My dear students, friends and colleagues,
FOR THE LAST two-three years, many of my female (and a few of my male) students, who have got married and have small children, are asking the question most parents face: How does a parent balance work and family?
As a parent, what do you think about balancing work and family?
I am asking some of my female (and male) friends, colleagues and students to share their experiences. This is an exploratory exercise, to test out the waters, hoping not to get my fingers bitten off.
If you are one of my friends or colleagues, what do you think of your solution to balancing work and family? How has it worked out for your children and for yourself? If you are one of my unmarried students, would you like to share how your parents balanced work and family?
To start the ball rolling, I asked one of my closest friends and colleagues, Gita Iyengar (nee Gopalakrishnan), to share her views and experiences.
Gita and I know each other from 1970, when we were National Science Talent scholars and we have been meeting each other, off and on, for the last 41 years. The principal of a school in Hyderabad, she has written 7 books, mostly for children. “Anyone Can Write” (Foundation Press, Hyderabad, 170 pages, Rs.195) written with Cheryl Rao and Meena Murdeshwar, guides children on how to write poems, features and stories.
I admire her simple and direct style, which has an elegant flow. Above all, I value her fiercely frank opinions.
------------------------------------
By Gita Iyengar (nee Gopalakrishnan)
WHEN MY FIRST child came along, I was working, and got the usual three months of maternity leave. I decided to wait and watch for some time how things would work. When I went back to work, my mother-in-law came to look after the baby. But that was strictly during the time I was at work.
I remember getting the cooking for the day done, getting my son bathed and fed before rushing off to work. The moment I entered the house again, I was back looking after the baby and the house again. So the first few months showed me how over-extended I was going to be.
My son also had an umbilical hernia, which needed surgery when he was 10 months old. So at that time, I tendered my resignation. But the management of the organisation took the trouble to talk to me and suggested that I just go on leave and think about it for some time. Six months later, I went back and confirmed that I wanted to let go my job.
*****
AT THE TIME, we were able to manage our expenses without too much of a hassle, as ours was a simple life style. I had plenty to do, so I didn't miss my job on that count either. The occasional question about what I was “doing”' didn't trouble me much. Besides, fewer women were working then, so most people around me accepted my choice. My husband hadn't particularly wanted me to stop working, but he did not at that time make an issue of it.
For myself, I enjoyed being with my first-born, and then with the second one, who came along a couple of years later. I think I was able to be relaxed and look after them, read to them, play with them, take them out to the park, and teach them many things along the way in the first few years. They were active children, and my elder son especially had to be kept out of mischief. I think being around them made it less stressful.
They were both sent to play school when they were about 18 months old. For the elder one, it was in anticipation of the arrival of the second child. Since it worked well in making him happily engaged and less dependent, I did that with the second one as well.
When my elder son was four, and the younger one two, I started on my Master’s degree. About that time, we started running a small dairy farm, and I was taking care of the distribution and billing. I did short-term stints at my children's schools as well. I followed that up by getting my degree in education.
I had also started doing some free-lance writing. I got back to regular work, outside of the home, when my sons were twelve and ten. During some of those years, it was free-lance work. It gave me the advantage of flexibility in timing. However, when assignments came in at the same time, I found I was sometimes working on four different jobs! At such times, I was often at work at different time slots from 6.30 am to 8 pm!
Still, there is a lot to be said for free-lance work. I found it stimulating. It also gave me, over a period of eight to nine years, such a continuing choice of assignments that I really never felt any insecurity about ‘not having a permanent job’. In fact, I did pass up one or two opportunities for full-time work.
Eventually, when this offer to work as principal of a very good school came along, I took time to think it through, and then joined. I had to make the journey back to working in a very structured environment.
*****
I THINK THAT along the way I also sequentially built identities for myself, though that was certainly not the main thing I was trying to do.
During the years when there was loads of work to get through both at home and outside, I think I managed because of some of the following factors :-
a) As a youngster, I had been brought up to do a certain bit of work around the home, and to take pride in getting things done. I had also grown up watching my mother, prioritising jobs aloud. That training, and a positive attitude, helped me.
b) My health and energy levels were pretty good.
c) I am calm, have some commonsense, and believe in net surpluses, which may not be immediately visible!
d) My system of making sure my family had a good breakfast and dinner, nutritious food with some flexibility but not too many frills, seemed to work.
e) I started trusting my children early to manage their personal toilet and baths; to eat; to do their home work and so on; and also to help with setting the table, to put away things; to do a bit of shopping nearby; and to take the bus to school. I supervised some of this activity, some of the time, but didn't believe in fussing.
f) I believed in guiding my children, but letting them make their choices, with the responsibility to work it out.
g) In India, one does get domestic help, most of the time.
*****
I KNOW THAT I have not said anything about my husband or others sharing chores. To be frank, most of the chores were my responsibility. My mother-in-law would help me a bit with getting vegetables cut, or supervising the maid's work, or minding the children. My husband would sometimes keep the boys engaged, or supervise their getting ready for school. On some Sundays, he made breakfast. However, it would not have been possible to extend that to a system of sharing chores on a regular basis.
I think now that, on the whole, it has worked out all right. My two sons are capable and independent individuals, comfortable in their own skin. And I'm doing all right as well.
---------------------------------------------------
Now that Gita has had her say, do you feel comfortable sharing your own experiences and views? Please let me know -- either way.
Gita has written about 1,000 words. If you wish to make a small comment, please do so in the comments section at the end of this post. If you wish to write a longer piece, ie, more than 400 words, please send it to me by email at: sangatizuzay@gmail.com and I will upload it as a separate post.
Your support is my strength.
Peace and love,
- Joe.
Pune, India; Sunday, 26 June 2011.
Showing posts with label mother. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mother. Show all posts
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Second innings: 3 years of living and loving
My dear students, friends and colleagues,
The second of September 2006 is the first day of my second innings. I am grateful to have got a second chance. So on Wednesday, 2 September this year, I complete Year 3; though on the wall calendar I have crossed 58 years on Mother Earth.
My colleagues at the Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana, Pune, tell me how I showed up at the office near Chaturshringi on Friday, 1 September. But then for the next three months, I missed my three-days-a-week at this NGO, founded by the social reformer, educationist and servant of India, Shantilal Muttha.
My students of the 2007 and 2008 batches still remember how I took lectures during the week ending Saturday, 2 September. But I did not turn up for classes from Monday, 4 September, because I was admitted to the Deenanath Hospital in Pune.
I had suffered a heart attack. Now that I survived and have been living and loving for the last three years, allow me to thank all the people who saw me through those days.
My wife Kalpana and daughter Pallavi were with me at home that evening. My brother-in-law Dr. Rajeev Joshi, was also in Pune and at home. Our neighbours at Swanand, Aapli Society, were also indoors. So when the heart attack came, the cardiac ambulance of the Pune Heart Brigade (phone 1050 from anywhere in Pune) could be summoned and rushed me within "the golden hour" to the hospital. My brother-in-law’s classmate Dr Shireesh Sathe, who operated on me, was also in town that weekend. I am lucky to have had all these people in their places that Saturday.
The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) run by the Pune Heart Brigade had saved 17,500 lives, including mine, till end 2007. Even today, whenever I visit a patient at Deenanath Hospital, I drop into the Casualty ward and thank the staff on ambulance duty, without whose prompt help I could not have been writing these words today.
*****
Flat on my back at home, with the unbearable pain crushing my rib-cage, I can still recall visualising my photo with a black border in the "Obituary" section of the papers next morning. I used to work night shifts at the sub desk and accept the obituary notices for the Maharashtra Herald in Pune, during 1983-90. So I mumbled to myself through the engulfing darkness, "This is it now for you, Joe!" Luckily, that was not to be.
I flatter myself to think that my family, friends, colleagues and students loved me too much to let me go –- so soon. Maybe I have some unfinished work to complete, before my turn comes. So, I got my second chance.
In the first few days of white, I cannot recall who came to visit me. But slowly the faces began to register. I remember each one of them with deep gratitude, for they put me back in touch with the blues and greens of the world outside.
As I left the hospital and was returning home in the ambulance, I could see the clouds breaking through, as the sun set. In the cloud-pictures, I like to think I saw my mother’s smiling face, welcoming me back into our world that she had left so abruptly in 1969.
Since the mid-1970s, I have not been a believer in life after death or supernatural powers. But I like to believe that the mother who gave me birth and, in that sense, lives within me as I breathe, wanted to complete her life cruelly cut short. She could not live it out fully herself.
Now I like to believe she was giving me, her son, a chance to live out his life -- and her life -- again. She lives in my memoir. Click on the links, alongside this post, to read the five parts.
*****
When I came back home, everything about my lifestyle would change completely: food and diet, regular exercise; yoga for stress management.
For opening my eyes to these neglected facts of life, I have to thank Dr. Dean Ornish’s "Program for Reversing Heart Disease: The Only System Scientifically Proven to Reverse Heart Disease Without Drugs or Surgery ". The book explains the kinds of food to eat and what to avoid, as well as the need for regular exercise and stress management through yoga.
Thank you, Ashok Gopal, for giving me the book. And D. for caring.
Dean Ornish, M.D., is the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, USA.
The first edition of Dean Ornish's Reversing Heart Disease, was published by Random House in 1990 and is available as a Ballantine paperback in India for Rs 250-300, depending on the discount. The 640-page book is priced 8 US dollars.
*****
First, food and diet.
When I look back at what I used to eat, especially the fried stuff (samosas, batata-wadas, bhaji, namkeen or farsan) and the bakery products, loaded with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils(butter, cakes, pattice, nankatai biscuits), I know now how I was inviting trouble.
