairman of the Children’s Film Foundation in Great Britain. In 1975 Henry Geddes came to visit the Indian organisation. While there he convinced Shanta’s superiors at the Ministry to participate in the Annual meeting of CIFEJ which was meeting that year in Brussels. Geddes thought it of the utmost importance that India, a country with so many children and the biggest producer of films in the world, should attend the meeting. He insisted on Shanta, herself, representing the Children’s Film Society of India in Brussels because he wanted someone who knew the field and not another bureaucrat from the ministry. Using all his diplomatic skills, Geddes convinced the New Delhi government to send Shanta to Brussels.

Shanta arrived in the Belgian capital in October, 1975, one day after the start of the meeting. She had had a tough journey. The Indian administration had not issued her official travel documents in time and she had to improvise in order not to arrive even later. It was a dreary autumn evening when she arrived at the Arenberg Hotel, half way between Saint Michael’s cathedral and the beautiful Grand Place. She was exhausted and very sleepy. There was a message from Henry Geddes waiting for her, asking her to attend without delay an important meeting in a certain room. She dragged herself to the room, more dead than alive. There were about twenty-five people in the room, packed like sardines chock-a-block. There was only one space left -- on the bed. Without asking and not even realising whose room she was in, she threw herself half-asleep on the bed. Through a haze she could hear the group, which mainly consisted of representatives of Western Bloc countries discussing the attitude they should take during the main meeting towards the Russian delegation. The Cold War was still in full swing and diplomatic incidents were easily caused. All participants had to be careful to avoid problems, but they also wished to stop the Soviet Union representatives from allowing the organisation for children films to become completely subordinate to government. The Westerners defended autonomy from their authorities as much as possible. Through lobbying they tried to find allies to vote against the Russians in case they would make a proposal for more government involvement. The issue of independence was also a very delicate one in India. Shanta tried to listen and pay attention.

Later Shanta remembered that one of the men asked her during the course of the meeting whether she wanted a drink. Because she couldn’t think of anything else, she ordered a sherry. She was told the man who brought her the sherry was an American who represented the American Centre of Films for Children in the United States. That man was me, Milan. This particular meeting about a tactful approach to the Russians was being held in my room because it was the largest among all the delegates’ rooms. Actually that happened because I was not supposed to attend, but suddenly found that I could be in Brussels on business, during the same time as the meeting. So I went to the hotel and it turned out that the manager was a Yugoslav, who gave me this lovely large room which could accommodate 25 people. The meeting had to be in private so that the Eastern Bloc countries would not know about it.

The next day at the Brussels Congress Centre on the Mont des Arts, difficulties with the Soviets started. While Shanta listened to a speech by the Russian representative, she noticed that the interpreters were experiencing difficulties making an accurate translation for the seemingly complicated sentences delivered by the Russian delegate. After some commotion a man in the audience got up and offered a helping hand. Shanta recognised the gentleman who had offered her the sherry the night before, and who now started to translate from Russian into English. She could tell he wasn’t doing too bad a job as the people present seemed pleased. Shanta started thinking there was something special about him, this peculiar American. How is this possible, she thought… an American who knows Russian? Americans only speak English. And American English at that! She looked at the name tag of this strange American-- Milan Herzog. I was sitting on his bed yesterday, and I didn’t even know who he was, thought Shanta. Later Henry Geddes whispered to Shanta that everyone need to treat Milan with special care because he had just found out that his wife was terminally ill with cancer.

That evening Shanta was picked up in Brussels by a Flemish friend who took her for dinner with his wife and children in the small Flemish village of Itegem. Shanta knew the village; she had stayed with the family on her previous long visit to Holland where she had very close friends.

The same evening, when Shanta returned to her hotel in Brussels, she found a bottle of sherry at the door of her room. The bottle had been left there by me - Milan. I had wanted to invite her for dinner that night in order to privately discuss the situation in India, but found that she wasn't in. The next day when the group visited the town of Mons in the French part of Belgium, Shanta and I spent a lot of time together, talking mainly about work. I remember we had vivid discussions and got on well and appreciated each other’s company. But there was no question at that time of love or infatuation.

