Both before and after becoming Dewan Bahadur, R. K. Jalan regularly received and entertained every visiting dignitary who came to Patna.

Dewan Bahadur (in white at the centre of the picture)
being honoured by the judges of the High Court of Bihar

A day at the races:
Dewan Bahadur with a lady of his acquaintance

Indeed, family lore maintains that when members of the British administration visited the city, they were ferried around, even whilst discharging their official duties, in R. K. Jalan’s private car. This he graciously made available for their use, since they didn’t have any of their own. Amongst those who benefited from R. K. Jalan’s largesse was the Governor of Bengal, which at the time included the present-day states of Bihar and Orissa.

The services rendered by Dewan Bahadur to the British Raj before and after receiving the title earned him an invitation to several royal events: the celebration of the Silver Jubilee of King George V in 1935, and the Coronation ceremonies both of King George VI in 1937 and of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Out of these, he only attended the first and the last; the former being the most memorable of his two European trips.

On his trip to Europe Dewan Bahadur took with him not only his own servant but also his manager, his driver, and his car. He rented a bungalow in London for the six months of the trip. And on every Europe-bound ship from India a consignment of drinking water was sent to him.

If this sounds remarkably like the elaborate travel arrangements of an Indian Maharajah, it is with good reason. Indeed, already during his lifetime Dewan Bahadur was referred to as “the uncrowned King of Patna”. On the public sphere, he made many contributions to Patna and to Bihar; he was, for instance, the founding President of the Bihar Chamber of Commerce.

Dewan Bahadur and Hira Lal Jalan greet a visiting British dignitary

Dining al fresco on the Quila House verandah.
Dewan Bahadur and Hira Lal Jalan are in the background,
respectively in the black and grey tops

And yet Bimla Bai, Dewan Bahadur’s eldest and favourite granddaughter, remembers him as happiest when travelling outside Patna, and declaring himself only truly alive once past Mughalsarai, the train hub at Benares.

Dewan Bahadur’s eldest granddaughter further describes him as fond of eating, and of entertaining, and of card games; eager to invite people for dinner parties, where he would have magic shows and puppet shows staged. According to her, Dewan Bahadur was passionate about gardening, ordering seeds and plants from catalogues; and so passionate about antiques that he would have sleepless nights, snacking on dry fruits that he kept by his bedside, thinking on how to acquire a recently seen piece. Incidentally, R. K. Jalan’s passions seem to have been shared out amongst his inheritors too: card games for his grandson G. M. Jalan, cooking for his great-grandson Nikhil Jalan, and the latter two for his grandson B. M. Jalan.

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