Today, I resist these dangerously tasty items as pictures on menu-cards. I can identify them as the junk that clogs my arteries. And I turn my mouth away -- resolutely towards fruits and green leafy vegetables.
Second, regular exercise.
Having travelled like a gypsy (during my railway childhood and full-timer youth), I had reached the still stage, when I would return home tired and unwilling to travel -- from the living-room, to the bed-room, to the kitchen!!!
You can imagine how this shocking lack of exercise, combined with the “exertion” of lectures and the sedentary office was harming my body.
Third, yoga for stress management.
Dean Ornish opened my eyes to our India viraasat -- yoga and deep breathing, something I knew well, but was not doing. Yoga helps me to manage stress.
Even today, a five-minute stint of pranayam is sufficient to help me withstand the “chhote shaitans” (little devils) on Pune roads, darting about on their two-wheelers.
By February 2007, my weight had dropped from 87 kg to 65 kg. I managed to lose 22 kg during the first six months of my illness. My shirts and trousers hung around me like I was wearing a bedsheet, and I had to stitch new sets of clothes. This was the result of a strict fat-free diet, a regular brisk walk and yoga.
*****
Like all heart patients, I am struggling daily to keep to the strict regimen, suggested by Dean Ornish. Fortunately, I had had built up strong will-power, having given up smoking in 1982, after 11 years of being a chain-smoker.
I can resist the oily fried foods and crisp crunchy bakery products that I used to relish. For this, I have to thank my wife and daughter for supporting me to say, "NO!!!". My father had taught me yoga, which I always enjoyed. But I did not fully appreciate its deep and intimate connection with stress management.
What I find most difficult is to take a brisk 40-minute walk –- six days a week -- the cardiac exercise that my heart needs most.
So, I try to close my eyes and think of the Yeshwantrao Chavan municipal garden that forms one corner of the Shiv Darshan chowk (junction), near our Aapli cooperative housing society.
I first became friends with the mud and stones; trees, plants, dried fallen leaves and blooming flowers; crows and cats, in this small garden when I used to walk in it every day from the first week of December 2006. But I am sorry that I do not meet my natural friends as often as I must and I promise myself that I shall not let my body down.
With a lot of help from my family, friends, colleagues and students, I have humbly resisted the temptations that seduced me in the bad old days and unlearned some of the harmful habits that dragged me down.
Started on 2 October 2008, my blog has also helped me to swim "Against the Tide". As a part of the healing therapy that I have devised for myself, my blog has rebuilt and sustained a lifestyle that is healthy for me.
Thank you all. Your good wishes and messages carry me on. I look forward eagerly to your love and caring, as I enter my Year 4.
Your support is my strength,
- Joe.
Pune, India, Sunday, 30 August 2009.
The second of September 2006 is the first day of my second innings. I am grateful to have got a second chance. So on Wednesday, 2 September this year, I complete Year 3; though on the wall calendar I have crossed 58 years on Mother Earth.
My colleagues at the Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana, Pune, tell me how I showed up at the office near Chaturshringi on Friday, 1 September. But then for the next three months, I missed my three-days-a-week at this NGO, founded by the social reformer, educationist and servant of India, Shantilal Muttha.
My students of the 2007 and 2008 batches still remember how I took lectures during the week ending Saturday, 2 September. But I did not turn up for classes from Monday, 4 September, because I was admitted to the Deenanath Hospital in Pune.
I had suffered a heart attack. Now that I survived and have been living and loving for the last three years, allow me to thank all the people who saw me through those days.
My wife Kalpana and daughter Pallavi were with me at home that evening. My brother-in-law Dr. Rajeev Joshi, was also in Pune and at home. Our neighbours at Swanand, Aapli Society, were also indoors. So when the heart attack came, the cardiac ambulance of the Pune Heart Brigade (phone 1050 from anywhere in Pune) could be summoned and rushed me within "the golden hour" to the hospital. My brother-in-law’s classmate Dr Shireesh Sathe, who operated on me, was also in town that weekend. I am lucky to have had all these people in their places that Saturday.
The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) run by the Pune Heart Brigade had saved 17,500 lives, including mine, till end 2007. Even today, whenever I visit a patient at Deenanath Hospital, I drop into the Casualty ward and thank the staff on ambulance duty, without whose prompt help I could not have been writing these words today.
*****
Flat on my back at home, with the unbearable pain crushing my rib-cage, I can still recall visualising my photo with a black border in the "Obituary" section of the papers next morning. I used to work night shifts at the sub desk and accept the obituary notices for the Maharashtra Herald in Pune, during 1983-90. So I mumbled to myself through the engulfing darkness, "This is it now for you, Joe!" Luckily, that was not to be.
I flatter myself to think that my family, friends, colleagues and students loved me too much to let me go –- so soon. Maybe I have some unfinished work to complete, before my turn comes. So, I got my second chance.
In the first few days of white, I cannot recall who came to visit me. But slowly the faces began to register. I remember each one of them with deep gratitude, for they put me back in touch with the blues and greens of the world outside.
As I left the hospital and was returning home in the ambulance, I could see the clouds breaking through, as the sun set. In the cloud-pictures, I like to think I saw my mother’s smiling face, welcoming me back into our world that she had left so abruptly in 1969.
Since the mid-1970s, I have not been a believer in life after death or supernatural powers. But I like to believe that the mother who gave me birth and, in that sense, lives within me as I breathe, wanted to complete her life cruelly cut short. She could not live it out fully herself.
Now I like to believe she was giving me, her son, a chance to live out his life -- and her life -- again. She lives in my memoir. Click on the links, alongside this post, to read the five parts.
*****
When I came back home, everything about my lifestyle would change completely: food and diet, regular exercise; yoga for stress management.
For opening my eyes to these neglected facts of life, I have to thank Dr. Dean Ornish’s "Program for Reversing Heart Disease: The Only System Scientifically Proven to Reverse Heart Disease Without Drugs or Surgery ". The book explains the kinds of food to eat and what to avoid, as well as the need for regular exercise and stress management through yoga.
Thank you, Ashok Gopal, for giving me the book. And D. for caring.
Dean Ornish, M.D., is the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, USA.
The first edition of Dean Ornish's Reversing Heart Disease, was published by Random House in 1990 and is available as a Ballantine paperback in India for Rs 250-300, depending on the discount. The 640-page book is priced 8 US dollars.
*****
First, food and diet.
When I look back at what I used to eat, especially the fried stuff (samosas, batata-wadas, bhaji, namkeen or farsan) and the bakery products, loaded with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils(butter, cakes, pattice, nankatai biscuits), I know now how I was inviting trouble.
Today, I resist these dangerously tasty items as pictures on menu-cards. I can identify them as the junk that clogs my arteries. And I turn my mouth away -- resolutely towards fruits and green leafy vegetables.
Second, regular exercise.
Having travelled like a gypsy (during my railway childhood and full-timer youth), I had reached the still stage, when I would return home tired and unwilling to travel -- from the living-room, to the bed-room, to the kitchen!!!
You can imagine how this shocking lack of exercise, combined with the “exertion” of lectures and the sedentary office was harming my body.
Third, yoga for stress management.
Dean Ornish opened my eyes to our India viraasat -- yoga and deep breathing, something I knew well, but was not doing. Yoga helps me to manage stress.
Even today, a five-minute stint of pranayam is sufficient to help me withstand the “chhote shaitans” (little devils) on Pune roads, darting about on their two-wheelers.
By February 2007, my weight had dropped from 87 kg to 65 kg. I managed to lose 22 kg during the first six months of my illness. My shirts and trousers hung around me like I was wearing a bedsheet, and I had to stitch new sets of clothes. This was the result of a strict fat-free diet, a regular brisk walk and yoga.
*****
Like all heart patients, I am struggling daily to keep to the strict regimen, suggested by Dean Ornish. Fortunately, I had had built up strong will-power, having given up smoking in 1982, after 11 years of being a chain-smoker.
I can resist the oily fried foods and crisp crunchy bakery products that I used to relish. For this, I have to thank my wife and daughter for supporting me to say, "NO!!!". My father had taught me yoga, which I always enjoyed. But I did not fully appreciate its deep and intimate connection with stress management.
What I find most difficult is to take a brisk 40-minute walk –- six days a week -- the cardiac exercise that my heart needs most.
So, I try to close my eyes and think of the Yeshwantrao Chavan municipal garden that forms one corner of the Shiv Darshan chowk (junction), near our Aapli cooperative housing society.
I first became friends with the mud and stones; trees, plants, dried fallen leaves and blooming flowers; crows and cats, in this small garden when I used to walk in it every day from the first week of December 2006. But I am sorry that I do not meet my natural friends as often as I must and I promise myself that I shall not let my body down.
With a lot of help from my family, friends, colleagues and students, I have humbly resisted the temptations that seduced me in the bad old days and unlearned some of the harmful habits that dragged me down.
Started on 2 October 2008, my blog has also helped me to swim "Against the Tide". As a part of the healing therapy that I have devised for myself, my blog has rebuilt and sustained a lifestyle that is healthy for me.
Thank you all. Your good wishes and messages carry me on. I look forward eagerly to your love and caring, as I enter my Year 4.
Your support is my strength,
- Joe.
Pune, India, Sunday, 30 August 2009.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Stand up and be counted ...
A judgement of the Delhi High Court thrilled me -- no end.
