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Lot Essay
The Banwells and The Khannas
My parents Arthur and Lilly Banwell arrived in India at the end of 1955 and mid-1956 respectively. India had not been part of their family history or in any way part of their cultural make-up. Their arrival in and subsequent love affair with the subcontinent was pure wonderful happenstance.
My father grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Boston. His childhood world was limited to his neighborhood with occasional trips to visit family in Nova Scotia. When World War II began, he enlisted in the Army Air Force because he claimed he didn’t like to walk. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant and flew B-24s as a navigator in the European theatre. He was shot down over Germany and spent much of his nineteenth year “as a guest of Hitler” – a phrase he used often. Liberated by Patton’s army, he went to Harvard on the G.I. Bill and studied biochemistry. He had enrolled in medical school when the physical stress of the past few years caught up with him. He took some time off to recuperate, and that’s when things got really interesting.
My mother spent her childhood in Argentina, the child of a Swedish mother and Swiss-Finnish father. Her parents divorced when she was thirteen, and she moved with her father and brother to Westchester County. When it was time to go to university, she enrolled at Radcliffe, the women’s college connected to Harvard. There she studied history and began a lifelong fascination with the Tudors. One evening, planning to go dancing with a group of friends, her date (supposedly Bobby Kennedy, but no proof of that…) cancelled at the last minute. One of the group saw a young man crossing Harvard Yard and said, “Oh, there’s Banwell. Let’s ask him. He’s up for anything.”
And, dear reader, my parents married six months after my mother graduated.
When my father was recovering from his physical collapse, my mother bought him a book about China. He was hooked! He left medical school and enrolled in Harvard’s graduate school studying Chinese and economics. Unfortunately, studying Chinese in the 1950s in the United States could be seen as unpatriotic. Senator Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee wanted my father to testify against his Harvard professors. On top of this, my mother was an immigrant – thus, suspect in the eyes of McCarthy.
Refusing to testify but realizing he had to leave the United States, my father took a job with an oil company understanding that he was to be sent to India. Ten days after I was born, he left my mother and me to begin a new role with Caltex in what was then known as Madras. His job as area sales manager entailed going around South India checking in on local petrol stations and kerosene dealers and getting to know his market. His letters to my mother reflect an increasing interest in and love for his new world.
My mother and I left my paternal grandparents’ home and flew to join my father, arriving in Madras on my six-month birthday. My parents always told me that I was carried off the plane by J.R.D. Tata himself. My mother busied herself getting to know Madras and wrote letters to her parents also reflecting a fascination with India during its heady first years of independence.
At some point during those early days, my parents joined the Madras Club. There they met a young Indian couple, the husband was a banker for Grindlay’s. Krishen and Renu Khanna were their names. In Krishen’s words to his daughter Malati in January 2021, the two young couples became fast friends. And so our families became interconnected – a tie that has continued for almost seventy years, one that has seen me hold Krishen’s first great grandchild as a newborn as his grandmother, Krishen’s younger daughter Malati looked on with love and awe.
Living so far from our own families – and this was a time when a long distance phone call meant only birth or death and telegrams usually brought bad news and home leaves happened once every three years – the extended Khanna family became our family.
After briefly moving back to the United States in 1963, we moved back to India two years later for my father’s new job with a chemical company. This time Delhi was our base, and 3B Mathura Road, the Khanna family residence, was where family was, where holidays were celebrated, and where we found new grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. In the summer, there was Ravensdale in Simla, far from the Delhi heat and intoxicating in its possibilities, a place where we children were given much more freedom than in the city.
One of the constants of my family’s life was the Khanna clan. We were often invited to dinner, an eagerly anticipated event because the best aloo paranthas in the whole world were served. Krishen’s mother, whom we knew as Auntie, made sure they were on the menu if my mother was there. The adults would gather in the sitting room and chat while we children scattered outside or split up into the various cousin friend groups. Diwali meant puja and sparklers and firecrackers and more delicious food. Holi brought shrieks and laughter and colors splashed on everyone and everything. As kids, we had running races, made up stories, laughed, argued, and spied on the grown-ups.
