“He seemed to be stuck with a situation that he did not know how to handle.”

“He writes with a candour that is sometimes unbelievable, even to a reader forty years removed from the event.” says Mahmood Farooqi in his excellently comprehensive foreword to the book he translated from Urdu into English. Habib Tanvir’s Memoirs came out last May and caused something of a stir. Critics applauded his prodigious memory and the sheer energy and verve reflected in his writing. Just one, Deepa Gahlot, noted the disrespect assigned to women outside of the family and the gossipy references to love affairs embarked upon by Habib and his friends in those early days. I would like to return to this particular commentary later.

An extraordinarily colourful band of individuals pass through his life from early childhood onwards; there is much mention of music, singing and poetry, and it is excitingly obvious that the mood and framework of Agra Bazar, Habib’s first really successful production, were well established in those vividly recorded early days. Insights abound into both the creative intelligence and the character traits that made up the man.

It is not my intention here to add another critique, rather more to put things right where my own relationship with Habib is described.

It is important to explain that the book does not read like a consciously crafted memoir. It is put together as a series of vignettes describing memorable individuals and events, interlaced with thoughts on the progress of theatre and recollections of love affairs, all without chronological order. As such, some of the accounts tend to be incomplete and at least one, even though short, is decidedly inaccurate.

The account that I have in mind concerns myself and begins on page 302 with the statement (for which no one is prepared, least of all myself!) as follows: “There was Moneeka on one side and there was Jill on the other, who was going to come to India with my child in her womb.” Since I had not seen Habib for two years, during which time we had corresponded frequently—he left England when I was nineteen and I got to India finally when I was twenty-one—this is very bizarre news indeed. Moneeka, being at the time “hopelessly in love” with Habib certainly didn’t help to clarify matters, and many dramatic scenes were to follow, but not as described in the Memoirs. At this point I very much welcome the opportunity to write something of my own story, which seems to have been shrouded in rumour and misapprehension for more than half a century.

To begin at the beginning, Habib and I met when I was sixteen and he thirty-two in September 1955. We were staying at the same Guest House in Edinburgh where my sister Carley was lodging. She had invited me to join her at the time of the Edinburgh Festival, and I travelled up in great excitement. My sister had mentioned in her letter that there was a most interesting Indian person staying there that she thought I’d like to meet, as she knew I had long been fascinated by his country. And so I did, and I was not disappointed. There was an instant rapport between us, and having met at breakfast time on my third day (I missed him on the first two days as he got up so late), we were still talking earnestly until lunchtime—an intensity that continued for the rest of the week. It was entrancing for me. I was sixteen and this was the first person I was to fall in love with, and what an extraordinary person he was! Looking back from the safe haven of nearly 60 years, I can see that almost instantly I loved Habib with the kind of sincerity and strength that possesses the young and starry-eyed, who are prepared to go through hell and high water in search of the pure and the beautiful. What’s more, he loved poetry and singing, just as I did.

We hardly left each other’s side that week, which must have been very annoying for my sister, and arranged to meet in Stratford shortly afterwards. We managed to see many performances together, including Joan Littlewood’s Oh! What a Lovely War. I was a little nervous at the thought that Habib knew so much more about theatre than I did, but he was humble regarding his expertise and always listened respectfully to any comments I had to offer.

By this time he had changed from RADA to the Old Vic, and then on to do a course in London. I was at that time attending a totally inappropriate “finishing school,” whose vain attempt was to turn me out as a competent housewife ready for the marriage market—it became known to us both as “that wretched place”—but at least it was close to London, making escape possible.

After about a year, Habib’s much dreamed of trip to explore theatre all over Europe was taking shape, to my dismay, as it meant he’d be away for a long time. He set off on 26 June 1956 with a first stop in Paris, promising to write to let me have his itinerary. When I think of it, it was an extraordinarily brave move, having no idea of how long his meagre funds would last and how he could survive. Meanwhile, I had started my singing training in the wonderful environment of Dartington Hall, in Devon, which in itself had many connections with India through the auspices of Tagore, who loved the place.

There followed more than two years of Habib being away, sending letters from various countries; all sorts of news arrived, contained in wonderful looking envelopes decorated with ever more exotic stamps; sometimes telling of great hardship and misery, but more often buoyant and full of excitement at his adventures in foreign parts, and the fact that despite all, he was surviving.

His return was quite breathtaking. He had written that he had lost a lot of weight and might be difficult to recognise, but would be “grinning like a Cheshire cat” when he finally made it. And so he was, though a very thin one. I took some days off from my singing studies and we spent a very happy spell on the farm where I grew up and where my parents welcomed him warmly. This was something of a miracle as my father, an Australian, rarely welcomed strangers, and in fact, could express some alarmingly racist views. We went on to Bristol, which Habib knew well, and after a lengthy search, found a small guest house with an amiable landlady (who wasn’t racist, which was unusual in those days), where we could at last be together. I could not get more days off from my studies and returned to Dartington in a state of blissful dreaminess, but also aware that Habib was about to return to India and that difficult times were ahead.