I remembered with love and affection my dear friend from the 1970s, Askok Row Kavi of Mumbai, a bold journalist and daring editor for his pioneering magazine, Bombay Dost. I have supported the struggle Bombay Dost put up "against the tide" for all humans with a different sexuality.
In my classes, since 1987 in Pune, my students have learned to respect, promote and support various "minority" issues: the beautiful, special and different peoples and causes of our world. One of the reasons why I gave my blog the title, "Against the Tide" is to highlight "minority" issues and the resistance put up by minority groups and peoples.
For example, I have been asking some of my best students, who care deeply about stray dogs, to write about the persecution these street animals face from otherwise sane and respectable citizens.
Though we had pet dogs at home when we were children in Solapur and Manmad, my mother cared deeply about strays. In a quiet moment she would take me aside and warn me that, if I did not care deeply for and sustain my mother tongue, Konkani, this beautiful and ancient language could be annihilated like the stray dogs of this world.
Other issues are strictly not minority issues, but need to be taken up "as if" they affected a minority. For example in Pune, can you imagine that citizens have to campaign for pavements to walk upon? The rights of pedestrians are being neglected in Pune, while civic authorities are creating a city that is friendly for two-wheelers and cars.
Most citizens have to walk at some time or the other; so apparently pedestrian rights seem to concern the majority. But since the "right to walk safely" is being trampled upon, protecting pedestrian rights becomes a minority issue.
Lovers of trees, open spaces, gardens, the hill slopes, small water bodies, rivers, also have to be constantly vigilant. Trees, gardens and open spaces, that cannot protect themselves, are under threat.
My friend, Vinita Deshmukh, who edits the small but courageous weekly newspaper, Intelligent Pune, would say the Right to Information (RTI) law is also a key minority issue that needs to be stoutly defended, considering how even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants to scuttle this pro-people legislation by making “notings” by bureaucrats exempt from its purview.
We each can and ought to pick our own minority issue to campaign for. This is what makes us a democratic society, where citizens participate in governance and not merely vote in elections.
Your support is my strength,
- Joe.
Pune, India, Sunday, 12th July 2009.
I remembered with love and affection my dear friend from the 1970s, Askok Row Kavi of Mumbai, a bold journalist and daring editor for his pioneering magazine, Bombay Dost. I have supported the struggle Bombay Dost put up "against the tide" for all humans with a different sexuality.
In my classes, since 1987 in Pune, my students have learned to respect, promote and support various "minority" issues: the beautiful, special and different peoples and causes of our world. One of the reasons why I gave my blog the title, "Against the Tide" is to highlight "minority" issues and the resistance put up by minority groups and peoples.
For example, I have been asking some of my best students, who care deeply about stray dogs, to write about the persecution these street animals face from otherwise sane and respectable citizens.
Though we had pet dogs at home when we were children in Solapur and Manmad, my mother cared deeply about strays. In a quiet moment she would take me aside and warn me that, if I did not care deeply for and sustain my mother tongue, Konkani, this beautiful and ancient language could be annihilated like the stray dogs of this world.
Other issues are strictly not minority issues, but need to be taken up "as if" they affected a minority. For example in Pune, can you imagine that citizens have to campaign for pavements to walk upon? The rights of pedestrians are being neglected in Pune, while civic authorities are creating a city that is friendly for two-wheelers and cars.
Most citizens have to walk at some time or the other; so apparently pedestrian rights seem to concern the majority. But since the "right to walk safely" is being trampled upon, protecting pedestrian rights becomes a minority issue.
Lovers of trees, open spaces, gardens, the hill slopes, small water bodies, rivers, also have to be constantly vigilant. Trees, gardens and open spaces, that cannot protect themselves, are under threat.
My friend, Vinita Deshmukh, who edits the small but courageous weekly newspaper, Intelligent Pune, would say the Right to Information (RTI) law is also a key minority issue that needs to be stoutly defended, considering how even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants to scuttle this pro-people legislation by making “notings” by bureaucrats exempt from its purview.
We each can and ought to pick our own minority issue to campaign for. This is what makes us a democratic society, where citizens participate in governance and not merely vote in elections.
Your support is my strength,
- Joe.
Pune, India, Sunday, 12th July 2009.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
From Dubai, with my mother's song-book
We returned from Dubai on 29 June. That is one reason I missed my post last Sunday. Along with precious memories of :-
- a great holiday in the home of my only dearest sister Flavia;
- early morning walks and the smoothest of car drives with my brother-in-law Michael (more like a brother, actually);
- heart-to-heart chats with my two sprightly nieces, Rochelle (& Pradeep) and Nisha (& Roshan), and playing with their five wonderful kids;
- getting in touch with our umpteen relatives;
- breakfast with Reuven Proenca and lunch with Mansi Shah and Gunjan Chaurasia, three of my best students;
- and, above all, getting to re-know my beautiful, special and different nephew, Adrian Terence D'Souza, (click here to vote)
I have come home with a photo-copy of -- my mother's songbook!
More about Dubai, culled from this 12-day visit, in a later post. And more, gloriously much more, about my mother's 70-year-old song-book, when I can see again through the tears of the 40 years gone by, without her lovely smile.
*****
Look up the links of the "Blogs I Care About" displayed on the right, alongside this post. Most of the blogs are by my students, friends and colleagues. If you are the proud author of a blog, but it's not here on my list, please let me know in the comments section or email me at: sangatizuzay(at)gmail(dot)com.
Another year of learning beckons -- for you and for me. For some of us, learning will ignite in busy work places; for others learning will crackle within the four quiet walls of our homes. For me, a fresh batch of moist home-sick eyes and clean student ears will be eager to listen at SIMC, Ranade, Garware and the other places in Pune, where I learn. And what of learning for you, my dear students, friends, and colleagues?
At every desk, we weigh our words; walk the slack of balancing editorial policy with our conscience; shun the limelight; hold our heads high; censor the celebrity; protect the poor with compassion; "give peace a chance"; swim against the rich tide; lest we forget the children; leap at the scoop; and sleep the hard peace -- knowing we have done an honest job, fairly.
Your support is my strength,
- Joe.
Pune, India, Sunday, 5th July 2009.
- a great holiday in the home of my only dearest sister Flavia;
- early morning walks and the smoothest of car drives with my brother-in-law Michael (more like a brother, actually);
- heart-to-heart chats with my two sprightly nieces, Rochelle (& Pradeep) and Nisha (& Roshan), and playing with their five wonderful kids;
- getting in touch with our umpteen relatives;
- breakfast with Reuven Proenca and lunch with Mansi Shah and Gunjan Chaurasia, three of my best students;
- and, above all, getting to re-know my beautiful, special and different nephew, Adrian Terence D'Souza, (click here to vote)
I have come home with a photo-copy of -- my mother's songbook!
More about Dubai, culled from this 12-day visit, in a later post. And more, gloriously much more, about my mother's 70-year-old song-book, when I can see again through the tears of the 40 years gone by, without her lovely smile.
*****
Look up the links of the "Blogs I Care About" displayed on the right, alongside this post. Most of the blogs are by my students, friends and colleagues. If you are the proud author of a blog, but it's not here on my list, please let me know in the comments section or email me at: sangatizuzay(at)gmail(dot)com.
Another year of learning beckons -- for you and for me. For some of us, learning will ignite in busy work places; for others learning will crackle within the four quiet walls of our homes. For me, a fresh batch of moist home-sick eyes and clean student ears will be eager to listen at SIMC, Ranade, Garware and the other places in Pune, where I learn. And what of learning for you, my dear students, friends, and colleagues?
At every desk, we weigh our words; walk the slack of balancing editorial policy with our conscience; shun the limelight; hold our heads high; censor the celebrity; protect the poor with compassion; "give peace a chance"; swim against the rich tide; lest we forget the children; leap at the scoop; and sleep the hard peace -- knowing we have done an honest job, fairly.
Your support is my strength,
- Joe.
Pune, India, Sunday, 5th July 2009.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Lessons my mother learned me - Part 5
My dear students, friends and colleagues,
Words and songs. Words I have loved; my mother learned me to say and write them. Songs I have loved; my mother learned me to sing and hum them.
I used to hear from my uncle, the late Pius D’Cruz of Malad, Mumbai, that my mother Mary Therese D’Cruz, was a great Konkani playback singer. He said, in her heydays, she was called the “Lata Mangeshkar of the Konkani stage”.
Born on 6 October 1925 and educated in Mangalore, she came to Bombay with her brother and started to teach English in Hume High School, run by the American Marathi Mission at Byculla. My uncle finally got a job in Life Insurance Corporation. He too acted on the Konkani stage.
As a child, I had seen my mother’s song-book, from which she used to sing us songs. It was a plain ruled exercise book, the kind children use in school, and Mummy had written out the songs in her beautiful cursive hand-writing.
I wrote to my family, if any of them had seen her song-book. My sister Flavia has replied, “I have her song book and I have preserved it well. It would be of antique value now, I think. Some entries go back to 1940!” That means my mother started her song-book when she was 15 years old. As and when I lay my hands on a photo-copy of the song-book, I shall reproduce some of the songs.
*****
Here I have copied out the anthem of St Agnes College, Mangalore, where she studied and whose motto is “God is our Strength” to give you an idea of the values, which my mother held dear. She was brought up by the Apostolic Carmel (A.C) nuns, who were one of the deep and pervasive influences on her gentle yet strong character:
“God is our strength, let us commit
Our lives into His hands this day;
Trusting in Him to compass it
That we may find the perfect way.
“Fearless of foes, we cast aside
The days of ease we loved of yore;
And stand to the shock of battle-tide
Despite all trials hard and sore.
