We had two colour prints on the walls of our deorhi which was both the entrance to our home and waiting-room for male visitors. One above the wooden platform on which my father sat reclining on a bolster was of Queen Victoria. On the wall facing the Queen was Guru Nanak. Every morning after my mother had said her morning prayers, while churning the earthen pitcher of buttermilk, she would light two joss-sticks and stick one each in the frames of the pictures and make obeisances to them: first to the Guru, then to the Empress. And every evening, after he had recited his evening prayer and the invocation, my father would stand in front of the Queen with the palms of his hands joined together and say loudly: ‘Lord, bless our Malika! Long may she rule over us! And bless us, her subjects! May we forever remain loyal and contented!’

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, we had a non-stop reading of the Holy Granth lasting two days and nights and prayed that her soul find a resting place beside the lotus feet of our Guru. When her son, Edward, was crowned king we sent plates of sweets to families with whom we maintained bhai chaara (fraternal relationship). Nine years later when Emperor Edward died, we again had a non-stop reading of the Granth. And a few days later when George V was proclaimed Emperor of Hindustan we celebrated the occasion by sending our sweets. Our family was as devoted to the Gurus as it was faithful to our English rulers whose salt it ate.

When the ship bearing King George and Queen Mary docked in Bombay on 2 December 1911 my father and I reached Delhi by train. He wanted to have the darshan of our rulers and explore possibilities of getting building contracts. He had been in the building business for some years. He had bored tunnels and laid the railtrack between Kalka and the summer capital, Simla, but was lately of the opinion that there was more money in building houses than in drilling holes in mountains. He forced me to give up studies before I could take the final school-leaving examination. ‘Education is for making money,’ he said. ‘For making money all you need to know is how to add, subtract, multiply, calculate simple and compound interest. You have learnt all that. The rest is aaltoo faltoo (dispensable rubbish).’ When I protested that I wanted to learn how to speak English like Englishmen, he lost his temper and called me a bharooah (pimp) which was his favourite term of abuse. When he realized he had hurt my feelings, he added very gently that English gentlemen did not like Indians who spoke English like them and much preferred Indians who spoke tutti-phutti (broken) English.