Five for secret never to be told

The Baigs were an aristocratic, highly educated, reputed family in Lucknow, which is known as the city of Nawabs. The senior Baig, Ataullah, had been sent to the UK to study law as was the tradition in pre-independent India and returned to become a highly regarded Barrister. The son Najibullah followed in the father’s footsteps and joined the family’s law practice. The law firm flourished until the elder Baig was alive but the younger Baig was unable to keep it going despite being armed with a foreign degree. Times, they were changing, and traditional ethics and principles that the father and son duo sincerely believed in could not withstand competition from young, aggressive, unscrupulous practitioners of law who had emerged out of nowhere.  

The Baigs were left only with a fraction of the rural lands they owned, the haveli, the heirlooms, and their old family name. In addition to agricultural lands in the vicinity of the city of Lucknow managed by their serfs, the Baigs owned a majestic haveli in a prime location close to the Residency. But the Land Ceiling act introduced by the Government of India after India gained independence in 1947 compelled the family to sell five of the six sections of their ancestral haveli keeping only the sixth for themselves, which was an architectural marvel. The buyers of the other five broke them down into dingy, functional houses after demolishing their grand arches, balustrades, latticework, and wooden staircases.

Ataullah’s daughter Dilnawaz had to be married in a haste to the scion of an equally illustrious family at the young age of fifteen. Accustomed to living off their ancestral wealth and with a training in liberal arts, the son-in-law, Salamat Khan, tried his hands at several businesses none of which took off.  Sick of asking her in-laws for her personal expenses, Dilnawaz opened a beauty salon, unthinkable for a daughter-in-law of a well-known family in those days. Dilnawaz’s beauty salon offered treatments based on ancient Unani principles and she claimed to use her grandmother’s recipes in preparing the magical potions that she first tested on herself and then on her clients. Within a few years, Dilnawaz’s salon became the most sought-after salon in the capital that catered only to a select few clientele belonging to families similar to that of her in-laws. The recommendations of these elite clients brought other affluent women to seek her services, which she reluctantly began to offer over the years making her salon open to anyone who could afford the price.

Within a decade, Dilnawaz’s salons had expanded to several other neighborhoods in the capital, which she placed in the hands of trusted managers, usually poor relatives from her own extended family. She could trust no outsider with the secret formula for her rejuvenating beauty products. Demands from other cities came pouring in and Dilnawaz agreed to sell the franchise to salons run by beauticians trained by her. The staff in each of the salons was required to train in the Beauty School she had opened for a hefty fee and only those who were successful were allowed to work in the salons bearing her name. Since the business had become unwieldy and Dilnawaz had trained a large number of beauticians who could be trusted to deliver, she turned her attention to introducing a new range of herbal products under her brand name. The magic name turned the range into a profitable enterprise notwithstanding the exorbitant price of her products. Dilnawaz had become a national brand, whose fame soon spread to the Indian diaspora who displayed a preference for herbal products over those manufactured by well known global brands. Dilnawaz personal care products now shared shelfspace with some of the most reputed cosmetic brands worldwide and she acquired a large share in the global cosmetic market through her unique selling proposition – grandmother’s beauty tips.

Dilnawaz was invited to give talks at several events and was highly sought after by the media. In each of her interviews, she attributed the uniqueness of her products to the secret recipes passed down to her by her grandmother, which blended unani with ayurvedic principles in combining different herbs to produce a unique product. The magical ingredients used by her following the secret family formulae were impossible for any Indian or global company to replicate. Dilnawaz became the natural herbal cosmetic brand that alone could challenge the hegemony of old, global cosmetic giants using chemicals. She acquired a large following among women across the world who wanted to be naturally beautiful. Her grandmother’s secret potions that lay behind her success became the stuff of legend. But who was this grandmother whose beauty secrets had captivated the entire world? This was a secret Dilnawaz was loathe to share.

There was no doubt that aristocratic women from nawabi backgrounds who had a retinue of retainers to manage household chores had no other pastime except to keep themselves youthful and attractive for their husbands who could easily be led astray by aspiring young women desirous of marrying royalty. Muslim men of that generation prided themselves on the number of wives they could maintain and were susceptible to the charms of nubile young women whose families considered it their good fortune to forge an alliance with a nawabi family. Dilnawaz’s aristocratic background lent credence to her inheriting her paternal grandmother’s secrets. But Dilnawaz never mentioned her grandmother’s name and how she came to have such extensive knowledge of herbs. When probed about details, she would change the topic or dwell on the elegance of the old nawabi traditions.

The one detail she would never divulge to anyone was the nawabi tradition of visiting courtesans, which was traditionally sanctioned since the courtesans were expected to groom the nawabs in the finer aspects of existence such as appreciation of music, dance and poetry as well etiquette. It was rumored that the senior Baig first encountered his future wife at one of these parlors. Mehjabeen’s mother Katori Jan was a tawa’if of repute whose kotha was frequented by those counted in Lucknow’s elite circles.  One of her admirers, a Raja of a small princely state, had fallen in love with her. Since the Raja was already married and marrying a tawa’if was out of question, he persuaded her to give up her profession and live in a secluded mansion that he had bought for her. He continued to live in his palace but would visit Katori Jan and request her to perform solely for him. He saw to it that she enjoyed the affluence that she was accustomed to and even offered to pay for her daughter’s education. Since the Raja’s wife remained in purdah, Katori Jan would be required to play the hostess at the musical soirees that the Raja would throw up in which the who’s who of Lucknow society would be invited. The highlight of the evening would be a performance by Katori herself who had reinvented herself as Katori Begum.

Katori Jan had made up her mind that her daughter would not be a part of the life she had left behind and sent away Mehjabeen first to a boarding school in Nainital and subsequently to a finishing school in Switzerland with the Raja’s support. Generous donations to the boarding school ensured that Mehjabeen’s family background was concealed from fellow students. Every summer Mehjabeen would return to Lucknow where Katori Jan kept her protected her in a well-furnished room in the haveli and encouraged her to socialize with her friends outside the house. When Mehjabeen turned eighteen, Katori Jan shortlisted eligible young men who she could possibly be introduced to at the Sham-e-Awadh (An Awadh Evening) the Raja had planned to hold. Ataullah, newly returned from UK and burning in the fire of reforming tawa’ifs, was one such young man who completely fell under Mehjabeen’s charms. In UK, Attaullah was expected to mix with women in his law school and social circles but he had never spoken to any woman outside the family in India. Mehjabeen, who had bloomed into a ravishing beauty, combined the poise, elegance, and intelligence of the women Attaullah had met during his student days with the nazakat only Muslim women from certain families are seen to possess. Attaullah, with his newfangled western ideas about female emancipation, was understandably quite smitten by Mehjabeen who combined the best of the east and the west. His parents would have liked him to marry a lady from one of the old elite families of Lucknow. He had known most of them since his childhood and there was none he could think of his future wife.

Mehjabeen had always dreamt that an educated young man from an old nawabi family would propose to her. But she was old enough to understand that old nawabi families do not marry into those of courtesans. When she caught Attaullah stealing glances at her throughout the evening before finally mustering the courage to approach her, she did not want to raise her hopes. Katori Begum kept a watch over the two through the corners of her eyes. She would dearly have liked Mehjabeen to get married to a personable young man like Ataullah. But she was aware of the strict Lucknow codes that prevented such relationships from developing into formal marriages. Ataullah lost no time and led Mehjabeen to a quiet corner so that he could propose to her. Getting her to accept his proposal of marriage was a cake walk but persuading his parents to agree to the match was a nightmare. Ataullah’s parents could not fathom why their only son should turn down more suitable matches for marrying a woman from a family of ill repute. But Ataullah would not budge. Besides, his father who had political ambitions had given his support to the rehabilitation of former courtesans through getting them married or encouraging them to take up respectable forms of employment. The old nawab could set an example to his party members by taking the first step, the son suggested. Besides, Katori Jan had abandoned her profession decades ago and Mehjabeen had been carefully kept away. The nawab was worried about his reputation. A compromise was found with the Raja agreeing to officiate at Mehjabeen’s nikah so that they could save their face. This is how Mehjabeen, an extremely beautiful, accomplished and educated young lady, got to marry a young barrister from an aristocratic background. Other than the family, none was aware of her background.

Her entry into the family was not expected to be smooth, particularly by the womenfolk, who never failed to remind her of her embarrassing origins. Mehjabeen took great care to ensure that she jettisoned every bit of her past, including her love for poetry, singing and dancing that she had inherited from her mother. Her favorite pair of ghungroos was left behind in her mother’s house along with her sitar and tanpura. She observed the habits and mannerisms of the ladies of the house and emulated them in every respect to get accepted. She wore muted shades favored by begums, antique jewelry and covered herself from head to toe following the decorum in aristocratic Muslim households. She never raised her eyes or her voice in front of elders and never spoke to the males in the family directly. But there was one aspect of her past that she found it difficult to let go because it had become second nature to her. This was the beauty regime that Katori Begum had instilled in her from her early childhood. She continued to follow her mother’s recipes and routine in caring for her skin, hair, and lips. Since she used to help her mother grind and mix the ingredients, she knew the exact composition of each beauty product by heart. She would get the khansama to bring her the ingredients from the bazaar and prepare them herself in her room.