Many heart-rending letters subsequently arrived from Delhi describing the huge difficulties he endured trying to adapt, looking for work, having no money and missing the love we had shared. They are very touching to read even today.

I made up my mind to join him but was thwarted each time, mostly by a lack of funds and my parents’ lack of approval, which meant I had no support. Finally, my Granny, a deeply loved and respected person to whom I was very close, handed me the fare saying, “You need to sort this love affair out, otherwise it will never leave you in peace.” I was by then aged twenty-one.

That saying, the situation in which I found myself on my first visit to India, was indeed chaotic. Habib had written to me shortly before leaving, that he had started to live with a girl who he liked but did not love, nevertheless adding that he was “breathlessly” awaiting my visit, and was “all eyes” for me—this letter posted from Raipur, written from his parents’ house, on 28 May 1960. He sounded exhausted and muddled and seemed to be stuck with a situation that he did not know how to handle. This news had come as a bolt from the blue, too late for me to change my plans and I did not know what to expect. However, he joined me eagerly once I was installed in the little house of the writer Balwant Gargi on Curzon Road, whom I’d met earlier in London, and seemed thrilled that I had come to India at last. It was many days and nights before Moneeka, the girl mentioned, exerted herself to come after him. She arrived at the dead of night, putting her finger on the door bell and not removing it for what seemed an age. Much drama ensued outside in the courtyard, but she did not enter the house. Balwant joined in, trying to calm things down, to no avail. The next day when Habib had gone to a rehearsal, she visited Balwant’s house in a dreadful state of upset, on the off chance of finding me there. She brought my attention to her handbag which was stuffed with sleeping pills, saying she would take the lot if she lost Habib. It was an unnerving encounter to say the least, and one that caused me to wonder how much longer I could bear to be where I was.

And so, about five months after I began to stay at Balwant’s house, I took myself off to Chandigarh as a diversion to stay with Tarachand Gupta and his family. There I suffered a very early miscarriage, brought about by the bumpiness of the six hour bus journey or the intense turmoil of the household. Perhaps both. There was no “delivery” as described in the Memoirs.

My leaving of India was without doubt the saddest event of my life so far. I told Habib I did not want to see him any more, nor was he to write, all the time feeling such a sense of loss, a great emptiness where all hope had been extinguished. Habib refers to my departure to the airport as being unforgettable. I too remember it as a haunting and utterly miserable experience.

And so I returned to London, shared a flat with some wonderfully supportive Jewish girls, carried on with my singing, cried a lot, but gradually cheered up and earned money typing other people’s manuscripts. After two years I was going along quite smoothly when, on coming back one afternoon from my job, I found a pale blue airmail letter waiting for me on the doormat with the oh-so-familiar handwriting on its front. I got such a shock seeing it I remember that I dropped it, and it fluttered to the floor like a leaf falling from a tree. It was of course, from Habib. It informed me that he badly needed a break from India, was arriving in London on his way to America, and please would I go to Heathrow to meet the plane. I was nonplussed. It was as if nothing significant had happened between us.

“Tell him to go to hell,” advised my flatmates, but after some discussion their curiosity got the better of them, as did mine, and this forthright rejection slowly transmuted into, “Perhaps you’d better meet him or you’ll never know what’s happened to him or what you feel about him.”

And so this is what I did, with far-reaching consequences.

Habib left for America after a couple of weeks of staying with me, giving me full instructions as to where we should meet, if I could join him. It was not Dallas, but New York, where I had a friend with whom I could stay until he reached there. Far from sticking to him “like a shadow,” I had a job keeping up with him as he travelled by plane and I by bus. I did manage to coincide with him to attend some talks in the south, and we stayed briefly in New Orleans and found it magical. The Memoirs read very strangely at this point with the bald statement, “Jill wanted a child,” as if I were there in America expressly for that purpose. This is not so. I was there to be with him, who by this time I had known for nine years, and who I had hoped to marry. And god knows we had missed each enough during those many long separations.

After six weeks I had to leave for London from New York because of a singing engagement, and before flying off I went shopping to buy a present for Habib, hoping I would find something really exotic and special. I spied a green cloth snake in a shop window, all curled up and glittering, and this is the poem I received very shortly after getting back to England. I don’t know whether any other copies of it exist, but this is certainly the original, referred to in the Memoirs on page 308.

The Green Snake 25th May 1963

Had slept but then again suddenly awakes the brain

I see again neither you nor any other by my side

But the pillow of sorrow wet with the tears of a lonely night

A rock of pain on the heart not to be lifted

One blackness entombing every movement of the eyes

Every cry of the lone heart, every crease of the lonely bed

And somewhere in the night’s blackness blazing

The green eyes of a pretty snake made of cloth

Brought me casually from a shop

The letter that accompanied this poem is moving and most affectionate, and I have good reason to treasure all of Habib’s letters that I received between 1955 and 1964. As letters so often do, they reveal more of the man he was, with greater delicacy, warmth and conviction than anything I have come across in the Memoirs, where, concerning at least myself, neither the mood of weary resignation nor the facts that are presented reflect the reality.