“God is our strength, why fear the foe?
His love like armour doth enfold
Our weak and wayward nature so,
That vanquished lies the tempter bold.
“Behold His arm of valour strong,
We'll cling to it in stormy fray,
Nor fear we any harm or wrong,
God is our strength, now and for aye.”
When I read the words of this anthem (I do not recall my mother singing it at home to us), I can hear the lyrical resonances of the Romantic English poets like Keats, Shelley, Byron, and Wordsworth, whom I have loved all my life.
*****
But I do remember another song that I hum to myself even today when I am down and out. My mother taught it to me. The song soothes and comforts me like a lullaby that puts a child to sleep. I can feel the caress of her soft hands and the smell of the “Afghan Snow” she used on her face and the Mysore Sandalwood soap on her body, as I sing it forlornly to myself.
The song she taught me is actually a Welsh song, “The Ash Grove”. I have taken it from the Net for your reading pleasure, though I can distinctly recall that the words my mother used to sing to us were different:
“Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander
When twilight is fading I pensively rove.
Or at the bright noontide in solitude wander
Amid the dark shades of the lonely ash grove.
“Twas there while the blackbird was cheerfully singing
I first met that dear one, the joy of my heart.
Around us for gladness the bluebells were ringing
Ah! then little thought I, how soon we should part.
“Still glows the bright sunshine o’er valley and mountain,
Still warbles the blackbird its note from the tree;
Still trembles the moonbeam on streamlet and fountain,
But what are the beauties of Nature to me?
“With sorrow, deep sorrow, my bosom is laden,
All day I go wandering in search of my love!
Ye echoes! oh tell me, where is the sweet maiden?
She sleeps ‘neath the green turf down by the Ash Grove.”
I have also discovered on 10 June 2009 some recordings on YouTube, which give a feel for the folk beauty of this Welsh song. The first is from the film "Pride and Prejudice", based on the classic novel by Jane Austen. The song Ash Grove starts at 1:02. These are the words I fondly recall my mother singing to us. Second, John Kovac plucks the song on harp, the music coming through so clearly for those who want to pick up the notes. Rosa Wol, soprano, also sings Ash Grove. You can feel the lingering beauty of the folk song by a classical singer. And then Nana Mouskouri presents her own husky version.
*****
If I recall these words and hum the tune to myself, I also remember the beautiful Hindi film songs she used to sing. Later, much later, when she was no more, my father gave me some audio-cassettes from his personal collection. Among them was his favourite song: “Tu mera chand, main teri chandni” from Dillagi (1949). The singers are Suraiyya and Shyam. Lyrics by Shakeel Badayuni and music composed by Naushad.
“Tu meraa chaand main teri chaandni.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
Tu meraa chaand main teri chaandni.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
Ho, nahin dil ka lagaanaa koyi dillagi, koyi dillagi,
Nahin dil ka lagaanaa koyi dillagi, koyi dillagi.
“Saath hi jeenaa saath hi marnaa,
Ulfat ki hai reet, haan, ulfat ki hai reet.
Saath hi jeenaa saath hi marnaa,
Ulfat ki hai reet, haan, ulfat ki hai reet.
Pyaar ki murli hardam gaaye teri lagan ke geet.
Pyaar ki murli hardam gaaye teri lagan ke geet.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
Tu meraa chaand main teri chaandni.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
“Bhool na jaanaa rut ye suhaani,
Ye din aur ye raat, haan, ye din aur ye raat.
Bhool na jaanaa rut ye suhaani,
Ye din aur ye raat, haan, ye din aur ye raat.
Jab tak chamke chaand sitaare, dekho chhoote na saath.
Jab tak chamke chaand sitaare, dekho chhoote na saath.
Tu meraa chaand main teri chaandni.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
Ho, nahin dil ka lagaanaa koyi dillagi, koyi dillagi.”
Theirs was a love marriage of the 1950s, consumated along the railway line. And I can recall my mother singing this haunting 1949 number, at my father's request. She died on 2 May 1969, just 20 days before their nineteenth wedding anniversary. Tears used to roll down his eyes, as he thought about her, listening to this black and white melody. He out-lived her by 32 years and passed away in Pune on 26 March 2001.
One day, while I was browsing I chanced upon the Scottish folk-song "Roaming in the Gloaming" by Sir Harry Lauder, a 12-inch, 4-minute recording from the 1930s. I recall my mother singing the chorus lines. By and by, the tune would come to me, whenever I used to feel down and needed to get up and walk again. Click here.
I have already described how she learned me to cook. And she also learned me how to control and modulate my voice. She trained me to exercise my lungs and control my breathing so that I could “throw” my voice, while speaking and singing. I use this technique today when I give lectures, though the latest microphone and loudspeaker technology has conspired to make speakers and singers lazy, just as computers and the Internet have made journalists slothful.
*****
Gauri Gharpure has requested me, “Can we see a picture of the great lady?” In response to her query, I quote my sister’s letter again, “I have a not-so-clear picture of Mummy. Dad used to say she had an aversion for photos. Seems when you and Leslie were small (before I was born), on one happy day they were sitting and admiring both of you. Mum said, ‘We must take a family picture.’ The very next day it seems both of you came down with a bad cold and fever, which eventually led to whooping cough. Soon, she had a pair of sick babies to care for the next three months! So that’s the reason why she had this aversion for taking pictures.”
My father also told me that he used to carry a beautiful photograph of our Mummy, which she had given him in the days before they got married. He kept her photo, which showed her in pigtails, in his wallet safely in the back-pocket of his trousers. One day, his purse was picked as he was getting on to a BEST bus. And gone was the picture of our beloved mother in pigtails!
Eventually, because of the manner in which he lost her picture to a pick-pocket, my father stopped stitching back-pockets for his trousers! Even today, I do not carry a wallet, preferring instead to carry my money in re-used plastic pouches that are made to pack milk.
Because of our mother’s aversion for having her or our photographs taken, we do not have her picture. My sister has a not-so-clear picture. So Gauri, you can see the blurred picture of my mother (see the margin at the top of my blog), now that my sister has sent me the scanned picture on 27 May.
But what do I care that I do not possess a clear photograph of the mother I love? She is engraved in the deepest recesses of my heart and mind; she abides in the secret nooks and crannies of my memory; she sings her songs and hums to me as I drift off into sleep and move awake; she is imprinted in my mind’s eye; she stands fearless before me today, walks with me, her hand on my shoulder; undiminished and unvanquished by the passage of forty years.
*****
Much after I wrote this post, I chanced upon this 9 November 2008 poem,
Kya tum samjhogi ma? (Will you understand, mother?) by Smriti Mudgal, one of my SIMC students, who has already written two beautiful pieces earlier for my blog on Mumbai and a tribute to her school-teacher, the late Chitra ma'am. Smriti has a blog "Ambaree" in Hindi which I could not read till today, 4 June 2009, due to the Devanagari font. But I share the universal feelings Smriti expresses, and I am sure, that my mother though gone 40 years now would have understood.
This is the fifth and final part, concluding the series of memoirs on my mother. I await your comments and suggestions, since I intend to publish a small printed book in her memory.
Your support is my strength.
- Joe.
Pune, Monday, 25 May 2009.
Words and songs. Words I have loved; my mother learned me to say and write them. Songs I have loved; my mother learned me to sing and hum them.
I used to hear from my uncle, the late Pius D’Cruz of Malad, Mumbai, that my mother Mary Therese D’Cruz, was a great Konkani playback singer. He said, in her heydays, she was called the “Lata Mangeshkar of the Konkani stage”.
Born on 6 October 1925 and educated in Mangalore, she came to Bombay with her brother and started to teach English in Hume High School, run by the American Marathi Mission at Byculla. My uncle finally got a job in Life Insurance Corporation. He too acted on the Konkani stage.
As a child, I had seen my mother’s song-book, from which she used to sing us songs. It was a plain ruled exercise book, the kind children use in school, and Mummy had written out the songs in her beautiful cursive hand-writing.
I wrote to my family, if any of them had seen her song-book. My sister Flavia has replied, “I have her song book and I have preserved it well. It would be of antique value now, I think. Some entries go back to 1940!” That means my mother started her song-book when she was 15 years old. As and when I lay my hands on a photo-copy of the song-book, I shall reproduce some of the songs.
*****
Here I have copied out the anthem of St Agnes College, Mangalore, where she studied and whose motto is “God is our Strength” to give you an idea of the values, which my mother held dear. She was brought up by the Apostolic Carmel (A.C) nuns, who were one of the deep and pervasive influences on her gentle yet strong character:
“God is our strength, let us commit
Our lives into His hands this day;
Trusting in Him to compass it
That we may find the perfect way.
“Fearless of foes, we cast aside
The days of ease we loved of yore;
And stand to the shock of battle-tide
Despite all trials hard and sore.
“God is our strength, why fear the foe?
His love like armour doth enfold
Our weak and wayward nature so,
That vanquished lies the tempter bold.
“Behold His arm of valour strong,
We'll cling to it in stormy fray,
Nor fear we any harm or wrong,
God is our strength, now and for aye.”
When I read the words of this anthem (I do not recall my mother singing it at home to us), I can hear the lyrical resonances of the Romantic English poets like Keats, Shelley, Byron, and Wordsworth, whom I have loved all my life.
*****
But I do remember another song that I hum to myself even today when I am down and out. My mother taught it to me. The song soothes and comforts me like a lullaby that puts a child to sleep. I can feel the caress of her soft hands and the smell of the “Afghan Snow” she used on her face and the Mysore Sandalwood soap on her body, as I sing it forlornly to myself.