The highlight of any year, though, was time spent in Simla at Ravensdale, the wonderful colonial-era house owned by Krishen’s parents and still in the family. High in the mountains, surrounded by a big garden with the best swing ever, this was paradise. The adults walked, read, chatted, played bridge, and did grown-up things. We children were treated with affectionate detachment. There seemed to be an understanding amongst all the parents that this was the place where we did not need much supervision. We went on adventures deep into the khud, following animal footprints and scaring the younger ones with stories of the wild animals these tracks represented. We held midnight feasts just like the ones we’d read about in English boarding school stories. Ghoda Wallah would appear, and we would go on pony treks. For my mother’s fortieth birthday in 1966, we children put on a play written by Mani, the eldest Khanna cousin. There were aloo parathas for dinner that night Krishen Uncle painted Madonna as his birthday present to my mother as the capstone to that epic celebration. There was a gentle rhythm to these days, a time to regroup and remember the importance of friends and family. Never once did we Banwells feel that we were not as much a part of this clan as the Khannas.
Through all of this, Krishen Uncle painted either in the little outbuilding covered in vines and flowers in Simla or in his Delhi studio. My parents were brought into his circle of artists, writers, and creative people flourishing in that heady time of the young republic. I cannot remember when Krishen Uncle’s paintings were not on the walls of our houses. Leading a rootless expatriate life, my parents established permanence by always first hanging 'Krishen’s work” on the walls. They always were hung in the same positions regardless of what country the house was located in. They loved his work – his willingness to experiment, his growing confidence, his use of color, his utter joy. I can remember evenings at home, the two of them, whisky sodas in hand, talking about the paintings. Different ones would sing to their souls at different times. For my father, the portrait of my mother was always high on his list. He felt Krishen Uncle captured her sparkle, her warmth, and her dancing soul through his skill with brush and color. My mother’s favorites would change with the light, with the season, and with her mood. They were not “collectors” in the classical sense. They did not set out to build a cohesive entity of Krishen Khanna’s work. They bought what they loved from an artist whom they loved as a painter and as a man. They were proud that they recognized his extraordinary gift when he was just beginning, but their collection was more the result of love than of a calculated plan. To them, Krishen and his work represented the India that they had fallen utterly in love with, a place of color and light, and of hope, promise, and pure joy.
My parents left India in 1970, and their days of acquiring new Krishen Khanna paintings ended then. However, they returned to India on several occasions, always stopping at 3B to connect again with their Indian family, exchanging letters and gifts which often included sketches and prints by Krishen Uncle. Although their lives continued to bring adventure and much satisfaction as they lived throughout Southeast Asia, England, and finally back in the United States, their hearts always remained in India. It would have given them such happiness to know that these paintings are being seen publicly and have a chance to be loved by a new generation.
Martha Banwell
13 January 2021
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
My parents Arthur and Lilly Banwell arrived in India at the end of 1955 and mid-1956 respectively. India had not been part of their family history or in any way part of their cultural make-up. Their arrival in and subsequent love affair with the subcontinent was pure wonderful happenstance.
My father grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Boston. His childhood world was limited to his neighborhood with occasional trips to visit family in Nova Scotia. When World War II began, he enlisted in the Army Air Force because he claimed he didn’t like to walk. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant and flew B-24s as a navigator in the European theatre. He was shot down over Germany and spent much of his nineteenth year “as a guest of Hitler” – a phrase he used often. Liberated by Patton’s army, he went to Harvard on the G.I. Bill and studied biochemistry. He had enrolled in medical school when the physical stress of the past few years caught up with him. He took some time off to recuperate, and that’s when things got really interesting.
My mother spent her childhood in Argentina, the child of a Swedish mother and Swiss-Finnish father. Her parents divorced when she was thirteen, and she moved with her father and brother to Westchester County. When it was time to go to university, she enrolled at Radcliffe, the women’s college connected to Harvard. There she studied history and began a lifelong fascination with the Tudors. One evening, planning to go dancing with a group of friends, her date (supposedly Bobby Kennedy, but no proof of that…) cancelled at the last minute. One of the group saw a young man crossing Harvard Yard and said, “Oh, there’s Banwell. Let’s ask him. He’s up for anything.”
And, dear reader, my parents married six months after my mother graduated.
When my father was recovering from his physical collapse, my mother bought him a book about China. He was hooked! He left medical school and enrolled in Harvard’s graduate school studying Chinese and economics. Unfortunately, studying Chinese in the 1950s in the United States could be seen as unpatriotic. Senator Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee wanted my father to testify against his Harvard professors. On top of this, my mother was an immigrant – thus, suspect in the eyes of McCarthy.
Refusing to testify but realizing he had to leave the United States, my father took a job with an oil company understanding that he was to be sent to India. Ten days after I was born, he left my mother and me to begin a new role with Caltex in what was then known as Madras. His job as area sales manager entailed going around South India checking in on local petrol stations and kerosene dealers and getting to know his market. His letters to my mother reflect an increasing interest in and love for his new world.
