Hidayat and Helena's engagement letter to his uncle and aunt

How Hidayat & Helena (Leny)
ended up in Nice, France

  Page 1                                             1939 - 1940

When I realized the correlation of Dieulefit, the Vercors and the stories that Hidayat shared about his activities in the resistance, I started researching this period from 1939 to 1946. This corresponds to the time when Hidayat left the family home in Suresnes, rue des Tuileries, with Helena (Leny) Iman Flentge. They were married in Belgium or Holland and eventually returned to Suresnes in 1947 with three children.

​

Helena (Leny), Iman, Flentge, using her official first name Helena on Gayan’s birth certificate in 1944 was born in 1909. She was thirty years old in 1939. She was staying in Suresnes with Fazal Mai Egeling as her companion (10). Fazal Egeling had been the benefactor who provided that house to Inayat Khan’s family. Hidayat, born August 6, 1917, was 22 years old. Helena was a Sufi student (mureed) and worked as a secretary for Vilayat, Hidayat’s older brother.

​

Hidayat and Helena fell in love and eloped (since against Hidayat's mother and Vilayat will) direction Holland where Helena was from, in The Hague. It was bold for Hidayat to follow his heart and try to convince his mother and family to accept a woman eight years older. In 1939, it was certainly not as common or acceptable as today. Vilayat’s view of his role as the elder, after his father died, challenged Hidayat throughout their childhood and life. As children, Vilayat took the only pair of shoes in the winter asserting his status as the elder or took Hidayat’s gold pen won in school for his scholarship for the same reason. Hidayat felt disrespected, disregarded and disavowed throughout his childhood. Hidayat was not only challenging his brother by eloping with his brother’s secretary but also his mother and extended family. Hidayat's only unconditional support would be from his father's younger brother, Murshid Musharaff Khan and his aunt Savitri van Rossem du Chattel (see engagement letter above).

​

Hidayat wrote this poem at 14 years of age:

​

            Mon Cœur Languit Pour Toi                      My Heart Yearns For You

            Ne sais-tu pas, ma bien-aimée                  Do you not know, my beloved

            Qu’un Cœur languit pour toi?                   That a heart yearns for you?

            Dans l’océan de ta beauté,                          In the ocean of your beauty,

            Ce Cœur languissant se noie.                     This yearning heart drowns.

            Ne sais-tu pas, O ma Chérie                       Do you not know, o my dear one,

            Que languir tous les jours                          That to yearn every day

            Est un Plaisir qui me réjouit                      Is a pleasure that rejoices me

            Et m’exalte d’amour?                                  And exalts me with love?

According to Hidayat, they married in Belgium (to be verified when the marriage certificate is found). Hidayat confided that they were much in love. Mischievously he told me how they were so ignorant of sexuality that they did not know what to do on their nuptial night, but as he said with a smile, they eventually figured it out together. It brought to mind images of some classic Bollywood movie showing the budding innocence of pure love without any touching or kissing until the nuptial night. The emotions intensely felt through a stolen glance, a faint smile, were expressed without words, revealing subtly such intense feelings of pure love. A mix of Philia and Agape describes Hidayat tenderly remembering the affectionate, warm and tender platonic love with an unconditional acceptance of his beloved giving him the strength to defy his mother and brother.

​

Hidayat and Leny (i will use Helena's nickname) shared the same ideal of love, harmony, and beauty and lived their intimate and affectionate romance until their elopement. They were both living in this cocoon of daily music, spiritual practices, prayers, and Sufi studies. They were both Sufi students in the lineage of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

​

Hidayat’s younger sister, Claire Harper remembered that late summer of 1939; Hidayat was married to Leny (later also called Iman) (22) and spent much of his time in Holland.  

Murshida Fazal Mai left for Holland and passed away (22). They meet her again as Leny was her companion and student. Fazal Mai died in 1939 and Hidayat told Hamida that he was with her for the last 3 days, she was in a coma and the 3rd day all of a sudden she opened her eyes, looked up and then said: ‘Murshi, is that you?’ and died peacefully. (she never pronounced the d, always said ‘Murshi’). Murshida Fazal Mai Egeling passed away on 27th December 1939, at Arnhem, the Netherlands, at the age of 79.