The song she taught me is actually a Welsh song, “The Ash Grove”. I have taken it from the Net for your reading pleasure, though I can distinctly recall that the words my mother used to sing to us were different:
“Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander
When twilight is fading I pensively rove.
Or at the bright noontide in solitude wander
Amid the dark shades of the lonely ash grove.
“Twas there while the blackbird was cheerfully singing
I first met that dear one, the joy of my heart.
Around us for gladness the bluebells were ringing
Ah! then little thought I, how soon we should part.
“Still glows the bright sunshine o’er valley and mountain,
Still warbles the blackbird its note from the tree;
Still trembles the moonbeam on streamlet and fountain,
But what are the beauties of Nature to me?
“With sorrow, deep sorrow, my bosom is laden,
All day I go wandering in search of my love!
Ye echoes! oh tell me, where is the sweet maiden?
She sleeps ‘neath the green turf down by the Ash Grove.”
I have also discovered on 10 June 2009 some recordings on YouTube, which give a feel for the folk beauty of this Welsh song. The first is from the film "Pride and Prejudice", based on the classic novel by Jane Austen. The song Ash Grove starts at 1:02. These are the words I fondly recall my mother singing to us. Second, John Kovac plucks the song on harp, the music coming through so clearly for those who want to pick up the notes. Rosa Wol, soprano, also sings Ash Grove. You can feel the lingering beauty of the folk song by a classical singer. And then Nana Mouskouri presents her own husky version.
*****
If I recall these words and hum the tune to myself, I also remember the beautiful Hindi film songs she used to sing. Later, much later, when she was no more, my father gave me some audio-cassettes from his personal collection. Among them was his favourite song: “Tu mera chand, main teri chandni” from Dillagi (1949). The singers are Suraiyya and Shyam. Lyrics by Shakeel Badayuni and music composed by Naushad.
“Tu meraa chaand main teri chaandni.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
Tu meraa chaand main teri chaandni.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
Ho, nahin dil ka lagaanaa koyi dillagi, koyi dillagi,
Nahin dil ka lagaanaa koyi dillagi, koyi dillagi.
“Saath hi jeenaa saath hi marnaa,
Ulfat ki hai reet, haan, ulfat ki hai reet.
Saath hi jeenaa saath hi marnaa,
Ulfat ki hai reet, haan, ulfat ki hai reet.
Pyaar ki murli hardam gaaye teri lagan ke geet.
Pyaar ki murli hardam gaaye teri lagan ke geet.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
Tu meraa chaand main teri chaandni.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
“Bhool na jaanaa rut ye suhaani,
Ye din aur ye raat, haan, ye din aur ye raat.
Bhool na jaanaa rut ye suhaani,
Ye din aur ye raat, haan, ye din aur ye raat.
Jab tak chamke chaand sitaare, dekho chhoote na saath.
Jab tak chamke chaand sitaare, dekho chhoote na saath.
Tu meraa chaand main teri chaandni.
Main teraa raag tu meri raagini.
Ho, nahin dil ka lagaanaa koyi dillagi, koyi dillagi.”
Theirs was a love marriage of the 1950s, consumated along the railway line. And I can recall my mother singing this haunting 1949 number, at my father's request. She died on 2 May 1969, just 20 days before their nineteenth wedding anniversary. Tears used to roll down his eyes, as he thought about her, listening to this black and white melody. He out-lived her by 32 years and passed away in Pune on 26 March 2001.
One day, while I was browsing I chanced upon the Scottish folk-song "Roaming in the Gloaming" by Sir Harry Lauder, a 12-inch, 4-minute recording from the 1930s. I recall my mother singing the chorus lines. By and by, the tune would come to me, whenever I used to feel down and needed to get up and walk again. Click here.
I have already described how she learned me to cook. And she also learned me how to control and modulate my voice. She trained me to exercise my lungs and control my breathing so that I could “throw” my voice, while speaking and singing. I use this technique today when I give lectures, though the latest microphone and loudspeaker technology has conspired to make speakers and singers lazy, just as computers and the Internet have made journalists slothful.
*****
Gauri Gharpure has requested me, “Can we see a picture of the great lady?” In response to her query, I quote my sister’s letter again, “I have a not-so-clear picture of Mummy. Dad used to say she had an aversion for photos. Seems when you and Leslie were small (before I was born), on one happy day they were sitting and admiring both of you. Mum said, ‘We must take a family picture.’ The very next day it seems both of you came down with a bad cold and fever, which eventually led to whooping cough. Soon, she had a pair of sick babies to care for the next three months! So that’s the reason why she had this aversion for taking pictures.”
My father also told me that he used to carry a beautiful photograph of our Mummy, which she had given him in the days before they got married. He kept her photo, which showed her in pigtails, in his wallet safely in the back-pocket of his trousers. One day, his purse was picked as he was getting on to a BEST bus. And gone was the picture of our beloved mother in pigtails!
Eventually, because of the manner in which he lost her picture to a pick-pocket, my father stopped stitching back-pockets for his trousers! Even today, I do not carry a wallet, preferring instead to carry my money in re-used plastic pouches that are made to pack milk.
Because of our mother’s aversion for having her or our photographs taken, we do not have her picture. My sister has a not-so-clear picture. So Gauri, you can see the blurred picture of my mother (see the margin at the top of my blog), now that my sister has sent me the scanned picture on 27 May.
But what do I care that I do not possess a clear photograph of the mother I love? She is engraved in the deepest recesses of my heart and mind; she abides in the secret nooks and crannies of my memory; she sings her songs and hums to me as I drift off into sleep and move awake; she is imprinted in my mind’s eye; she stands fearless before me today, walks with me, her hand on my shoulder; undiminished and unvanquished by the passage of forty years.
*****
Much after I wrote this post, I chanced upon this 9 November 2008 poem,
Kya tum samjhogi ma? (Will you understand, mother?) by Smriti Mudgal, one of my SIMC students, who has already written two beautiful pieces earlier for my blog on Mumbai and a tribute to her school-teacher, the late Chitra ma'am. Smriti has a blog "Ambaree" in Hindi which I could not read till today, 4 June 2009, due to the Devanagari font. But I share the universal feelings Smriti expresses, and I am sure, that my mother though gone 40 years now would have understood.
This is the fifth and final part, concluding the series of memoirs on my mother. I await your comments and suggestions, since I intend to publish a small printed book in her memory.
Your support is my strength.
- Joe.
Pune, Monday, 25 May 2009.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Lessons my mother learned me - Part 4
My dear students, friends and colleagues,
Small is beautiful, and some of the smaller lessons I learned from my mother I remember today as vividly as her love for Konkani.
For example, her lessons in cooking. My mother learned me all the basics of cooking - making rice, dal, and vegetables. And I can clean, cut and cook meat and fish. But I do not like chicken. My mother, however, took a lot of trouble in learning me patiently the intricacies of spices and grinding masalas on the traditional stone used in Mangalorean cooking.
I recall sitting with her as she measured out the spices for various dishes and I was her obedient helper for grinding masalas, cutting vegetables, salads and fruits. She used to say, "Tuka aun randap shikaitan. Tuzhem kajar zalya uprant, muzhea sunek, muzho udas yeje." (I will teach you to cook. After you get married, my daughter-in-law must remember me.)
I think she was a traditional wife, accepting a woman's duty to cook for the family and the home. But, secretly, I know she hoped for another world in the future, where women would be equal to men and work shoulder to shoulder. And for that brave new "Amrita Pritam" world, she wanted to prepare her eldest son, by learning him how to cook.
Unfortunately, by the time I got married in 1982, my mother had been gone 13 years. But I tell my wife that if I can cook, it is because of my mother. I cannot claim to be a good cook, though I can cook well enough to live without having to depend on others. However, cooking is not something I would do for a living.
*****
How do I miss her lessons, let me count the ways?
As a little boy, I remember we had just entered a new house in Nagpur. It was pitch dark and the railway khalasis, who unpacked the luggage and the boxes went away leaving us three children alone with our mother. I must have been five years old. And one of my memories is carrying a kerosene lantern at the head of a line, with my brother and sister behind me with my mother at the end. And I can hear her comforting voice behind me, "Bhein naka, Babu, aun thuzhea patlyan asan." (Do not be afraid, Babu, I am behind you.")
She is not with me today. But I do not fear the dark. For she is always behind me, taking care of the unknown.
She always called me "Babu" at home. As I grew up, I used to feel ashamed when she called me "Babu" in front of my friends. For I felt I had grown up and was too big to be called "Babu". My teachers used to call me "Joe" in school and college. But she did not mend her fond ways.
Today as I reflect on her habit of calling me "Babu", I prefer to believe it was a pet name for her eldest son, a honeymoon child, born within nine months of her marriage on 22 May 1950. Calculate the days, I was born on 5 March 1951.
Do not be afraid.
*****
One more story, my grandmother "Manjya" told me when I grew older and I will be done with this fourth part of my serial memoir. "Manjya" (why did we call our mother's mother by that name?), told me that once when I was a little baby in my mother's arms and she was expecting her second child, she had been waiting at a bus-stop.
Suddenly, she was overcome by a fainting spell. My mother handed me over to a stranger saying, "Aka sambhal." (Take care of him.) And fainted.
Even today, when I see a pregnant woman carrying a baby, I recall my mother at that bus-stop and see myself being carried by my mother. Maybe such a story stirs in me compassion for the weak and helpless. Maybe it is such a story that inspires me to trust complete strangers. For didn't my mother entrust me to the care of a stranger that day? Is that where our values are born?
