A Lady in a Sari....

A Lady in a Sari...

 
In 1897 at the peak of the reign Queen Victoria and the British Empire, a letter arrived at the home of Ginney Street in the English midlands. A letter from her sister and husband in India,the written contents of which are unknown, the enclosures of photograghs taken in an Indian studio survived in the family through the years.

Two were of Ginneys sister and her Husband  in normal English dress of the period and one of thelady in more formal wear. The third is a photogragh of the spinster second sister Aggie at around the same time ,both were missionary ladies ,possibly non conformists.Aggies dress was in the form of an Indian Sari.

Aggie is the mistery lady and a lady with a secret, ' A lady in a Sari'. The photograghs lay quietly in an albu111somewhere and eventually into the posession of Gertrude Isabel Lucy Birch the daughter of one of the three  sisters, who married  William Edward Mason , the writers mother and father.

 

The photograghs lay almost forgotten as many family documents do for the many years, through the nineteen ; tens; twenties;and thirties, then history began to assert itself with the birth of daughter Joyce Veronica in 1930 , followed by Malcolm Edgar in 1935 both in the month of August ..the second world war brought families together and sometime in the fourties we met the sister who wrote the letter and enclosed the photograghs, Aunt Maggie a lovely lady,her husband died about then and I was given gold cuff links and collar studs worn by that man and I still have them in their grey box. We never met the spinster sister Aggie or come to think of it, mention of her in conversation of our parents , thus she remained just a photogragh hidden somewhere, this mystery lady 'A Lady in a Sari' . Itwould take another fifty years before  she had her moment in the sun and

a secret unlocked.

 
Aggie would have been Malcolms great aunt and would not have been of importance to him and his sister, had not Malcolm become involved in the Indian sub continent or more precisely the part which became Pakistan after partition a place where  Malcolm was to feel so at home during his business visits in the nineteen sixties.

 
By the late nineteen fifties Malcolm had gotten through mastoids, Polio and his basic education and ready for the big time. The age of fifteen it was  Malcolm who said to his parents Gertrude and William (Ted) ,I want to go on to College to study Mechanical Engineering, dad replied, oh dear how do you propose doing that, easy dad and together we set out to achieve my ambition,, college university and to the Austin Motor Company later to become The British Motor Corporation and the lauchiung of Malcolm onto the World stage of travel to over seventy Countries.

The early nineteen sixties saw Malcolm on a number of visits to Pakistan, of course in Karachi; Lahore ; Rawwalplindi; Peshsawah and the Swat valley. Friends I had made whilst at the factory the son and workshop manager of the Austin distributor were back home and we worked together at there setting up of their assembly  plant and Truck ,marketing. Ivisited many other distributors factories etc in all continents, it was Pakistan that was so familier to me and  where I felt so at

home.

Fast forward to 1996.------------

I was walking past the post office down the main street of  our maintown of  Batemans Bay , New South wales , Australia just 275 kilometres south of  Sydney at the mouth of the river Clyde and the sea, our home being about 36 kilometres upstream. There sitting outside of a cafe was·an Indian lady and her daughter and as I approached she smiled and I smiled back, which was very nice I thought . Not ten minutes later I was about to pass again and goodness me, the good lady stood up and said may I speak to you, certainly came my reply, intrigued to say the least. She explained that she saw me in my light tan clothes, battered brief case  and walking stick that so reminded her of her father.

 
It was then that I told her of my association with Pakistan and how I felt at home there, Goodness me she said, because her family after partition moved east to the India as we know it today and she and her husband were visiting, in fact he was in the estate agent just by. Being me I then proceeded to expound on my stays in Pakistan and by chance I told her that my favourite city was Peshawar. To both our astonishments, she announced that it was in fact that vey city that her family came from, all thoses years agoe, 1948 I think .. I will curse the day or some such saying, that I did not ask the ladies name, I think it was because husband   came to say hello, a big chap one of those tall seroius faced fellas and the darkness off the southern areas. Anyway he was very nice and we parted and she gave me a peck on the cheek, probably remembering her dad and her childhood- A Lady in a Sari.

 

Around this time Patricia and I remembered that when visiting my sister Joyce in England, we had seen some photograghs of  relatives past, who had been missionaries in India in the late nieteenth centry. A letter to my sister was called and done, May 1996 saw the arrival of her response and the first real indicators of  my mothers side of the family involvement in India. There were three photograghs sent to one of three sisters none as aunt Maggie, the photograghs made in Bombay were dated 1897, amazing the year after the land where we live here in Australia was first surveyed.

 

Once again the lady in a Sari lay in the quiet darkness of an envelope in a file here in Australia, until that is Malcolm and Patricia attended a local spiritual centre in the Australian spring of 2009, the events that followed were extra ordinary,to say the least.. A medium stood up and a talked on her life and spiritual journey ,following this she began to give the group messages from spirit and in due course she came to me. She looked at me quietly for a minute and then said that an older gentleman was with us, possibly your grandfather who passed over many years agoe and wished you well. Then came the question, was he Indian as his image was certainly of the Indian subcontinent.

 
When I recovered from what the goodlady had said, I repeated in brief my connection with the area and said that one day when she returns to the centre I will bring some photograghts of long gone relatives, but ever present in photographic form.

 The lady medium, a one Mrs Rita Terrant from near Bega in the far south  coast of New South Wales, returned to the spiritual centre in late summer february 2010, no reading for malcolm this time ,but after the meeting she said ah the Punjabi man, Malcolm isnt't it . Hello again I have brought with me the phoptographs I mentioned last time you were here and we sat down with Rita and a fella medium.

 

The three photographs, one of Mggie; one of Maggie and her husband and one of the mysterious Aggie were laid out and immediately Mrs Tarrant was drawn to the one of Aggie, The Lady in a Sari and said without hessitation this women has a secret and it comes from within the Sari. This was followed by the second  medium who said similar words.

 
The million dollar question is therefore , was Aggie pregnant and was she the real mother of Malcolm's Mum Gertrude Issabelle Lucy Mason. In the Victorian era it was quite possible that Aggie came home had the baby and was brought up by Ginnie Street, then Mrs Ginnie Birch. Of course my grandfather a gentleman from the Punjab or the border tribal  area of north west Pakistan, to Malcolm  it certainly  feels that way.