For almost eight decades, Mulk Raj Anand wrote on India’s downtrodden, and volumes have been written about his work. Much less is known about the person.
When the young Anand visited Sabarmati in March 1926 to join the independence movement, Gandhiji asked him to abandon corduroy, liquor and women. He agreed on the first two. Unfortunately, his romantic liasons were not so successful. Irene Rhys, an Irish girl he loved, died.
He married actress Kathleen Van Gilder, who divorced him. Anel D’Silva changed her mind before they were to tie the knot. He married dancer Shirin Vajifdar, who is still living, but found a kindred spirit in designer Dolly Sahiar, who died a few months before him.
His only child, Shushila, from Kathleen, with whom his relations were not so cordial, died a spinster in London.
Before he passed away on September 28, 2004, Anand founded the Lokayata Trust in New Delhi and the Sarvodaya Sabha Trust on his Khandala farm, to promote art and literature. To support the Trust, he started a nursery on the land. Alas! There are multiple claimants to his bequests, but few with his vision. Shirin, his wife of 61 years, is being asked to prove their marriage, the nursery keeper claims tenancy rights, Sabha Trustees claim the property, his servant claims tiller’s-ownership, descendents of the Nawab of Paigah claim that only a small part of the plot was sold to him, while the beneficiary of his daughter claims half share with 95-year-old Shirin. He had sufficient wealth to live by, and left behind enough for others to quarrel over. Geniuses are seldom good managers.
The writer, B B Singh, is a past acquaintance of Mulk Raj Anand and a legal consultant to his heirs
