Basu Spy Princess

The Life of Noor Inayat Khan
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7524-6368-1
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 318 Seiten

'One of the most inspirational stories of World War II ... Reading this book is like watching a butterfly trapped in a net.' - Daily Mail This is the riveting story of Noor Inayat Khan, a descendant of an Indian prince, Tipu Sultan (the Tiger of Mysore), who became a British secret agent for SOE during World War II. In this updated twentieth-anniversary edition of Spy Princess, Shrabani Basu tells the moving story of Noor's life, from her birth in Moscow - where her father was a Sufi preacher - to her capture by the Germans. Noor was one of only three women SOE agents awarded the George Cross and, under torture, revealed nothing, not even her real name. Kept in solitary confinement, her hands and feet chained together, Noor was starved and beaten, but the Germans could not break her spirit. Ten months after she was captured, she was taken to Dachau concentration camp and, on 13 September 1944, she was shot. Her last word was 'Liberté'.

SHRABANI BASU is a journalist and Sunday Times best-selling author. Her books include the critically acclaimed The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer and Victoria & Abdul (now a major Oscar-nominated motion picture starring Dame Judi Dench). She is the founder of the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust and an ambassador for the RAF Museum. She is a frequent commentator on Indian history and Empire on radio and television, and has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of London for services to literature.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Basu, Shrabani

Leseproben

TWO

Fazal Manzil

Noor and her family soon settled into their house in the small village of Tremblaye, north of Paris. Vilayat remembered it as a damp place with no heating and no food. Tremblaye was hardly a place to give Indian concerts and soon the family were once again in dire financial straits.

Inayat Khan left his wife and children behind and travelled to Geneva where some Sufi disciples helped him with generous donations. By now Hazrat Inayat Khan was an established and everywhere he went, his helped him set up centres. The family struggled through the winter alone but early in 1921 Inayat Khan returned to Tremblaye and took them to Wissous, another small town to the south of Paris. The family enjoyed better days in Wissous. The house belonged to a naval officer and stood on the edge of the village overlooking fields. Inayat would meditate in the garden early in the morning while the children played around him. Later, he would play the veena and sing. At Wissous, Hazrat Inayat Khan held a summer camp for his close followers. In the evening the would gather in the large living room. The brothers played their instruments and there was an atmosphere of tranquillity.

In the spring of 1922, one of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s devoted , a rich Dutch widow named Madame Egeling, offered to buy a house for the family. One day, as Inayat Khan and his disciples were walking in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, they decided to cross the river and climb the hill at Suresnes. Suddenly, a large house surrounded by trees caught Inayat Khan’s attention. ‘It must be here!’ he exclaimed.1 The house, luckily, was for sale. Situated a few miles from the centre of Paris, near the Longchamps racecourse, it was perfect for the family. From the upper windows one could see the lights of the city and the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and on a clear day there was a view of Sacré Coeur and the Seine winding down towards the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Inayat Khan called the house Fazal Manzil (the House of Blessing), and as far as Noor was concerned it would live up to its name, because she spent many happy years there. The house was surrounded by a walled garden and trees, and Noor specially loved sitting with her brothers and sister on the flight of stairs outside the house and gazing at the city spreading out below. Like Inayat when he had been young, Vilayat and Hidayat were naturally playful and loved climbing the trees around the house. If the expressed surprise at how naughty the boys were, Inayat Khan would say, ‘I was worse,’ remembering how he used to run wild in the house in Baroda.2

The four children, their parents and their three uncles settled comfortably into the large house. In summer it would overflow with visitors as the Sufi summer school was held there for three months. Inayat Khan invited the elderly Madame Egeling to come and stay with them and she helped educate the children and looked after the house. She remained a faithful till the end.

Hidayat remembered on one occasion going to Paris with his father to buy yellow curtains for the living room. Inayat Khan would often buy an antique object that reminded him of the East: a lamp or a Moroccan rug. It was difficult for him to forget India and he filled the house with things that reminded him of the land of his birth. Though their mother was American, the children grew up very much in an Indian atmosphere. Noor would dress her brothers and sisters in Indian clothes and the four children would often perform short plays. She particularly enjoyed wearing a sari and dressing her brothers up in bright turbans. The children loved playing on the grounds of Fazal Manzil and the green in front of the house. At home the children spoke to each other in English. Since Inayat Khan and his brothers spoke to each other in Hindi, the children could follow some Hindi and Urdu as well.

