Beau Pere - His Story through Pictures

This month would have been my father-in-law's hundredth birthday! I first met him in December 1980, a tall and happy gentleman, and I was getting engaged to his son!  He had a presence that could not be missed!  He was born the eldest son of Ebenezer & Salome Ahmad Shah way back in 1918, August 22 in Lucknow.  The World War I was still being battled out in Europe, India was part of the British empire ruled by George V and the Viceroy was Lord Chelmsford.  Diler's father Prof. E. Ahmad Shah was a professor of Philosophy & Education at Lucknow University and was a visiting professor at American and British universities and his mother Salome was a teacher.

Ahmad Shah and his wife Sophie
 with sons Ebenezer and
his younger brother

But the story starts with Ahmad Shah born in 1840 when Kashmir was being ruled by the Sikh empire started by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1819.  Ahmad Shah grew up in Sidor, a Shia hamlet in the foothills of Banihal mountains in Kashmir.  His father Rahmat Shah was the Pir of Sidor and Ahmad Shah was training under him as his family calling.  Ahmad Shah was given the New Testament in Persian by two military officers of the British army.  He became convinced of the Christian way of life but had to run away from his home and family.  He came to Jagraon near Ludhiana.  His first wife died and he married one Sophie Hira Singh much younger to him and the daughter of a Sikh convert to Christianity, Hira Singh.  Ahmad Shah and Sophie had eleven children, first three daughters and then Ebenezer and his younger sister and six brothers.  Ahmad Shah built his home in Jagraon and died in 1926 while he was there.

Ahmad Shah's house in Jagraon

Jagraon was then part of the British crown in Punjab and though it had faced the awful famine of 1860, the British immediately started agricultural reforms and the canalization of Punjab which led to Punjab becoming the bread basket of India and Jagraon the third largest granary in the Punjab.

Ebenezer schooled in the Ewing Christian Senior Secondary School in Ludhiana, where for a short time Sadhu Sundar Singh also studied and they became good friends.  He took his intermediate at Forman Christian College in Lahore and then graduated with Philosophy at the Government College because the famous poet Iqbal Ahmed taught there.  He shifted to Lucknow to join the Canning College as Asst. Prof. of Philosophy.  

Miss Andrews

Meanwhile around 1894, Salome was born in Ludhiana and her parents were killed because they had become Christians.  So a domestic person brought the baby to the Mission House where Miss Andrews was working as a missionary.  She took Salome with her to England where Salome grew for the next few years.  She was brought back to India and put into a boarding school in Murree, now in Pakistan.  After school she did her college in Lalbagh, Lucknow and then taught at various schools, and in between completed her teachers' training course in Lahore.

Salome as a child

Salome as a young lady

In 1915 she took up the headmistress-ship of the Methodist Girls' Boarding School in Jabalpur and during this period met  with Ebenezer Ahmad Shah who was teaching at the Canning College in Lucknow.  They got married at Lahore in the Naulakha Church on March 2, 1917 and Ebenezer's father Rev. Ahmad Shah and his friend Dr. Wherry officiated the wedding.  Miss Andrews gave the reception. Now the solitary Salome had acquired a huge family of four sisters and six brothers along with her parents' in law who loved her.  Her father in law sang a Zabur Psalm 108 in Punjabi ("Mazbut mera dil hai")! They went for their honeymoon to Ebenezer's native village of Sidor, Kashmir.

The Wedding of Ebenezer & Salome

Ebenezer and Salome had five children of whom Diler was the eldest.  Born in Lucknow while Diler's father was the professor at Canning College. Ebenezer went on to St. Catherine's at Oxford University for higher studies, taking his wife and baby Diler with him.

3 Generations of Shahs

Diler and his three younger siblings

Salome and Baby Diler in Oxford

Ebenezer returned to India and rejoined Canning College.  Shortly afterwards, it was changed to Lucknow University and he was one of the founding professors there.  Ahmad Shah had died in 1926 and by 1927, Ebenezer was nominated by the government to the Legislative Council of the United Provinces and was at that time the Reader of the Philosophy Department at the Lucknow University.  As member of the Legislative Council he attended the Jerusalem Conference and during his absence, Salome was nominated to be a member of the Legislative Council in place of her husband.  Ebenezer and Salome had five children who were, Diler, Zafar, Marvarid, Imberzil and Said:

Zafar

Marvarid

Imberzil

Said

Family holiday in 1942 Mussoorie

Of the five children, Imberzil died as a child of a ruptured appendix. At that time (1935) there was no penicillin; and Marvarid passed away during the floods of 1936 from an undiagnosed sickness. Both went within 11 months of each other.  Zafar died much later in 1962 just before the Republic Day celebrations when the plane he was flying crashed. Ebenezer had gone on to teach at universities in the US and UK and built his Lucknow home on Faizabad Road in 1935.  Ebenezer wrote many theology books which are used in seminaries, and one of them is apt,  called "Jesus is Coming Soon".

