The American connection

August 05, 2015 04:11 pm | Updated March 29, 2016 01:22 pm IST - chennai:

A painting at the exhibit

A painting at the exhibit

In the late 18th Century, Nusserwanjee Maneckjee Wadia, a specialist in American markets, was hired by Massachusetts-based George Nichols, to handle the Indian arm of his business. The two became friends. They would exchange gifts of fine Kashmir shawls and books on navigation. When Nichols found a bride, Wadia sent across superfine muslin cloth for her wedding gown. An oil-on-cloth portrait of this leading agent of Indo-American trade now hangs in the Peabody Museum, Salem, U.S.

Stories like these were brought to the city through a series of rare images — and accompanying text — in Kindred Nations, an exhibition at DakshinaChitra, organised by Meridian International Centre with support from the U.S. State Department. Together, the photographs, paintings, news reports and portraits, sourced from collections across the U.S., mark snapshots of Indo-American history from 1793 to 1947.

There was a lot to be learned at the exhibit: soon after American independence, merchant mariners set sail from the eastern seaboard looking for commerce with India. Some of them, like Benjamin Carpenter, left detailed notes and drawings for those who followed. As American economy expanded, trade with India shrank somewhat, but never stopped. Interestingly, the East India Company imported ice from America between 1830 and 1860, as depicted in Patrick Hunt’s oil-on-canvas Cutting Ice . Frozen blocks of “ingeniously insulated” water came in ships and ice houses built in Madras, Calcutta and Bombay stored them for VIP use. American traders like John Atkinson relocated to Calcutta to keep an eye on trade.

In the 1880s, Lockwood de Forest contacted Muggenbhai Hatheesing to make furniture and decorative articles in Ahmedabad for homes in the U.S. At the 1893 Chicago World Exposition, visitors were treated to the splendour of Indian products along with a cup of Indian tea served by turbaned waiters. The end of the 19th Century saw a wave of migration to the U.S. — for trade, higher education and business — that led to a thriving Indian population finding a place for its heritage within the American culture.

The oldest exhibit (1797) was a news-clipping that announces the arrival of the first live elephant in America from India. People were invited to view the four-year-old for only a quarter dollar. A close look at the 1860 photograph of Atkinson’s impressive mansion in Calcutta, revealed him and his guests on the balcony. An 1897 picture showed the Singer manufacturing company offices in Bombay, another took you inside the India Building at the Chicago Exposition. The Lockheed (1885) New York showroom is crowded with Indian carved wood furniture.

There was also a shot of Anandibai Joshee, the first Indian woman to earn a medical degree in the U.S.; she returned in 1886, and took charge of the female ward of Albert Edward Hospital, Kolhapur. An 1894 plate showed Swami Vivekananda sitting amongst American admirers on the grounds of Green Acre School. In an extremely rare photograph dating1900, skirt-and-blouse-clad girl students of Lucknow Women’s College play basketball. The text explained that Isabella Thoburn came to India in 1869, founded a girls’ school and a college (in 1886) which later got named after her.

Early Indo-American history appeared through pictures of Sikh immigrants arriving in Seattle on the S.S. Minnesota , Sikh agri-workers in California in 1915, a banquet in honour of Lajpat Rai in Berkeley, Jiddu Krishnamurthi lecturing in Ojai, California (1930s), Mohan Singh in an aviation school, Helen Keller’s meeting with Tagore in New York (1921), Saba Dastigar shooting for Jungle Book in Hollywood (1942), Bardu Ali and Elle Fitzgerald in Chick Webb’s band, and the raising of the tricolour at Lake Success, New York in 1947.

On the Indian side, there were images of Charlotte Wiser — who, with her husband, spent 60 years in India teaching, conducting rural surveys, collecting folk songs and stories — demonstrating childcare techniques in Allahabad (1919), Samuel Stokes teaching kids in 1930, Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt-III in Kashmir, actor Merle Oberon shooting in West Bengal, Esther Sherman (Ragini Devi) and Guru Gopinath in a classical dance pose snapped in Bombay (1933), U.S. soldiers removing their shoes before entering a Jain temple, Henry Armstrong in an impromptu boxing bout with kids in Calcutta, President Herbert Hoover with Gandhi in Delhi (1946), and American sympathisers picketing the British Embassy in Washington D.C. with placards.

A collector’s delight was a photograph of Vivekananda shot at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago and signed by him. In that one Madras picture, Ellis Dungan stood smiling on the sets of Meera with M.S. Subbulakshmi in royal finery standing next to him.

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