Page 5 - Ebook-Jataka-E

About the Life And Work of the Author

Noor Inayat Khan was born on the first day of 1914 in Moscow. Hazrat Inayat
Khan, her father, a brilliant Indian musician and philosopher, had travelled to the
capital of Russia on his life mission, with his family. It was a time of agitation, the
eve of the Revolution, and he was advised to leave the country. The day of their
departure a crowd began to erect barricades, and so they could not pursue. While
the excited crowd began to gather around their sledge, Inayat Khan took little Noor
from the protecting arms of his wife, and raised the infant high up. The image was
impressive: This majestic man, holding his little daughter high up in the air - the
crowd turned silent and respectful, finally they let the young family pass.

Noor was the eldest of four children, her mother a young American, Ora Ray
Baker, whom Inayat Khan had met in San Francisco. The family lived in London during
World War I, in poor conditions; later they moved to Suresnes, in the neighbour-
hood of Paris, where all four children lived their childhood, school and study years.

Noor was an intelligent girl, fine and dreamy. She loved her parents much, was
ready to serve and most caring towards her two brothers and her sister. She was
of old kingly blood, great-great-grandniece of Tipu Sultan, the 'Tiger of Mysore',
and she livened up hearing stories which would describe the best human characte-
ristics. Her father was a living example of extraordinary idealism, poetic and musical
expression and soon these same traits began to show in her, in Vilayat, Hidayat and
Khairunisa.

Her mother wrote, among many other poems (collected under the title “Ro-
sary of a Hundred Beads“) birthday verses for all of her children; Noor, with her
great talent for language, rhythm and music, took up this tradition; she was eleven
when she wrote this poem, in French.

Modeste et honnête
Jolie petite violette
Qui jette son beau parfum
Dans mon petit jardin.

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