The extraordinary life of Bebe Golhan spanned 108 eventful years and six generations of the Kapurthala family.
She was present at almost every one of the numerous turning points for the Kapurthala family for a century and more and played an important role throughout.
The story of Bebe Golhan is also the story of the Kapurthala family and these stories are for the younger members of the family, who may not be aware of Bebe Golhan and her amazing life.
I was lucky enough to have Bebe Golhan live with us in the Kapurthala House and then later in the Model Town house in Jullundur, till she died in 1959.
I am also grateful to my Aunts, Uncles and many others, for telling me all they knew of the family history from personal experience and from what they had been told by their elders.
These Tales are respectfully dedicated to all of our ancestors and specially to, Rani Ripjit Singh, Rani Padamjit Singh, Rani Madanjit Singh, Rani Ranjit Singh, Rani Prithvijit Singh, Mrs Uma DauletSingh, Raja Sarabjit Singh, Raja Ranbir Singh and both my parents, for giving me the priceless gift of their memories.
Bebe Golhan was a treasure-house of stories from the olden times and I never stopped asking her to tell me more.
Here is a brief introduction to the life and times of Bebe Golhan. 
Golhan was born in the palace of Maharaja Nihal Singh of Kapurthala in 1851 and was named Golhan Devi by her father, Pandit Kashi Chand, the head priest of the palace temple.
Her early childhood was spent in the Palace Janana. (part of the palace exclusively occupied by the women of the household of Maharaja Nihal Singh of Kapurthala)
The young Golhan, with her quick wit, bright eyes and a bewitching smile, soon became the darling of every one in the Janana. She had a special talent for impersonation and easily picked up languages and dialects.
Rani Hiran (the second wife of Maharaja Nihal Singh) took an instant liking to Golhan and took the child under her wings. She made sure that the young Golhan was taught all the required skills of a lady of the Royal household.
When Rani Hiran and her two sons, Kanwar Bikram Singh and Kanwar Suchet Singh left Kapurthala for Jullundur, young Golhan came along with Rani Hiran as part of her entourage of several hundred women.
After her arrival in Jullundur, Rani Hiran spent the majority of her time in works of charity, helping to build Temples, Ashrams and orphanages all over India.
Often she would hide Gold coins within bags of flour and distribute the bags to the poor.
So much so that Rani Hiran was soon known far and wide simply as “Mai Hiran” or Mother Hiran, a name that stuck to her for the rest of her life.
Golhan accompanied Mai Hiran every where and took over the vital task of the planning and managing of the often long journeys, at a time when traveling in India was not very easy.
Kanwar Bikram Singh, the elder son of Rani Hiran had built the Bikram Hall Palace (at the place in Jullundur now known as Bikram Pura) and had been blessed with two sons.
As per Rani Hiran’s instructions, Golhan searched for and then selected eight ayahs (nannies), four ayahs for each of the two boys.
Eight ayahs were needed because there had to be two ayahs for each of the boys for the day and another two ayahs for each child for the night. (This was so that if at any time, one of the ayahs got tired or indisposed in any way, she would have a back up.)
Rani Hiran then asked Golhan to help in the supervision of the ayahs for the boys.
Golhan thereafter supervised all of the ayahs for young Kanwar Pratap Singh and his younger brother Kanwar Daljit Singh (later Raja Sir Daljit Singh).
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Kanwar Bikram Singh of Kapurthala had hired tutors from France and the UK to come and live at Bikram Hall and tutor his sons. The boys were taught English and French language and literature by tutors “imported” for the purpose, in addition to Sanskrit, Braj bhasha, Persian, Indian literature and poetry etc taught by Indian Gurus and Ustads.
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Golhan, who was still very young, always attended the classes held for the boys at the Bikram Hall and over time picked up a lot of English and even French. What is more, as she learnt English from Tutors who were mostly from what can be termed as the British middle classes, the accent that she picked up would not have been unfamiliar at Eton!
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(Many years later, when Bebe Golhan was very very old and living with us, it was always amusing for me to see the shocked expression on the faces of my Father’s foreign guests, when they heard this apparently ancient old Indian lady, incredibly wrinkled and almost bent with age, speaking the King’s English with such a posh accent that it could be cut with a knife!)
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Young Golhan had a way with the children, who were greatly intrigued by her skills at drawing faces and making toys from ordinary house hold materials such as cloth and cardboard. She would get them singing together in sing along and play all kinds of games with them, always making sure that they spent enough time in their studies as well.
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Golhan’s success with the Royal children was such, that later Raja Charanjit Singh (the son of Kanwar Suchet Singh, the younger brother of Kanwar Bikram Singh) asked his cousin Kanwar Pratap Singh for Golhan to be sent over to “set up the Golhan system” for his son Raja Ripjit Singh.