Trust people, even strangers. Help the weak.
*****
How I miss the lessons my mother learned me?
Next Sunday, in the final and concluding part of this 5-part series on my mother, I shall write about the simple songs my mother sang me, and the great singing my mother learned me.
Your support is my strength.
- Joe.
Pune, Sunday, 17th May 2009.
Small is beautiful, and some of the smaller lessons I learned from my mother I remember today as vividly as her love for Konkani.
For example, her lessons in cooking. My mother learned me all the basics of cooking - making rice, dal, and vegetables. And I can clean, cut and cook meat and fish. But I do not like chicken. My mother, however, took a lot of trouble in learning me patiently the intricacies of spices and grinding masalas on the traditional stone used in Mangalorean cooking.
I recall sitting with her as she measured out the spices for various dishes and I was her obedient helper for grinding masalas, cutting vegetables, salads and fruits. She used to say, "Tuka aun randap shikaitan. Tuzhem kajar zalya uprant, muzhea sunek, muzho udas yeje." (I will teach you to cook. After you get married, my daughter-in-law must remember me.)
I think she was a traditional wife, accepting a woman's duty to cook for the family and the home. But, secretly, I know she hoped for another world in the future, where women would be equal to men and work shoulder to shoulder. And for that brave new "Amrita Pritam" world, she wanted to prepare her eldest son, by learning him how to cook.
Unfortunately, by the time I got married in 1982, my mother had been gone 13 years. But I tell my wife that if I can cook, it is because of my mother. I cannot claim to be a good cook, though I can cook well enough to live without having to depend on others. However, cooking is not something I would do for a living.
*****
How do I miss her lessons, let me count the ways?
As a little boy, I remember we had just entered a new house in Nagpur. It was pitch dark and the railway khalasis, who unpacked the luggage and the boxes went away leaving us three children alone with our mother. I must have been five years old. And one of my memories is carrying a kerosene lantern at the head of a line, with my brother and sister behind me with my mother at the end. And I can hear her comforting voice behind me, "Bhein naka, Babu, aun thuzhea patlyan asan." (Do not be afraid, Babu, I am behind you.")
She is not with me today. But I do not fear the dark. For she is always behind me, taking care of the unknown.
She always called me "Babu" at home. As I grew up, I used to feel ashamed when she called me "Babu" in front of my friends. For I felt I had grown up and was too big to be called "Babu". My teachers used to call me "Joe" in school and college. But she did not mend her fond ways.
Today as I reflect on her habit of calling me "Babu", I prefer to believe it was a pet name for her eldest son, a honeymoon child, born within nine months of her marriage on 22 May 1950. Calculate the days, I was born on 5 March 1951.
Do not be afraid.
*****
One more story, my grandmother "Manjya" told me when I grew older and I will be done with this fourth part of my serial memoir. "Manjya" (why did we call our mother's mother by that name?), told me that once when I was a little baby in my mother's arms and she was expecting her second child, she had been waiting at a bus-stop.
Suddenly, she was overcome by a fainting spell. My mother handed me over to a stranger saying, "Aka sambhal." (Take care of him.) And fainted.
Even today, when I see a pregnant woman carrying a baby, I recall my mother at that bus-stop and see myself being carried by my mother. Maybe such a story stirs in me compassion for the weak and helpless. Maybe it is such a story that inspires me to trust complete strangers. For didn't my mother entrust me to the care of a stranger that day? Is that where our values are born?
Trust people, even strangers. Help the weak.
*****
How I miss the lessons my mother learned me?
Next Sunday, in the final and concluding part of this 5-part series on my mother, I shall write about the simple songs my mother sang me, and the great singing my mother learned me.
Your support is my strength.
- Joe.
Pune, Sunday, 17th May 2009.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Lessons my mother learned me - Parts 2, 3
My dear students, friends and colleagues,
Many of you, and even some relatives, were taken aback by the exclusive and fierce passion with which, according to my description in Part-1 of this memoir, my mother loved and lived the Konkani language.
A few words of background about my mother tongue may put her love for Konkani into perspective for you. Konkani used to be one of the “persecuted” languages. The Portuguese, who ruled Goa ruthlessly for nearly five centuries, proscribed and banned Konkani; they hounded the Konkani-speaking peoples mercilessly.
Soon the sweet and mellifluous language with its song-song intonations and gentle lexicon (recall the great dance and song from the Raj Kapoor film “Bobby”) was driven into hiding, degraded into being uttered by maid-servants, cooks, farmers, labourers and lowly, humble menial folk.
A few wise and learned Gaud Saraswat Brahmins, both Christian and Hindu, who were aware of Konkani’s ancient linguistic heritage, nursed the language in the private secrecy of their personal homes.
Severe persecution (Goans were skinned and flayed alive) and conversions also forced the Konkani-speaking peoples to flee and migrate on a mass scale. This is the beginning of the Konkani Diaspora; still going on, though for entirely different reasons now.
With her sensitive heart, perceptive mind and vast reading, my mother inherited this Konkani legacy and was determined to preserve Konkani, even if it was only in her own family and home.
Our family, the D’cruzes and the Pintos, knows that my mother’s ancestors, mostly with the Rodrigues surname, moved away from the taluka of Pernem, in Bardez, northern Goa, and found refuge and asylum in Mangalore more than two hundred years ago.
The Goan origins on my father’s side are unclear, though there are various unconfirmed hearsays that trace the Pinto line to the region of Cuncoliem, in Salcette, southern Goa.
The Konkani-speaking peoples, scattered throughout the world, were overjoyed when Goa was liberated from the cruel Portuguese colonialists in 1961. Goa became a state in 1987. After a long struggle, Konkani was declared the official language of Goa.
The sweet sing-song Konkani ‘bhas’ could now raise her shy head and walk, freed from official persecution; and out of the suppressive shadow of its sister languages, the dominant and arrogant Marathi, as well as the tolerant and protective Kannada, and come into her own.
*****
This background of persecution, dear reader, is necessary to appreciate why my mother, a teacher who spoke fluent English and an ardent student of history, barred us her children from speaking English at home. She knew that only under her own care, supervision, protection and vigilance; within the four walls of her own home where she reigned supreme with the consent of our father; completely out of reach and insulated from the cruel persecution of the State and the other dominant languages, her own tongue could be nurtured and survive – among her children.
During 1956-63, the lovely and quiet years I spent as a little boy in the railway towns of Jabalpur, Amla, Nagpur, Solapur and Manmad, my mother was able to imbibe in me love for and intimacy with Konkani. She is gone forty years, snatched from us. But ‘her’ Konkani voice abides with me like a holy picture, which even Death cannot steal like a thief in daylight.
I speak Konkani comfortably and with ease even today, because of her diligent ‘home schooling’ till I was 18 years old, and the occasional practice during langourous visits to our relatives in Mangalore. My mother was not, nor can I be, a fanatic supporter of Konkani, come what may.
Like her and my father, I am aware of the innate weaknesses, even among those who claim to be her protectors, for sometimes even ‘the fence may eat the crop’. But I can defend ‘amchi bhas’ from those who seek to confine and arrest her as a dialect of Marathi; or others who look down upon her, because she does not have one unique script.
How come then, you may ask, we studied in English medium schools? Sheer expediency. There were no Konkani medium schools in Mangalore, so my father and mother studied in Kannada medium schools, only later going to English medium colleges, my mother to St Agnes and my father to St Aloysius, both in Mangalore.
My father was working in the Signals & Telecommunication (S & T) Department of the Central Railways. So we were put in English medium schools, initially railway schools and then Jesuit or Convent schools, so that we did not ‘suffer’ when my father got transferred, which could be anywhere and without prior intimation, to a region where the medium of instruction in schools was Marathi or Hindi.
Later, when I got married to Kalpana, a Pune girl whose mother tongue is Marathi, it was natural for me that our daughter Pallavi, like my wife, studied in a Marathi medium school, with ‘semi-English’ for the science subjects. The school is called His Highness Chintamanrao Patwardhan (HHCP) High School for Girls, better known as ‘Huzurpaga’ (‘paga’, a stable, for the horses of ‘huzur’, his highness) located on Laxmi Road, Pune.
*****
Besides an abiding love for Konkani, my mother’s affair with that ancient language (with so many words of its corpus taken directly from Sanskrit) also learned me another lesson: the strong and mighty should protect the weak and meek. Throughout my career as a working journalist and a working editor, I have single-mindedly, openly and proudly championed minority issues. Let me take one example.
Encouraged and supported by my veteran seniors – S.D Wagh, Nalini Gera, Harry David, Taher Shaikh and Y.V. Krishnamurthy – as well as my warm colleagues – Vijay Lele, D. Sanjay, Ashok Gopal, Gouri Agtey-Athale, Usha Somayaji, Huned Contractor, Babu Kalyanpur and Mohan Sinha – in the thriving (till the late 90s) but now defunct Maharashtra Herald, I used to write, edit and rewrite stories as part of our ‘community’ beat, revealing the non-Maharashtrian, non-Marathi-speaking face of Pune.
Since 1983, we unearthed the Malayalis, Kannadigas, Tulus, Telugus, Tamils of south India in the bylanes of Rasta and Somwar Peth; the Bengalis and Oriyas in Khadki; the Gujaratis and Rajasthanis spread across the old city peths; the Hindi-speaking uttar bharatiya ‘biradari’ of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; the Punjabis and Sindhis (to whom the Sangtanis and Geras belong).
