The freedom struggle of 1857, whose 161st anniversary falls on May 10, led to the publication of a plethora of books, though the first English novel on it was written by J. F. Fanthome. One tried to trace the antecedents of this remarkable man, who was a High School boy at the time of the great upheaval in North India, and came across some interesting facts. He was educated at St John’s School (now college) by the Rev Dr Thomas Valpy French, who himself was a student of Dr Arnold (father of Matthew Arnold) of Rugby School fame. Dr French, who was a toddler when John Keats died in 1821, went on to take his university degree before coming out as a CMS missionary to India. He later became Bishop of Lahore, died at the end of the 19th Century, while on his way back from England by ship on the coast of South Africa, and was buried at sea.
When the Independence war broke out Rev French, along with a large number of others, presumably including Fanthome, took refuge in the Agra Fort where his youngest child was born. After things calmed down he resumed teaching while Fanthome, along with his studies, started collecting anecdotes that he heard about the “Ghaddar” from maulvis, pandits, cooks, malis, tailors, ayahs and sweepers at the family bungalow. This was to later result in his famous book, “Mariam, A Tale of the Indian Mutiny”, published in 1894 while the author was staying in Banaras. The bungalow, “Fantasia” in Khandari Road, is however no more, but the Flagstaff Tower on the Delhi Ridge, on which the sepoys made a valiant attack, still stands. The novel was adapted by Ruskin Bond for his story, “A Flight of Pigeons”, on which the film Junoon , starring Shashi Kapoor and his wife, Jennifer Kendal, was based. Jennifer essayed the role of Mary Lavater (Mariam) while she was held hostage in the house of a dashing Pathan chief of Shahjahanpur, Mangal Khan (role played by Shashi Kapoor) who wanted to marry Mrs Lavater’s teenaged daughter, though he already had a wife and children.
Mary as Mariam, dressed in Pathani clothes, like her daughter, kept warding off Mangal Khan’s nuptial pleas till she and her daughter were finally rescued after the British recaptured the city. It was from Mariam that Fanthome got the main material for his novel. A big-built woman, she was the daughter of a Royalist who ran away from home when the French Revolution broke out in 1789 to become a soldier of fortune in India. He first served the Nizam of Hyderabad and then the Nawab of Bhopal and the Rajas of Gwalior and Jaipur. “While serving the last-named prince he killed in a hand-to-hand fight the Raja of Madhogarh and took possession of his sword – a blade of rare water which was preserved in the family till 1857, when it was plundered,” says Fanthome. Mary Lavater became a widow after her husband and several other British and Anglo-Indians were killed on a Sunday morning at the Shahjahanpur church but retained the same grit as her father. She adapted to the Indian way of life at Mangal Khan’s house, passing the time in telling old yarns and ghost stories, like the one about the Jinns visiting the Mithai-ka-pul at Agra to buy sweets for their human sweethearts, who languished and eventually died. She would usually start her story with the words: “Aap biti kahoon ya jag biti” (should I narrate what befell me or the world at large). Medieval romances too were part of the entertainment when there was no electricity, radio or TV to while away the time in the long wait for dinner.
Mariam’s family was related to the Gardners of Kasganj, to which Fanthome was also linked, and she herself was brought up in the house of Major Hearsey (who arrested Mangal Pandey, the man whose action in refusing to bite the greased cartridges actually started the First War of Independence). She later married Lavater Sahib and bore a daughter who occupies a large chunk of the narrative. In the conclusion to his novel, Fanthome wrote that Mariam lived for 35 years after her rescue from Mangal Khan’s house. She was given a small pension on which, and her savings, she survived in Banaras, her words of wisdom being sought by young and old alike. “A plain unostentatious tomb marks the spot where her mortal remains were laid to rest”, greatly mourned by her daughter and grand-children when she passed away on Nov 25, 1892. However, her grave does not find mention in the book “Christian Tombs and Monuments of UP”.
Fanthome himself died on April 17, 1914 and was buried at St Paul’s Church (Tin-ka-Girja) in Agra, where father said he was associated with St John’s College and also served as an honorary magistrate for some years. He was very well versed in Indian folklore and the appendices to his novel delineate such subjects as the names of the 12 Archangels presiding over the Urdu alphabet, Arhar-ki-Dal, Pakwan, Unlucky days for journeys, Prophet Idris, Lament of Bahadur Shah Zafar, Khwaja Khizr and Notes on the Churail, Aghori, Cow-worship, Sankarat and Satnarain-ki-Katha and on dervishes and hair-dressing. It shows his wide knowledge gathered over the years that served to leaven his masterpiece. The last of his descendants in Delhi, F. J. Fanthome died some years ago in Mussoorie, where surviving members of the family still stay. While one of them, Peter Fanthome, an ex-UP MLA, lives in Lucknow. One always scans Fanthome’s novel every year in May, having first started reading it in 1956-1957 after Chou-En-Lai’s visit to Delhi. It definitely sets the mood for the amazing events of 1857.
Correction:
In last week’s article, Mahmud Tughlak, was misprinted as Mohammad Tughlak, who died 48 years before Taimur’s invasion.
