ABSTRACT
Jehangir (Jean) Bhownagary, friend of Sultan Padamsee, wrote poems since he was 20 but did not publish till 1997 when he was nearing the end of his life. Born in Bombay to a Parsi father and a French mother, Jean considered Padamsee the seminal influence of his life. Padamsee could paint, write poetry, act in theatre, don costume, do magic tricks. But he chose to die at 23. His grieving family and friends continue his work. Akbar Padamsee turned to be a great painter, not to mention all the painters of the Bombay Progressive Group. Theatre was covered by his younger brother Alyque Padamsee and his family. In the 1940s, Bhownagary was seeing Padamsee in Bombay and dating Freny Nicholson of Poona who was writing a thesis in French on Bergson which she abandoned for family-making.
