"Do you know the story behind Brij Mama and Chander Mama's names?" Asked Nirmala Mausi ji one day when  I was working on the FTM. 

Vandana and I looked at her curiously and told her that we had no idea.

Mausi ji smiled and told me that this was because they were B & C.

We stared at her, and asked her who was A.

'A' , said Mausi ji, " was Anand Mohan Gupta, the eldest son of the family and the youngest of Vandana's maternal grandfather's first wife's children.

And then slowly the memories came out.

1936, Anand Mohan was a smart, well-built young man when he went to London to study law. And while he was there, he fell in love with a british lady, Rose Britten. The feeling was mutual and both married - giving us our family's first inter-racial marriage on record in the last century.

Anand Mohan stayed on in UK to become a barrister and the fact that he was visiting India with an English wife fuelled a tremendous speculation and anticipation in the parents.

Anand and Rose set sail for India in 1941 on the SS Britannica.

Unfortunately, they were never destined to see India again. 1941 was the height of the 2nd World war - and the Germans torpedoed the SS Britannica off the South African Coast.

There were no survivors!

The parents never really got over the shock of untimely death of their only son. Rai Bahadur Kanwar married again after the death of his first wife....but never really forgot the son who never came home...

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Rose - says Vandana, seems like a name destined to sink ships...the heroine of Titanic was named Rose...

Chander Mama recalls that Rose had possibly an elder sister, called Edna Britten. Perhaps correspondence exists on her at Roop Nagar family home.

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I have queried World Family Tree for "Rose Britten". There is a reference of Rose-Anne Britten, an Irish lady in UK. Would it not be fun to explore this link further....

Also, I have searched "Ask Jeeves" for details of ships sunk in World War II. One of the sites has given research reference to Govt of UK, Public Records Office Site where all admirality papers are kept including detail records of the ships that were sunk  in the World War II , including the names/available details of personnel / passengers lost  and ship details....Maybe someday this link will be explored further to reveal more details of what happened on that dark day in 1941...

Photographs of Anand Mohan are available in Mausi ji's albums.