On this journey of discovering Pune, the spirit of my mother accompanied me, urging me to record the cultural silhouettes of the migrant communities, dig up their early history, their joys and sorrows as various communities arrived, struck roots and settled down … in a foreign land.
Aided by my mother’s love for Konkani culture, I could gain insights into the stirring motivations and driving forces that gave birth to and sustained the various community organisations, associations and clubs, which enrich the ancient city of Pune, providing an opportunity for the majority of Marathi-speaking people an opportunity to learn that India is, in reality, a throbbing and pulsating “unity in diversity”.
I soon realised that, try as they might and would, no religious fanatic or language chauvinist or opportunist manipulator, intoxicated by political ambition and poisoned by the resurgent ideology of a mythical golden past, could dare threaten the strong bonds laid down deep and watered daily by the lively communities, who rightfully and justly may call Pune – their very own.
*****
Yes, my mother loved Konkani ‘exclusively’ when she sensed concrete threats to her existence. But she also loved all the other languages of India and the world ‘inclusively’, when she tasted their sweet literature.
I repeat what I wrote in Part-1 of this memoir. “I see my mother in a kimono dress, sitting by a lighted window with the soft light falling across her face in profile. A book or magazine is in her hands and she is reading, head bent and often glancing around to keep an eye on us, her children. At other times, she is in the kitchen cooking, softly humming to herself some Konkani “cantara” (songs). But mostly she is reading, and sometimes, writing letters.”
So she recognised that her eldest son was, like her, also a passionate lover of the written and printed word and introduced me to the world of the universal imagination.
From among the hundreds of writers, I cite a few:
Russian: Dostevesky, Chekhov, Tolstoy and Pushkin;
Hindi: Munshi Premchand, Bhishma Sahni, Amrita Pritam;
French: Balzac, Maupassant, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola and Voltaire;
Bengali: Rabindranath Tagore;
Americans: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost and Walt Whitman;
Malayali: Vaikom Mohammed Bashir;
. . . and hundreds of other obsessed creatures like herself, story-tellers and weavers of books.
If you scrutinise this partial list, you may spot the defiance and rebellion in the names, their secular and universal feeling for all humans, the longing for peace and compassion for the poor and suffering.
These authors and their writings remain my companions, long after my mother passed away suddenly 40 years ago; but not before placing me gently into their safe laps and clasping their hands.
*****
That’s all for my weekly column, this Sunday. Parts 4 and 5 of this memoir on my mother, Amy Pinto (nee Mary Therese D’Cruz) of Mangalore, Karnataka, will appear on the coming Sundays, 17 and 24 May.
Your support is my strength,
- Joe.
Pune, Sunday, 10 May 2009.
Many of you, and even some relatives, were taken aback by the exclusive and fierce passion with which, according to my description in Part-1 of this memoir, my mother loved and lived the Konkani language.
A few words of background about my mother tongue may put her love for Konkani into perspective for you. Konkani used to be one of the “persecuted” languages. The Portuguese, who ruled Goa ruthlessly for nearly five centuries, proscribed and banned Konkani; they hounded the Konkani-speaking peoples mercilessly.
Soon the sweet and mellifluous language with its song-song intonations and gentle lexicon (recall the great dance and song from the Raj Kapoor film “Bobby”) was driven into hiding, degraded into being uttered by maid-servants, cooks, farmers, labourers and lowly, humble menial folk.
A few wise and learned Gaud Saraswat Brahmins, both Christian and Hindu, who were aware of Konkani’s ancient linguistic heritage, nursed the language in the private secrecy of their personal homes.
Severe persecution (Goans were skinned and flayed alive) and conversions also forced the Konkani-speaking peoples to flee and migrate on a mass scale. This is the beginning of the Konkani Diaspora; still going on, though for entirely different reasons now.
With her sensitive heart, perceptive mind and vast reading, my mother inherited this Konkani legacy and was determined to preserve Konkani, even if it was only in her own family and home.
Our family, the D’cruzes and the Pintos, knows that my mother’s ancestors, mostly with the Rodrigues surname, moved away from the taluka of Pernem, in Bardez, northern Goa, and found refuge and asylum in Mangalore more than two hundred years ago.
The Goan origins on my father’s side are unclear, though there are various unconfirmed hearsays that trace the Pinto line to the region of Cuncoliem, in Salcette, southern Goa.
The Konkani-speaking peoples, scattered throughout the world, were overjoyed when Goa was liberated from the cruel Portuguese colonialists in 1961. Goa became a state in 1987. After a long struggle, Konkani was declared the official language of Goa.
The sweet sing-song Konkani ‘bhas’ could now raise her shy head and walk, freed from official persecution; and out of the suppressive shadow of its sister languages, the dominant and arrogant Marathi, as well as the tolerant and protective Kannada, and come into her own.
*****
This background of persecution, dear reader, is necessary to appreciate why my mother, a teacher who spoke fluent English and an ardent student of history, barred us her children from speaking English at home. She knew that only under her own care, supervision, protection and vigilance; within the four walls of her own home where she reigned supreme with the consent of our father; completely out of reach and insulated from the cruel persecution of the State and the other dominant languages, her own tongue could be nurtured and survive – among her children.
During 1956-63, the lovely and quiet years I spent as a little boy in the railway towns of Jabalpur, Amla, Nagpur, Solapur and Manmad, my mother was able to imbibe in me love for and intimacy with Konkani. She is gone forty years, snatched from us. But ‘her’ Konkani voice abides with me like a holy picture, which even Death cannot steal like a thief in daylight.
I speak Konkani comfortably and with ease even today, because of her diligent ‘home schooling’ till I was 18 years old, and the occasional practice during langourous visits to our relatives in Mangalore. My mother was not, nor can I be, a fanatic supporter of Konkani, come what may.
Like her and my father, I am aware of the innate weaknesses, even among those who claim to be her protectors, for sometimes even ‘the fence may eat the crop’. But I can defend ‘amchi bhas’ from those who seek to confine and arrest her as a dialect of Marathi; or others who look down upon her, because she does not have one unique script.
How come then, you may ask, we studied in English medium schools? Sheer expediency. There were no Konkani medium schools in Mangalore, so my father and mother studied in Kannada medium schools, only later going to English medium colleges, my mother to St Agnes and my father to St Aloysius, both in Mangalore.
My father was working in the Signals & Telecommunication (S & T) Department of the Central Railways. So we were put in English medium schools, initially railway schools and then Jesuit or Convent schools, so that we did not ‘suffer’ when my father got transferred, which could be anywhere and without prior intimation, to a region where the medium of instruction in schools was Marathi or Hindi.
Later, when I got married to Kalpana, a Pune girl whose mother tongue is Marathi, it was natural for me that our daughter Pallavi, like my wife, studied in a Marathi medium school, with ‘semi-English’ for the science subjects. The school is called His Highness Chintamanrao Patwardhan (HHCP) High School for Girls, better known as ‘Huzurpaga’ (‘paga’, a stable, for the horses of ‘huzur’, his highness) located on Laxmi Road, Pune.
*****
Besides an abiding love for Konkani, my mother’s affair with that ancient language (with so many words of its corpus taken directly from Sanskrit) also learned me another lesson: the strong and mighty should protect the weak and meek. Throughout my career as a working journalist and a working editor, I have single-mindedly, openly and proudly championed minority issues. Let me take one example.
Encouraged and supported by my veteran seniors – S.D Wagh, Nalini Gera, Harry David, Taher Shaikh and Y.V. Krishnamurthy – as well as my warm colleagues – Vijay Lele, D. Sanjay, Ashok Gopal, Gouri Agtey-Athale, Usha Somayaji, Huned Contractor, Babu Kalyanpur and Mohan Sinha – in the thriving (till the late 90s) but now defunct Maharashtra Herald, I used to write, edit and rewrite stories as part of our ‘community’ beat, revealing the non-Maharashtrian, non-Marathi-speaking face of Pune.
Since 1983, we unearthed the Malayalis, Kannadigas, Tulus, Telugus, Tamils of south India in the bylanes of Rasta and Somwar Peth; the Bengalis and Oriyas in Khadki; the Gujaratis and Rajasthanis spread across the old city peths; the Hindi-speaking uttar bharatiya ‘biradari’ of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; the Punjabis and Sindhis (to whom the Sangtanis and Geras belong).
On this journey of discovering Pune, the spirit of my mother accompanied me, urging me to record the cultural silhouettes of the migrant communities, dig up their early history, their joys and sorrows as various communities arrived, struck roots and settled down … in a foreign land.
Aided by my mother’s love for Konkani culture, I could gain insights into the stirring motivations and driving forces that gave birth to and sustained the various community organisations, associations and clubs, which enrich the ancient city of Pune, providing an opportunity for the majority of Marathi-speaking people an opportunity to learn that India is, in reality, a throbbing and pulsating “unity in diversity”.
I soon realised that, try as they might and would, no religious fanatic or language chauvinist or opportunist manipulator, intoxicated by political ambition and poisoned by the resurgent ideology of a mythical golden past, could dare threaten the strong bonds laid down deep and watered daily by the lively communities, who rightfully and justly may call Pune – their very own.
*****
Yes, my mother loved Konkani ‘exclusively’ when she sensed concrete threats to her existence. But she also loved all the other languages of India and the world ‘inclusively’, when she tasted their sweet literature.
I repeat what I wrote in Part-1 of this memoir. “I see my mother in a kimono dress, sitting by a lighted window with the soft light falling across her face in profile. A book or magazine is in her hands and she is reading, head bent and often glancing around to keep an eye on us, her children. At other times, she is in the kitchen cooking, softly humming to herself some Konkani “cantara” (songs). But mostly she is reading, and sometimes, writing letters.”
So she recognised that her eldest son was, like her, also a passionate lover of the written and printed word and introduced me to the world of the universal imagination.
From among the hundreds of writers, I cite a few:
Russian: Dostevesky, Chekhov, Tolstoy and Pushkin;
Hindi: Munshi Premchand, Bhishma Sahni, Amrita Pritam;
French: Balzac, Maupassant, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola and Voltaire;
Bengali: Rabindranath Tagore;
Americans: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost and Walt Whitman;
Malayali: Vaikom Mohammed Bashir;
. . . and hundreds of other obsessed creatures like herself, story-tellers and weavers of books.
If you scrutinise this partial list, you may spot the defiance and rebellion in the names, their secular and universal feeling for all humans, the longing for peace and compassion for the poor and suffering.
These authors and their writings remain my companions, long after my mother passed away suddenly 40 years ago; but not before placing me gently into their safe laps and clasping their hands.
*****
That’s all for my weekly column, this Sunday. Parts 4 and 5 of this memoir on my mother, Amy Pinto (nee Mary Therese D’Cruz) of Mangalore, Karnataka, will appear on the coming Sundays, 17 and 24 May.
Your support is my strength,
- Joe.
Pune, Sunday, 10 May 2009.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Lessons my mother learned me - Part 1
My dear students, friends and colleagues,
Our mothers … and our fathers, are the most beautiful persons in the world to us. They are the kindest and the warmest. They may not be the wisest or the most intelligent, but they are the most caring. We are the only people that matter to them. Our parents think about us and feel for us like no one else. And our mothers are with us … all the time.
I imagine a part of the brain of our mothers is always switched on to their children. We may be at school or college; at work, travelling; in another part of the world; accessible by phone or remote and out of reach. But we, their own children, are held in the fondness of the hearts, cling close in the warmth of the hugs, fondled dear in the minds – of our mothers. We are the most beautiful persons in the world to our mothers … and our fathers.
Forty years after her death, my mother is the most beautiful person in my life. Saturday, the second of May this year, will mark her 40th death anniversary. Many of you who responded to my piece, “Along the line, at railway gate No. 58”, expressed an interest to know something more about my mother, since I had mentioned that she was known as the “Lata Mangeshkar of the Konkani stage”. Most of my relatives, whose parents knew my mother well, would also be happy to read about her, since they too knew her as children.
I was 18 years old and had just finished the second year of my B.Sc. in Chemistry at St Xavier’s College, when she left us on 2 May 1969. We were staying in a first floor flat at the Officers Quarters, along the railway line at Dadar (East), Mumbai. She had not been well for some time, and used to regularly visit a family doctor friend on the sixth floor. That day too, she walked out of our home in front of us like on any other day, telling us sitting there in the front living room that she was going to meet Dr Shrivastava.
A little while later, somebody screamed to tell us that she was lying on the ground below our balcony. It was an accident; she had vertigo, what is called “falling” sickness, I have it too, she must have gone in to the balcony and fallen.
The most beautiful and kindest person in my life had left us.
When I look back after these 40 years, how do I see her? I see her in a kimono dress, sitting by a lighted window with the soft light falling across her face in profile. A book or magazine is in her hands and she is reading, head bent and often glancing around to keep an eye on us, her children. At other times, she is in the kitchen cooking, softly humming to herself some Konkani “cantara” (songs). But mostly she is reading, and sometimes, writing letters.
From stories of her childhood told to us by her and our relatives, Mary Therese D’Cruz, the eldest daughter of Pauline and Joseph D’Cruz, resident of Urva, Mangalore, in South Kanara district of present-day Karnataka went to Lady Hill School and St Agnes College in Mangalore. Born on 6 October 1925, Mary had two brothers, Pius and the late John (who died of typhoid at the age of 14).
My grand-father was a “writer” in a coffee plantation and my grand-mother took care of the house. They were not poor not well off. I recall my mother’s resourcefulness at getting by with whatever we had; not cribbing, whining or moaning; and making do.
Mary passed out from St Agnes College, Mangalore, with History and English. So you can see where my passion for the two subjects comes from. She not only “learned me lessons” in English, but also the history of English literature. But for all her excellence at English, to her it was always and is today for me a “foreign” language.
Her one and only passion in life was Konkani – the language, the songs, the literature, the culture. She knew English well and spoke it fluently; we had been put in English medium schools for my father was a “transferable” railwayman. But she noticed, during 1956-63 when we were at Jabalpur, Nagpur, Solapur and Manmad, all railways towns on the Central Railway section, that we tended or tried to speak in Hindi or English at home.
I remember her swift response with gratitude and reverence today. It was strong, fierce and clear: she would reply to us if and only if we spoke to her in Konkani; otherwise she pretended she was deaf and had not heard us at all. We had no choice but to speak at home in Konkani. Our father too was happy with this rule, for he too was a lover of languages, not only Konkani but as many languages as you could learn.
When she referred to English she called it “porkiyo”, which meant “foreign”. When she referred to other languages like Hindi or Marathi, the languages spoken around us during those days, she called them “thanchi bhas” which meant “their language”.
Only Konkani to her was “amchi bhas” which meant “our language”. To her, the world was simple and divided into two parts, “them” and “us”. Us is Konkani.
*****
The next four parts of these memoirs on my mother will appear on the next four consecutive Sundays, 3, 10, 17, and 24 May. Make your comments here itself before you move to the next part of this column.
Our mothers … and our fathers, are the most beautiful persons in the world to us. They are the kindest and the warmest. They may not be the wisest or the most intelligent, but they are the most caring. We are the only people that matter to them. Our parents think about us and feel for us like no one else. And our mothers are with us … all the time.
I imagine a part of the brain of our mothers is always switched on to their children. We may be at school or college; at work, travelling; in another part of the world; accessible by phone or remote and out of reach. But we, their own children, are held in the fondness of the hearts, cling close in the warmth of the hugs, fondled dear in the minds – of our mothers. We are the most beautiful persons in the world to our mothers … and our fathers.
Forty years after her death, my mother is the most beautiful person in my life. Saturday, the second of May this year, will mark her 40th death anniversary. Many of you who responded to my piece, “Along the line, at railway gate No. 58”, expressed an interest to know something more about my mother, since I had mentioned that she was known as the “Lata Mangeshkar of the Konkani stage”. Most of my relatives, whose parents knew my mother well, would also be happy to read about her, since they too knew her as children.
I was 18 years old and had just finished the second year of my B.Sc. in Chemistry at St Xavier’s College, when she left us on 2 May 1969. We were staying in a first floor flat at the Officers Quarters, along the railway line at Dadar (East), Mumbai. She had not been well for some time, and used to regularly visit a family doctor friend on the sixth floor. That day too, she walked out of our home in front of us like on any other day, telling us sitting there in the front living room that she was going to meet Dr Shrivastava.
A little while later, somebody screamed to tell us that she was lying on the ground below our balcony. It was an accident; she had vertigo, what is called “falling” sickness, I have it too, she must have gone in to the balcony and fallen.
The most beautiful and kindest person in my life had left us.
When I look back after these 40 years, how do I see her? I see her in a kimono dress, sitting by a lighted window with the soft light falling across her face in profile. A book or magazine is in her hands and she is reading, head bent and often glancing around to keep an eye on us, her children. At other times, she is in the kitchen cooking, softly humming to herself some Konkani “cantara” (songs). But mostly she is reading, and sometimes, writing letters.
From stories of her childhood told to us by her and our relatives, Mary Therese D’Cruz, the eldest daughter of Pauline and Joseph D’Cruz, resident of Urva, Mangalore, in South Kanara district of present-day Karnataka went to Lady Hill School and St Agnes College in Mangalore. Born on 6 October 1925, Mary had two brothers, Pius and the late John (who died of typhoid at the age of 14).
My grand-father was a “writer” in a coffee plantation and my grand-mother took care of the house. They were not poor not well off. I recall my mother’s resourcefulness at getting by with whatever we had; not cribbing, whining or moaning; and making do.
Mary passed out from St Agnes College, Mangalore, with History and English. So you can see where my passion for the two subjects comes from. She not only “learned me lessons” in English, but also the history of English literature. But for all her excellence at English, to her it was always and is today for me a “foreign” language.
Her one and only passion in life was Konkani – the language, the songs, the literature, the culture. She knew English well and spoke it fluently; we had been put in English medium schools for my father was a “transferable” railwayman. But she noticed, during 1956-63 when we were at Jabalpur, Nagpur, Solapur and Manmad, all railways towns on the Central Railway section, that we tended or tried to speak in Hindi or English at home.
I remember her swift response with gratitude and reverence today. It was strong, fierce and clear: she would reply to us if and only if we spoke to her in Konkani; otherwise she pretended she was deaf and had not heard us at all. We had no choice but to speak at home in Konkani. Our father too was happy with this rule, for he too was a lover of languages, not only Konkani but as many languages as you could learn.
When she referred to English she called it “porkiyo”, which meant “foreign”. When she referred to other languages like Hindi or Marathi, the languages spoken around us during those days, she called them “thanchi bhas” which meant “their language”.
Only Konkani to her was “amchi bhas” which meant “our language”. To her, the world was simple and divided into two parts, “them” and “us”. Us is Konkani.
*****
The next four parts of these memoirs on my mother will appear on the next four consecutive Sundays, 3, 10, 17, and 24 May. Make your comments here itself before you move to the next part of this column.
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