At this point I should like to return to the critic Deepa Gahlot, who has had the courage to question levels of respect and decency where Habib writes about women with whom he has been involved. I read the intimate details of events concerning Dina Pathak in particular, with a good deal of shock and embarrassment on her behalf. Dina is no longer alive to defend her reputation. I cannot imagine that Habib would have wanted to publish these matters if she were, but given that she is not, there is still her family to consider.

After his sojourn in America, he returned to England and stayed with me for several months, and it was a very happy time of domesticity and harmony, to which he also alludes in letters. At this point in our relationship, our daughter Anna was conceived, an event that caused a good deal of anxiety to both my family and myself but, once accepted, came to be greatly welcomed. It was at the time of her birth that Habib gave up even trying get his complicated personal life together, and as a result, I did not hear from him for two years; a shattering experience—total silence after total involvement. Simply not knowing what had happened to him and having no way of finding out was hard indeed. I was lucky to be so occupied with a baby that was beautiful, healthy and cheerful, but understandably, I never again felt the extraordinary closeness to her father that had endured so robustly, against so many odds, in earlier times. Even so, we met throughout the years that followed with fondness and a wish that things had not been so difficult. From time to time Habib made real efforts to repair the various hurts and confusions he had contributed to, but without lasting success. In later years he was awash with guilt concerning the people he had let down, which he both wrote about and spoke about, but never managed to resolve.

To move on to more cheerful matters, one such effort was to bring Nageen, the daughter he had with Moneeka, over to France to introduce her to his three grandsons and to get to know Anna better—they are both excellent singers incidentally—just two years before he died. On this occasion Mukti (his oldest grandson) and I went over to London’s Heathrow to meet them off the plane from India. I noted down Mukti’s recollections and his comments, as follows:

My first memory of my Indian grandfather, Habib, was when he came to stay in my other grandparents’ house in Gloucestershire. I must have been about three years old. That was in l995. There’s a photo of me meeting him for the first time in the garden, with mama and Kim. Kim was very small, just a few months old, and you can see he’s attached to mama’s front in a sling with his legs hanging down. I hadn’t a clue who Habib was, but I can see him still, in my mind’s eye, sitting on the stairs smoking his pipe. The small room in the corner where he stayed smelt of pipe smoke for ages after he left and is still known as “Habib’s room.” I call it that too. For me, the whole pipe-smoking thing, which you don’t see often these days, made him into a mysterious, mystical figure: the man stuck to a pipe.

Later on he did appear in our house in France from time to time, but apart from mum and gran talking about him, which gave me the idea he must be important, I didn’t know exactly where he fitted in. He didn’t stay in my mind as a person like the grandparents I was used to. He was more of a presence, a figure. Then, in 2007, we met him at Heathrow with Nageen, his daughter and my mum’s half-sister, on the way to France for his last but one stay. And I thought to myself, “He does have an amazing gravitas, doesn’t he? Maybe it was in his way of speaking.” He had an incredible voice. He came out of the plane, and the first thing he complained about, having not seen me for some years, was the fact that he’d had to spend nine or ten hours travelling without being able to smoke. He was in a wheelchair, but nevertheless looked stylish, wearing his black beret like a Frenchman. I wheeled him into a little room set aside for smokers, and after a bit he came out looking a lot happier.

He was just very calm and spoke very slowly, which meant that everything had an importance; it was a commanding manner. Whilst Nageen and my gran were trying to sort the luggage out, I pushed him in the wheelchair around the airport very fast for fun. He enjoyed that.

Later on, whilst he was staying with us in France, he gave a talk at the University in Tours about globalisation. It was very vague, I must say, but he looked the part absolutely, and maintained the commanding presence. At that point, I couldn’t tell how seriously he took himself—which was the real person and which was the persona? Perhaps when you get famous you don’t know yourself!

That is a thought that I will hang onto in my life, just in case.

To tell the truth, I never felt I really knew Habib, but reading through those early letters with my gran just after he died, has brought me a lot closer. I know I want to act and to travel everywhere. I don’t want to be pinned down, and those characteristics could well be from him. It will be interesting to see how much my brothers have inherited. I have read somewhere that the influence of grandparents can be stronger even than that of parents. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

***

What a different story these memories tell from the few paragraphs to be found in Habib’s published Memoirs. Each of us chooses the story we tell of our own lives and the memories that form the landmarks along the line of our own personal narrative. Guilt has a habit of filtering out thoughts that interrupt or distort, and could well explain the confusion and inaccuracies contained in those stark few lines.