When the meeting in Brussels finished at the end of October, 1975, I flew back to California and Shanta returned to India via London, where she visited for a couple weeks with Henry Geddes at the Children’s Film Foundation. For the following four years, Shanta and I wrote to each other about our work, about the problems with children’s films, the exchange of materials and how we could possibly help each other to solve specific issues in the area of children’s film. We didn’t meet again until 1979. By then Shanta had resigned from the Children’s Film Society of India because she was dissatisfied with the political meddling of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who according to her was behaving in an authoritarian manner and wanted to change her country’s policy on film in a dictatorial way. Shanta thought Indira Gandhi was doing exactly what people at the Brussels meeting had tried to stop the Russians from doing: the Prime Minister was trying to turn the Society into an instrument for political propaganda and Shanta had no desire to take part in this.

In 1977, she started working for the Lintas advertising agency which was, at that time part of an international company, headquartered in London. However, while that was her full time job, she continued to teach at the School of Social Work. Shanta was also volunteering her time with the Adoption Association of India and was involved with other non-profit groups. In early 1979 Lintas decided to send Shanta to the UK to study the information set up in the Lintas London office, so that she could set up a similar department in Bombay (Mumbai). She also decided to take a few weeks additional holiday and visit the States. I had told her on numerous occasions that my wife and I would be delighted to receive her and would be happy to put her up, so Shanta decided to come to California,. But when Shanta wrote to inform me that she could finally come to the States, the news of Roni’s death had not yet reached her. I had to include this in my reply. I also wrote that Roni’s death should not stop her from executing her plan. I had fallen behind with my work and was working on a new production, which meant I was away from home a lot, but I said Shanta could stay at my house, use our car as she thought fit and do whatever she pleased.

Because it was impossible to change the travel dates, Shanta decided to fly to Los Angeles as scheduled. On 26th January, 1979, she arrived for a month’s stay. She had decided to use this holiday to gather information about the UN “Year of the Child” activities that had been organized in and around Los Angeles as she was the Secretary of the “Year of the Child” Committee in Bombay and had been asked to give a report on the celebrations in other countries.

I met her at the airport and apologised for not having much time to spend with her. I told her she had to make good use of the means I could give her, but she had to organise her own holiday. She had the freedom of our house, and I explained to her how best to handle our car and advised her against driving on the left side as they do in India!

During her stay in Los Angeles, I tried to entertain her as much as I could and introduced her to various friends, who kept her busy—but since she was interested in media production, she was very curious about our production and spent a lot of time at our studio and even assisted me on several occasions. As a result she often met up with my faithful secretary Milka. Milka is a person of inestimable value, an efficient helper who solves any practical problem, who is very attentive, one hundred percent reliable, modest but also self-assured and above all cordial and generous. She is an excellent judge of character - she sees right through you. Milka had instantly won Shanta’s confidence. And visa versa. Within no time they spoke openly and frankly with each other. They talked extensively and often went out together.

When Shanta was packing her bags, Milka asked her to stay longer. Shanta explained to her the difficulties she had experienced in order to get an American tourist visa, and how she had to promise to return to her country on time, since the American Counsel in Bombay had suspected her of wanting to go to Los Angeles in order to marry in the States, because people who got married in the States were allowed to stay! “Why wouldn’t you get married here?” Milka said as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “To whom?” Shanta laughed. “To B.B (that is how Milka referred to me—Big Boss) Milka said in an uncomplicated, yet deadly serious way. “You would make a good wife for him. I know he feels the same. I see what I see.”

Shanta later told me that she was completely tied up in knots. Milka had touched a string that kept reverberating. Here was something unspoken that lived deep down inside her, and had never been allowed to come to the surface. She knew we appreciated each other. It was also clear that we enjoyed being together. It was true that during the time we had spent together, a special feeling of solidarity had grown. Milka with her infallible instinct had noticed quite correctly how Shanta had become something more than a foreign colleague who happened to stay at my house. To me she had become more than just a good friend. We felt more and more attracted to each other, but had never openly discussed this.

Shortly before Shanta left, the opportunity came up to have a serious conversation about the subject. It was I who started it. Shanta had told me before that she really felt at ease in my house, but had not taken this any further. I wanted to get to the bottom of this and call things by their name, without trying to force anything. Apart from the things that brought us together, I could also see the great difficulties that could keep us apart, and which I had to respect. Certainly our age difference was of prime importance.

I frankly asked her whether she would marry me, but at the same time I urged her to take her time and give it careful thought, to look at the pros and cons together with the thoughts of her parents and friends. She promised she would definitely do this. But in her heart (she told me later) she had already said ‘yes’. She had made up her mind to return to Mount Beacon Terrace.