​

Sometime before May 10, 1940, under German advances in Europe and the pressure of war, Hidayat and Helena came back to Suresnes’ family house putting their family in front of the “fait accompli.” They were rejected and according to Hidayat, his brother Vilayat closed the front door and did not let them come in. He may not have acted on his own as the “big brother” but in agreement with their mother Ameena Begum who must not have agreed to Helena (Leny) Flentge as her daughter in law.

​

Hidayat and Helena (Leny) went to Savitri van Rossum du Chattel, Musharaff Khan (11)’s wife, who immediately agreed to welcome them. They lived “rue de l’Avenir” or Street of the Future in Reuil-Malmaison, not even a mile away from “rue de la Tuilerie”, Tuilerie Street in Suresnes. When she married him, Savitri was 9 years older than Musharaff. This could have been a contributing factor for her unconditional support for Helena's marriage with Hidayat as Helena was 8 years older than Hidayat. Hidayat and his uncle Musharaff remained close for a lifetime as many letters from Hidayat demonstrates it. 

​

September 1, 1939, marked the German Invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II. September 3, 1939, France declared war to Germany, following the invasion of its Polish ally. In the six weeks from May 10, 1940, German forces defeated Allied forces by mobile operations and conquered France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

In May 1940, with the debacle following the battle of France, 1200 refugees arrived in Dieulefit, Drome in the South of France. This was just one village but Hidayat and Helena ended up finding refuge there. 

​

All the Inayat-Khan children had British passports and by June 1940, they had prepared to leave.

​

This was the time of the great exodus in the whole of France. Ameena Begum Inayat-Khan (Ora Ray Baker) left for London with her children Vilayat Bhaijan (elder brother), Khairunissa (Claire Ray Harper) ‘Mamuli’ and Noor-un-Nissa ‘Rusa’ (little Russian) ‘babuli’ using initially Vilayat’s MG sports car.

​

Hidayat Bhayajan (little brother or younger) and Helena (Leny) went with Savitri and Musharaff in Hidayat’s car. As they were leaving, they heard the sound of guns in the distance and that precipitated their departure. Hidayat took with him the study papers called Gathas, Gitas, Sangathas, Sangitas and other documents that he did not want to leave in an empty house, and put everything on top of his car.

Hidayat initially followed Vilayat’s car towards Tours where they lost each other in the pandemonium of such incredible exodus.

​

June 14, 1940, German troops occupied Paris and June 22, 1940, France signed the Armistice and was cut in two zones with a supposedly Free Zone in the south of France administered by the Vichy government and Marechal Petain.

​

On August 18, 1940, Hidayat sent his family, now in London, a letter from Solignac (22), France. Solignac is 150 miles south of Tours:

​

            Dearest Vilayat,

            Since receiving your telegram from Le Verdon, we have been living in anxiousness about you all. What a blessing it was for us to receive news from you through our dear Mahtab (van Hoogendorp). We left La Tranche the day after the Armistice and arrived as far as our reserve of essence brought us. We are now at Solignac (Haute Vienne) in the “Chateau Marbouty.” This is a little village near Limoges… Nekbakht has returned to Suresnes and taken over to her home every important thing in Fazal Manzil. Fazal Manzil is occupied by the Germans. We heard that the Uncles in The Hague are well, we know not more about them… Please give my deepest love to the girls and to dear Amma.

                                                Love from Hidayat

​

La Tranche-sur-Mer is close to La Rochelle on the coast so Hidayat’s party must have attempted to find a boat for England and did not succeed. They decided June 23, 1940, to go east to Solignac, 190 miles near Limoges. They used all their gas by that time.

​

From there, Hidayat’s party found their way to Nice, on the French Riviera, six hundred miles southeast. They got there with Savitri and Musharaff. The uncle and his wife were eventually able to get to Switzerland and then India where they stayed during the war.

​

This is how the épopée (love epic) for Hidayat and Leny started as they were just married, fleeing south in fear of the German invasion and not able to join their immediate family who went to London.

​

​