It was at Fazal Manzil that Inayat Khan started the practice of Universal Worship, a ceremony where all the religions of the world would be honoured. Inayat Khan always believed in the oneness of religions; as a child he had an equal fascination for both Hinduism and Islam and studied both. Now he formalised the belief. The service was held in the large living room of Fazal Manzil where candles and incense sticks would be lit. The children would sometimes listen to the service with fascination. The idea of tolerance of all religions would stay with Noor all her life and motivate her actions in the future.

On Saturday, Inayat Khan would sit on the roof of Fazal Manzil and meditate all day. He would go into a trance and two men would have to support him to help him down. As a child Noor would watch, captivated. ‘Have you seen Abba’s eyes?’ she asked Vilayat one day.3 Her brother noticed that she would have tears in her eyes when she saw her father in a trance.

Inayat Khan remained at heart a musician. He taught his children Indian music and often questioned them about the ragas. Noor always listened attentively and answered his questions. She also wrote down the words of the songs in both English and Urdu (she wrote the Urdu words in Roman script as she was not familiar with the Urdu script).

Inayat found it difficult to scold his children, so he had his own way of disciplining them if they were naughty. He would hold court on the steps and would never allow the children to denounce each other.4 He would ask why they had been naughty and if they agreed that they had done wrong. He would then ask them if they thought they should be punished. The punishments involved running around the garden ten times or sitting in a corner, or not speaking for a few hours. Once a Dutch disciple related an amusing incident about the children. Some of them had been naughty and Inayat Khan called Noor to him and asked if she had been naughty too. She replied, ‘I wanted to, but my goodness prevented me’.5

The family ate together at mealtimes but the children were expected to sit in silence. They felt the discipline was part of their father’s love for them and did not mind. After finishing work Inayat Khan would call the children to him, and they looked forward to these precious moments with their father.

The children knew they had to share their father with the world. As Inayat Khan’s lecture schedules and engagements became more pressing, he hardly spent any time in Fazal Manzil except in the summer months when he was surrounded by his . He was a majestic figure with his golden robes and flowing beard, probably looking much older than his 40-odd years. The children would lie on the grass and watch him walk to the lecture hall. Vilayat said they could feel his presence reaching out to them.6

Noor loved going to her father’s lectures. She remembered one at the Musée Guimet in Paris which impressed her very much, even though she was very young at the time. After the event, she threaded her way through the crowds to hear what people were saying about the lecture and then breathlessly recounted all that she had heard to her amused father.7 Her happiest moments were the ones she shared with him, listening to him talk or learning to sing from him. Then she would sit cross-legged in front of him, singing the notes after him as her father took her through the intricacies of Indian ragas.

When he was not around, the children missed him a lot, but learned to live with it. Vilayat often wished he had a father like the other children in the school, but would soon dismiss the thought. Noor, on her part, would lock herself away in her own world, playing fantasy games and writing poems.

When she was eight, Noor started school in the local Collège Moderne de Filles at Suresnes. School was not easy for Noor. The children did not know any French at this time (they spoke English at home). Now they had to take their lessons in French and converse with the other students. Hidayat remembers that it took a lot of courage to adapt to a French-speaking school.8 Some of the French students were not used to foreigners and the children faced problems on that score as well. Slowly they learnt the language and gradually became fluent in it, but even so the Inayat Khan family was always fairly conspicuous in the Paris suburb of Suresnes.

Noor stood out from the other students because of her dark skin and hair. Slowly, she fought the isolation and made friends. She was always a quiet, dreamy child and soon endeared herself to the other girls. They even gave her a Good Comradeship award.9 However, coming from the background that she did, it was inevitable that she would be different from the other girls in both looks and manner. Though she played and chatted with them, she was in some ways more grown up and serious than they were.

Later Noor’s younger sister, Khair, joined the same school and faced the same problems. She changed her name from Khair-un-nisa to Claire and preferred to be called this all her life. She was the quietest of the four siblings and, as the youngest, the most protected, so she suffered a lot in school when she was on her own.10 Noor, on the other hand, dealt with problems at school by living in her own world and creating a shell for herself.

Despite her own troubles settling into school, Noor gradually made some good friends there. Her best friend at school was Raymonde Prénat, who remained close to Noor all her life. Raymonde was the second of three sisters, with a French father and a Spanish mother. Her family were neighbours of the Inayat Khans, and she and Noor spent a lot of time at...