My mother and I left my paternal grandparents’ home and flew to join my father, arriving in Madras on my six-month birthday. My parents always told me that I was carried off the plane by J.R.D. Tata himself. My mother busied herself getting to know Madras and wrote letters to her parents also reflecting a fascination with India during its heady first years of independence.
At some point during those early days, my parents joined the Madras Club. There they met a young Indian couple, the husband was a banker for Grindlay’s. Krishen and Renu Khanna were their names. In Krishen’s words to his daughter Malati in January 2021, the two young couples became fast friends. And so our families became interconnected – a tie that has continued for almost seventy years, one that has seen me hold Krishen’s first great grandchild as a newborn as his grandmother, Krishen’s younger daughter Malati looked on with love and awe.
Living so far from our own families – and this was a time when a long distance phone call meant only birth or death and telegrams usually brought bad news and home leaves happened once every three years – the extended Khanna family became our family.
After briefly moving back to the United States in 1963, we moved back to India two years later for my father’s new job with a chemical company. This time Delhi was our base, and 3B Mathura Road, the Khanna family residence, was where family was, where holidays were celebrated, and where we found new grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. In the summer, there was Ravensdale in Simla, far from the Delhi heat and intoxicating in its possibilities, a place where we children were given much more freedom than in the city.
One of the constants of my family’s life was the Khanna clan. We were often invited to dinner, an eagerly anticipated event because the best aloo paranthas in the whole world were served. Krishen’s mother, whom we knew as Auntie, made sure they were on the menu if my mother was there. The adults would gather in the sitting room and chat while we children scattered outside or split up into the various cousin friend groups. Diwali meant puja and sparklers and firecrackers and more delicious food. Holi brought shrieks and laughter and colors splashed on everyone and everything. As kids, we had running races, made up stories, laughed, argued, and spied on the grown-ups.
The highlight of any year, though, was time spent in Simla at Ravensdale, the wonderful colonial-era house owned by Krishen’s parents and still in the family. High in the mountains, surrounded by a big garden with the best swing ever, this was paradise. The adults walked, read, chatted, played bridge, and did grown-up things. We children were treated with affectionate detachment. There seemed to be an understanding amongst all the parents that this was the place where we did not need much supervision. We went on adventures deep into the khud, following animal footprints and scaring the younger ones with stories of the wild animals these tracks represented. We held midnight feasts just like the ones we’d read about in English boarding school stories. Ghoda Wallah would appear, and we would go on pony treks. For my mother’s fortieth birthday in 1966, we children put on a play written by Mani, the eldest Khanna cousin. There were aloo parathas for dinner that night Krishen Uncle painted Madonna as his birthday present to my mother as the capstone to that epic celebration. There was a gentle rhythm to these days, a time to regroup and remember the importance of friends and family. Never once did we Banwells feel that we were not as much a part of this clan as the Khannas.
Through all of this, Krishen Uncle painted either in the little outbuilding covered in vines and flowers in Simla or in his Delhi studio. My parents were brought into his circle of artists, writers, and creative people flourishing in that heady time of the young republic. I cannot remember when Krishen Uncle’s paintings were not on the walls of our houses. Leading a rootless expatriate life, my parents established permanence by always first hanging 'Krishen’s work” on the walls. They always were hung in the same positions regardless of what country the house was located in. They loved his work – his willingness to experiment, his growing confidence, his use of color, his utter joy. I can remember evenings at home, the two of them, whisky sodas in hand, talking about the paintings. Different ones would sing to their souls at different times. For my father, the portrait of my mother was always high on his list. He felt Krishen Uncle captured her sparkle, her warmth, and her dancing soul through his skill with brush and color. My mother’s favorites would change with the light, with the season, and with her mood. They were not “collectors” in the classical sense. They did not set out to build a cohesive entity of Krishen Khanna’s work. They bought what they loved from an artist whom they loved as a painter and as a man. They were proud that they recognized his extraordinary gift when he was just beginning, but their collection was more the result of love than of a calculated plan. To them, Krishen and his work represented the India that they had fallen utterly in love with, a place of color and light, and of hope, promise, and pure joy.
My parents left India in 1970, and their days of acquiring new Krishen Khanna paintings ended then. However, they returned to India on several occasions, always stopping at 3B to connect again with their Indian family, exchanging letters and gifts which often included sketches and prints by Krishen Uncle. Although their lives continued to bring adventure and much satisfaction as they lived throughout Southeast Asia, England, and finally back in the United States, their hearts always remained in India. It would have given them such happiness to know that these paintings are being seen publicly and have a chance to be loved by a new generation.
Martha Banwell
13 January 2021
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania