Valentine day special story from Dehradun

Gopal Bhardwaj: Feb 14

In the late autumn of the year 1823 was born, in Teheran, the capital of Persia, a princess, who was so beautiful that she was given the name Moti (Pearl). Her father, Mir Mohammed Yar Khan, was the younger brother of Mir Nasir Khan, king of Sind. The young princess was given an education befitting her rank. When still in her teens she accompanied her parents to the court of her uncle. Life was very pleasant, but it was the calm before the storm.

Lord Ellenbourough, the Governor-General of India, in total disregard of a treaty entered into earlier with the Mir, dispatched a British force, under Sir Charles Napier, to conquer Sind. The force marched against the country in 1842 and, in the following year, won the battles of Miani and Dabo. This ended all opposition. Napier, thereupon, sent the famous one-word cablegram to the directors of the Humble East India Company in London. The word ‘Peccavi,’ caused much bewilderment in the office of the directors, till a junior clerk got a brain wave. He connected the literal translation of the Latin word, which means, ‘I have sinned,’ with its phonetic equivalent, ‘I have Sind.’ It was thus that the conquest of Sind was made known to Britain.

Mir Nasir Khan was exiled to Dum Dum, near Calcutta. He accompanied by his brother Mir Mohammed Yar Khan and the latter’s wife and family.

In the spring of the self-same year, which witnessed the birth of Princess Pearl, was born, not far from London, a boy, who was baptized Frederick Ramsay Boyce. He went through school in the normal way and, in due course, became an accountant in the service of the East India Company. He came to India in 1842 and was attached to the Public Works Department of the Bengal Establishment and was stationed in Calcutta.

Fate willed that Frederick should be deputed to interview the exiled king about certain alteration to the house allotted him at Dum Dum. By chance there strayed into the room, where the ex-king was discussing the cost of the proposed alteration with the accountant, Princess Pearl, with a message from her father to her uncle. The young couple saw each other and Cupid had achieved another conquest. Frederick took and unconscionable time to submit the reports to his department and was frequent visitor to the ex-king’s residence. On most occasions Princess Pearl found some pretext to be present when the young accountant called. The romance ripened to the point where Frederick proposed marriage to the princess. As both her father and uncle would have bitterly opposed her marriage to a member of a race which had forcibly deprived them of their country and sent them into exile, the lover planned an elopement. This was facilitated by the fact that the princess was now of age. The elopement was successfully effected one dark night.

Frederick took the girl to the house of an elderly British couple, with whom the accountant was a lodger. The lady not only took charge of the princess but accompanied the lovers to Dinapur where the girl was admitted into the Christian faith and was named Elizabeth. The young couple were duly married by an Anglican priest. The fairy tale ending was literally true in their case, for they lived happily together ever after.

Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter in 1845. The child was christened Mary. When she grew up, she, in turn, fell in love with a man who was not of her faith. The Hindu lad, Mohan Beer, was however persuaded to embrace Christianity and was named Andrew. After their marriage they lived in the Punjab.

Frederick, having reached the age of superannuation, retired from service and settled in Dehra Dun. He and Elizabeth soon attained a wide reputation for generosity. Not a beggar but received alms at their door, not a person in need, irrespective of the community he belonged to, but was given assistance by them. Not content merely to be philanthropic themselves, they encouraged their neighbours to goods deeds and were never tired of emphasizing the sentiment expressed in the verse:

For a bowl of water give a goodly meal,

For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal;

For a simple penny pay them back with gold,

If thou hast been helped, do not help withhold.

The loss of their daughter Mary was a severe blow to the devoted couple. She was on a visit to her parents, contracted fever and died on May 30, 1881. Her husband, Andrew, did not long survive her. He passed away at Wazirabad in the Punjab on March 30, 1883. His body was brought to Dehra Dun and interred in the same grave as that of his wife.

Frederick and Elizabeth had taken to visiting Mussoorie for ‘season’. They were getting on in years and needed the change for the sake of their health. While on one of these visits, Frederick died at Mussoorie on June 7, 1885, aged 62 years 3 months, and was buried in the Dehra Dun cemetery, not far from the grave of his daughter and her husband. The inscription on his tomb reads, ‘He visited the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and kept himself unspotted from the world.’ It is said that there was not a dry eye in Dehra Dun on the day of his funeral. A little over three years later, on September 26, 1888, at the age of 65 years, Princess Pearl, after ‘an exemplary life, sweetly slept in Jesus.’ Their tombs lie side by side within a railed enclosure. Even in death the lovers were not divided.