Politics was not always a central concern for Motilal Nehru. The
young Jawaharlal’s childhood coincided with the years of success for
Motilal’s practice, and with success, he upgraded his lifestyle. He moved
first to a bungalow in the Civil Lines, which in the functional segregation
of the colonial Indian town was a gesture of defiant confidence on the part
of an upwardly-mobile Indian; then, in 1900, to a palatial residence near
the confluence of the rivers Ganga and Yamuna, named Anand Bhavan- the Abode of Joy. In doing so, Motilal added to the North Indian elite
culture many of the trappings of an English upper-class life – appearing
as the Edwardian gentleman complete with motor car (Motilal was among
the first in India to own one), entertaining European and Indian society
in grand style. This Anglicised life did not, of course, include the Nehru
family’s women, who as assumed upholders of ‘tradition’ remained outside
the lifestyle adopted by the men. Male children, inhabiting the liminal
zone between the women’s inner world and the public world of the men,
were, for all their exposure to the latter, still subject to some surprises.
It was in Anand Bhavan, at one of his father’s many dinner parties, that a
very young Jawaharlal noticed with horror that the guests were drinking
blood. It turned out this was merely an error of perception: he was used to
the colour of whisky, but had never before encountered red wine.^7
Motilal’s visits to England in 1899 and 1900 did nothing to diminish
his admiration for things British and, in 1905, he took with him his
pregnant wife, his son and his young daughter, Vijayalakshmi, with a view
to placing Jawaharlal in a suitable public school. Having found him a
place in Harrow, Motilal and family spent the summer travelling to the
health resorts of Europe, leaving Jawaharlal to find his feet in England.
In September 1905, having left Jawaharlal at Harrow, they returned to
India. Harrow was necessary, Motilal explained to Jawaharlal, for ‘making
a real man out of you’.^8 But it was a big step for a privileged son of a rich
man, educated at home and living in the bosom of the family. ‘Harrow
agrees with me quite well,’ Jawaharlal wrote to his father in the first weeks
of his new public school life, ‘and I would get on swimmingly with it, but
for your not being here. This puts a jarring note into my every work and
enjoyment.’^9
On November 14, 1905, shortly after her return to India, Jawaharlal’s
mother gave birth to a baby boy who shared his birthday. Informed of this
by letter by his father, and requested to choose a name for the infant,
Jawaharlal protested: ‘My vocabulary of Indian names is very limited and
16 THE MAKING OF A COLONIAL INTELLECTUAL