Diler grew up in Lucknow and did his schooling for a short while at Woodstock, Mussoorie and later at St. Francis School in Lucknow and graduated from Canning College, Lucknow University.

Diler joined college when World War 2 started and also was a sergeant in the University Training Corps.  Like his father, he was proficient in tennis and cricket and his love of sports carried into his career where, through his offices, the company he worked in sponsored many a sports events in India during its early days after its independence from the British crown.  After his graduation, he joined the Tobacco Manufacturer (I) Ltd. company in Saharanpur in their accounts department.  In 1946, he joined VST Co. Ltd. in Hyderabad, arriving there in the heat of summer in 1946.  This was the tail end of the princely state of Hyderabad Deccan, now divided into Telengana and parts of Andhra Pradesh, but the vast area also included parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra.  The last Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan, seventh of the Asaf Jahis, was the hereditary ruler and after partition had to sign the instrument of accession joining the new nation of India in 1948, though after the quelling down of the Razakar rebellion.  It was in this atmosphere of the fading glory of the Nizam, who in the 1930s had been the richest man in the world, that Diler arrived in Hyderabad.   Hyderabad was a lovely laid back place at that time.  Diler married Ruth Shukla in 1948.

Young Ruth Shukla

The A.N. Shukla family

Ruth was born in 1923 in Moradabad to Albert Nathan Shukla and Tilda Lilavati, the third one of their five children.  She grew up in Lucknow, went to Lalbagh Girls High School and graduated from Isabella Thoburne College, did a home science course in Lady Irwin College in Delhi, and met with Diler at a holiday in Mussoorie in 1947.   They got married in April 1948 when Ruth came down to Hyderabad for the first time.

Wedding picture of Ruth & Diler

 

Diler driving his motorbike to work in 1947

 Ebenezer had retired in 1948 and he and Salome were staying in Lucknow at their home and so were Ruth's parents.  Diler's parents shifted with him in 1976 to Hyderabad.  Ebenezer died in 1982 and Salome in 1988.  Diler and Ruth had three children: Nargis (1949), Feroz (1952) and Yasmeen (1954), all of whom were born in Hyderabad.  In those early days of Hyderabad in independent India, Diler would drive his 

motorbike to office!

Diler was rising in his accountant's job and he became the chief accountant of VST in 1955, then the Company Secretary and Finance Director in early 1962 till his retirement in 1974.  He was a great family man and took his family to many holidays in their childhood.

3 Generations of Shahs

Whilst the Finance Director at VST, Diler sponsored many sporting events as well as humanitarian work.  Football, cricket, horseracing, and especially the VST Colts cricket team and the Moinuddaulah Trophy, Diler was involved in all of these.

Diler with the cricket team at Fateh Maidan

With the football team

Diler & Ruth with the horseracing team

Diler with VST Colts and MAK Pataudi

With the AP Governor at HPS in 1964

Humanitarian aid in 1965 with Mrs. Indira Gandhi

Diler built his house in Banjara Hills in 1974 and shifted there on his retirement.  Banjara Hills was bought by Mehdi Nawaz Jung, a minister in the Nizam's court in 1927, a heavily forested hilly and rocky area towards the west of Hyderabad.  Most of the residents here were the nawabs living in their mansions and huge residences.  The roads were numbered from 1-14 and Diler chose to build his home on Road No. 2 calling his residence 'Dilruba', taking the first few letters of Diler, Ruth and the Babas!  It means, 'a beloved object' and so it was for Diler.

By the time he retired, Diler had been much involved in the YMCA being the local president of Hyderabad from1968-81 and the Vice President of the National Council, YMCA of India and the Chairman of the YMCA Boys' Home 1977-91.

He got his children married. Just before his retirement his eldest daughter Nargis married Jaya Abraham of Bangalore in 1972 and they have two daughters Anjali & Tarunika.

Mid 1970s Christmas Picture of Anjali & Tarunika

1972 Wedding Picture of Nargis & Jaya

Feroz got married to Damini of Chandigarh a good nine years later and they have one daughter, Nafisa.  Ebenezer and Salome came to Chandigarh for Feroz & Damini's wedding and Ebenezer preached the wedding sermon.  He died the following year.

Ebenezer preaching at the 1981 wedding of Feroz & Damini

1981 Wedding Picture of Feroz & Damini

The Shahs at the wedding of Feroz & Damini

Nafisa with her Dadi, Ruth

Diler's youngest daughter Yasmeen got married to Arun Matthan of Bangalore in 1983 and they have two daughters, Ayesha and Tanya.

1983 Wedding Picture of Yasmeen & Arun

1997 Birthday Picture of Diler with Ayesha and Tanya

By now Diler was involved with the Water Development Society and when N.T. Ramarao became the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, he met with Diler for the preservation of water in the state.

Diler meeting Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in 1983 for Water Development Society

There were many institutions that Diler was involved in, fulfilling his philanthropic side, he was chairman of the Society for the Uplift of the Underprivileged in 1978-86, way before the Dalits as the underprivileged are known now, were recognized by the government!  Being an avid movie goer and possessing a 16mm movie camera from the 1940s onwards, he took many shots of Hyderabad and of his family holidays.  He also was President of the Film Club from 1985 to 1997 and would go faithfully to the screenings by this Club at Sarathi Studios in Ameerpet and some at Regional Research Laboratories or RRL (the forerunner of CCMB) in the Habshiguda crossroads towards Uppal.  Ruth would be in a quandary much of the time because when he got late to return home, these screenings being in the evening, it would invariably be because Diler had run out of petrol in the ambassador car and was trudging to the nearest petrol bunk with his cannister!  For his retirement, he had requested for a moped (a light motor cycle with an engine capacity of about 50cc) from VST and got it but it was the bane of Ruth who would worry herself into a tizzy when Diler dashed about Hyderabad on his moped!  Eventually the family had to hide the moped from him and that is how he got over his fixation of loping off on his moped!  Diler was also the President of the Hyderabad Cricket Association from 1974-77 and of Hyderabad Management Association from 1966-69; President of the Hyderabad Public School PTA in 1971-72.  For the most part of his retirement he was the Financial Advisor of the Nizamia Hyderabad Women Association Trust from 1983-97 and worked with the younger son of the Nizam, Muffakham Jah.

Princess Esin Educational Society Function

Muffakham Jah and Diler Ahmad Shah

Investiture Ceremony at Purani Haveli

Purani Haveli Function

Diler's brother Said had spent many years in the US but came each year to spend time with his mother after she was widowed.  Salome passed away in 1988 and this picture was in 1987, perhaps their last together but Said kept coming till his death in 2010.




Diler enjoyed family gatherings when he would make those silly jokes which had all laughing away!  His birthday celebrations over the years through these pictures, are a witness!

Family Gathering for Diler's 90th Birthday

90th Birthday

The fiftieth wedding anniversary of Diler and Ruth in 1998 was quite a memorable occasion.

Over the years, Christmas gatherings were also fun family times.  Ruth had not been keeping well being afflicted by Parkinson's disease and the deterioration was consistent.  Diler and Ruth went through their ups and downs, one of them was when their older daughter and family migrated to Canada in 1991.

Christmas 1988

Christmas 1990

Christmas 2000 with Shuniela Das,
Damini's mother, visiting from Chandigarh

Feroz and Damini had been in Bhopal, where Feroz worked for Airtel, the new telecom private company.  In 2000 he returned to Hyderabad to stay with and take care of his aged parents and Feroz and Damini lived on the first floor of 'Dilruba'.  Ruth passed away in 2003 after a debilitating sickness and soon after Diler visited his daughter Nargis in Vancouver, that was his last visit out of country, of the many he had taken over the years.  Diler had found the computer quite the new technology to be interested in and he would laugh and tell us that the computer pronounced his name as "Dailer"!  He also visited his younger daughter Yasmeen in Bangalore and they visited his relative, Aruna Sunderlal of the Bangalore School of Music, who was his second cousin from his grandmother Sophie Hira Singh's side!

Visiting Aruna Sunderlal in Bangalore, 2005

Prayer Group at Feroz & Damini's
place upstairs in Dilruba

Around 2004 it was discovered that Diler had prostrate cancer but he carried along as much as he could. When Nafisa returned from Oxford in 2008, he was happy to meet with her though by now Diler needed caregivers to take care of him.

Last trip of Diler outside his home to hear Damini
sing with the Festival Choristers at Taj Krishna

By 2009 Diler decided to go in for a surgery and shortly after that his health deteriorated.  In early 2010 Diler passed away in Care Hospital.  He had fought the battle well.  He was ninety one years old when he passed away.

Nafisa remembers her grandfather in these words: "Dada was a very jolly man who loved to watch movies and spend time with his children and grandchildren. Many a time I got to watch movies with him and enjoy a good laugh. Dada was also a very astute man when it came to his finances and he always tried to make sure that he was productive financially and able to provide for his children and grandchildren. Dada spent time with me from my infancy and was very fond of and proud of me and wanted me to go far in life and succeed. He came to Hyderabad and worked in a company and was eventually able to build a house for himself and his family. Dada was also someone who enjoyed good and tasty food and would ensure he had a well stocked kitchen with capable cooks and a lavish table. He was very particular about manners and showing respect for elders as once I asked him if ‘I can’ do something and he corrected me to respond  ‘may I’. Dada also loved his time in his office where there were volumes and volumes of his books and papers some of which he would share with me when I would visit him there to chat with him. I remember reading his mother’s Agatha Christie collection and pouring over the old photograph albums in which were the memories that Dada so lovingly collected through his camera lens and storing them for antiquity.  Dada wanted to visit me and find out about my time in Oxford as he was very proud of the fact that his father had studied in Oxford and that I had gone there to study and work.  These are some things that I enjoyed and remember about my Dada."

The Bible says in Proverbs 13:22 that "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children..."