Dilnawaz’s earliest memories were of her grandmother’s smooth, glowing skin and lustrous hair and of the magic potions she mixed in her bedroom when everyone was away. She watched her grandmother fascinated and begged her to allow her to crush the herbs in the small marble stone. Her grandmother would lovingly instruct the 10-year-old on how to prepare the special oil mixed with unpronounceable herbs that would keep her tresses long, thick, and lustrous. She would guide her into the miraculous powers of simple home products like milk, cream, honey, and turmeric in acquiring a supple skin and flawless complexion. One day when her grandmother was taking her afternoon nap, Dilnawaz opened her chest of drawers and came upon an album with sepia tinted pictures. They were all photographs of her grandmother. She was either striking a dance pose or playing an instrument. Her outfits were straight out of a period film. She wore pieces of jewelry that she had never seen before. Hidden behind one of the photographs was that of an old lady who bore an uncanny resemblance to Dilnawaz’s grandmother. She was past her prime but was resplendent in Banarasi silk sari and heavy jewelry. Her eyes were heavily lined with kohl and her lips were darkened with betel. She seemed to be holding court in a large hall of sorts and had an arrogant, mysterious smile. Who was this lady who seemed to have stepped out of movies about dancing girls? Dilnawaz was on the verge of waking up her grandmother but thought better of it and put away with the album tucking in the hidden photograph behind another. Dilnawaz instinctively knew that this was a secret never to be told even to her parents. Married in her early teens, Dilnawaz did not deem it fit that she should share it with her husband.

But secrets have a way of tumbling out of family closets when they are least expected to. In Dilnawaz’s case, it was her rivals, multinational cosmetic corporations who had a vested interest in setting the media to probe her past. The media was only too happy to dig into the globally renowned beautician’s antecedents and flew down one of their intrepid young reporters to find a story. Nazneen was personally chosen by the bureau chief because she hailed from a family in Lucknow who mixed in social circles similar to those of Dilnawaz. Nazneen was only too happy to get a paid holiday to spend time with family and friends. Although she had gone to the same school as Dilnawaz’s young grandniece, she had never been invited to her house even on occasions like birthdays. But they often bumped into one another at an Eid function hosted by one of the wealthy families. Nazneen’s visit coincided with the annual party. Normally reluctant to linger longer with the elders than the mandatory adaab, she hung on to every word said by the women, particularly the older women, who were the source of all gossip. She sat down with her own grandmother and her close friends who, she noticed, carefully distanced themselves from the group of sophisticated ladies in which Dilnawaz’s mother Mehjabeen was holding court. Nazneen caught snatches of conversation, “Who does she think she is? Putting on such airs. We all know where she has come from,” one of the matriarchs pronounced with her nose up in the air. “But you have to grant that Katori Jan’s daughter has inherited her mother’s mesmerizing good looks. It is said that Katori was known as angel face in her heyday,” another conceded with an arched smile. “And who gave her that title, may I ask?”, anther inquired with a sardonic smile. ‘’Shh, be careful about what you say. There are children around,” Nazneen heard her own grandmother imploring them to keep their voices down. But Nazneen could now smell a story and she was not going to let go of them so easily. “Who was called angel face and by whom, dadijan?” she turned to her grandmother with a smile that usually melted her heart. With a stern warning, “Child, you should not be listening to gossip. Please go and join your friends”, Nazneen’s grandmother shooed her away.

But Nazneen had found a lead and she was not going to give up that easily. The following day, she decided to call in on her grandmother’s friend using the shawl she had forgotten behind as an excuse. At her best behavior, Nazneen made her way to her grandmother’s friend’s bedroom and sweetly told her how she enjoyed listening to her the previous night. “But who was angel face?”, she innocently popped the question. It appeared to have jolted the old matriarch’s memory. “Your Dilnawaz’s grandmother, my dear. She was a raging beauty in her heyday with countless admirers. One of them bestowed the title on her,” she drew Nazneen closer and whispered softly. “She enjoyed their attention but then settled down with the richest, the Raja Sahib. Became Katori Begum if you please,” she sniggered. At that point, the family retainer entered with glasses of sherbet and the choicest snacks and politely informed Nazneen that it was grandmother’s time to nap and that the driver was waiting to take her back home as soon as she had her fill of refreshments. Nazneen had had her fill of gossip. She gulped down the Rooh Afza and raced down the staircase into her car. “To the Amanullah Library in Amina bad. Jaldi!” she snapped her fingers at the driver. In the Amanullah library that housed rare books and records, she found exactly what she was looking for. She poured over the records in the dark chambers of the library and saw the name classified file titled “Katori Jan”. Katori Jan had led a march against the abolition of Nautch in 1928 and came under the scanner of the Hindu brahmin reformers and Christian missionaries, who were hell bent on eradicating the courtesan culture. Nazneen smiled to herself. This story would surely get her out of the desk job!