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Rani Ripjit Singh (Nina Chachi Ji) said that her husband would often hum a song about “Bibi Mendki” that he had learnt as a child from Bebe Golhan! (more of Bibi Mendki later)
Golhan had been treated almost like a daughter by Mai Hiran and was like a member of the family. So when she got married, the “Barat” came for her at Bikram Hall and Kanwar Pratap Singh, Kawar Daljit Singh and Raja CharanJit Singh were all present at her marriage to Pandit Parshu Ram, who was the priest at the Devi Talab Temple in Jullundur.
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Even though Bebe Golhan was now busy with her own family, yet when Kanwar Pratap Singh asked her to come and look after her two sons, she was happy to do so and once again found her self in charge of the early up bringing of another generation of the Kapurthalas, young Kanwar Jasjit Singh and Kanwar Madanjit Singh.
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The boys were sent to the Aitchens College in Lahore for their further education but they never forgot their time with Bebe Golhan.
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As had been the case with his father, Kanwar Pratap Singh died when the elder son, Kanwar Jasjit Singh was still a teenager and once again Bebe Golhan stepped in to help, using her long years of experience.
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Kanwar Jasjit Singh had purchased and rebuilt a house half way between old Jullundur and the Cantonment and called it the Kapurthala House.
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By now Bebe Golhan’s son Basau Ram was a grown man and was also a priest at the temple with his father, so she was happy to move to the Kapurthala House at the request of Kanwar Jasjit Singh.
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This time she was there for the early years of Kanwar Prithvijit Singh, the son by the first wife, along with Kumari Uma, Kanwar Manjit Singh and Kanwar Ranjit Singh, the children from the second wife.
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Kanwar Prithvijit Singh later joined Sandhurst, the military academy in the UK, on the way to his chosen career in the Army.
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At the passing out ceremony at Sandhurst, the senior cadets from each different country had to sing their National Anthem and as the senior Officer Cadet from India, Kanwar Prithvijit Singh was asked to sing the National Anthem of India. The problem was that as India was part of the British Raj, there was no National Anthem for India at the time.
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So Senior Cadet Captain Kanwar Prithvijit Singh solemnly took the salute from the entire Sandhurst passing out parade standing to attention, while singing “Bibi Mendki Re, Tu To Pani Me Rahe”. (a song he had learnt as a child from Bebe Golhan about the formidable Matriarch of a colony of frogs)
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The second wife of Kanwar Jasjit Singh was very, very beautiful.
(there is a Bebe Golhan’s Tale about how she was “picked” as the new wife!)
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She was the daughter of a major land owner yet she had been brought up in rural Ludhiana, without formal education of any kind and was very old-fashioned in her ideas about bringing up daughters in the family.
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While the three sons were again educated initially at home, using English as well as Indian Tutors, the only daughter Uma was totally excluded from these lessons.
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Bebe Golhan believed that young Kumari Uma was in fact more intelligent than all of her siblings and felt that not to educate her properly would be almost a crime and said so in no uncertain terms, to Kanwar Jasjit Singh.
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In spite of Bebe Golhan’s efforts, young Kumari Uma was excluded from the lessons and she was only taught the traditional skills required of an Indian Princess.
Never the less, Kumari Uma did receive secret English conversation lessons from Bebe Golhan.
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Though she was in her nineties now, Bebe Golhan soon found her self looking after yet another generation of the family, my younger brother Kanwar Aniljit Singh and I.
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I remember her singing old songs, and telling my brother and I about the flowers and the herbs in the many gardens of Kapurthala House, specially the fabulous rose garden, which had hundreds of different coloured roses including many rare species.
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Bebe Golhan was very fond of my father and so when at the end of 1951, we moved from the Kapurthala House to a smaller house in Model Town, Bebe Golhan came along to live with us.
Almost at the same time, my father’s younger brother Kanwar Ranjit Singh came over to live with us as well. He was very sick at the time and was suffering from the last stages of TB.
Though there were many doctors tending to him, it was the special oil made by Bebe Golhan according to an old Vedic recipe, massaged every day by my father on to his spine, that really made him feel better.
The oil was thick and sticky with a strong base smell of cloves. To this day when ever I smell cloves, it takes me back to that time.
Over almost two years that he stayed with us, Kanwar Ranjit Singh got better and better and for a time it looked as though he may even beat the dreaded illness.
My brother and I were always allowed to play with Kanwar Ranjit Singh (Ranjit Chacha Ji) in spite of the objections from the doctors, who wanted us to stay away from him due to his illness.
We were very lucky indeed to have spent that time with him as he had a fantastic sense of humor with a brilliant “Clark Gable” smile, was a great magician, a writer, a poet and most importantly for me at the time, a great practical joker!
In October of 1959, when she was 108 years old, Bebe Golhan asked my father to take a place for her on the bank of Ganges in Haridwar for a month.
My father rented a house right on the bank of Ganges with the water from a small stream passing through the house.
Bebe Golhan went to Haridwar with my father and her Son Basau Ram, who himself was a very old man at the time.
Bebe Golhan fasted and remained in “samadhi” (deep meditation) for nine days in that house on the bank of the Ganges and then she died peacefully.
