A Goan village in Nagpur

Diary of an Infantryman

© Brig. Ian da Costa (Retd.), 2013

Published in 2013 by

Saligão 403511 Goa, India http://goa1556.goa-india.org [email protected]

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ISBN 978-93-80739-48-9 Rs 300

Contents

Foreword | Lt. General DD Saklani (Retd) 8

Acknowledgements 10

1 A Goan Family Away From Home 13

2 The Doctor and his Garden 21

3 A Goan Village... in Nagpur 29

4 Marriages... and School 42

5 On a Maiden Voyage 48

6 Beyond the Adolescent Years 53

7 The Best Days, at the NDA 56

8 Zojila Company, IMA 64

9 A Young Officer in JK 68

10 Starting Life with 14 Kumaon 72

11 First Major Skirmish 78

12 Two Steps Up 84

13 The 1965 War and the Battle for O P Hill 90

5

CONTENTS

14 Getting Married... and Goa 115

15 Pathankot, Poonch and Thereabouts 121

16 Srinagar Then 124

17 End of an Era 131

18 Peace Station: Madras 135

19 Raising the Naga Regiment 138

20 1971 and Bangladesh 145

21 The Battle of Dharmadaha 149

22 At Wellington 164

23 Back to 14 Kumaon 168

24 The Mountain Brigade and a ‘mad river’ 176

25 Life at Mhow 184

26 The Low, Picturesque Clouds of Nagaland 190

27 In the Desert, Moving Stealthily by Night 196

28 Mhow, Seat of Military Education 214

29 Life At Kumaon House 216

30 A Visit to Gangolihat 227

31 An Old Army Club 232

32 Of Holiday-Homes and Memorials 242

33 Calling it a Day 250

34 Setting Out, to the Plains 258

6

Contents

35 A Battle on Goa’s Roads 263

36 The Evening of Life... In Saligão 270

7

A Goan FamilyAway From Home

C HATEAU d’Emilia was where home was for us in Nagpur, inthose days the capital of the Central Provinces and Berar1. I

was born on September 26, 1940 at the Mure Memorial Hospital2.Our big and beautiful home was named after our mother Emilia.

Yvette, my eldest sister who was in charge of feeding me and like a

second mother, told me that to get me to eat, I would be taken to the

compound wall to see ‘Moriya’s ghoda’. The Billimorias next door tied

the horse, which they otherwise used to drive their tonga, to a stake

under a tin roofed cycle-shed at the back of their compound.

On the other side of the compound that housed Chateau d’Emilia

and Olaf Manor, was a barbed wire boundary with the Dongajees’

compound. To the west was the Government Nursing School, called

Marie’s compound. Marie Fernandes, Yvette’s B.Ed classmate on the

Seminary Hill, was my god-mother. She married Major (later Brig)

1 The Central Provinces and Berar was a province of British India, comprising Britishconquests from the Mughals and Marathas in Central India, and covered much ofpresent-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. The CentralProvinces was formed in 1861 by the merger of the Saugor and Nerbudda Territo-ries and Nagpur Province. The Marathi-speaking Berar region of the Hyderabadprincely state was annexed to the Central Provinces in 1903 for administration andlater to form the new Central Provinces and Berar from 1936.

2 http://www.murememorialhospital.org/

13

DIARY OF AN INFANTRYMAN

Arnold Rodrigues of the Ordinance Corps. The couple settled down

in Bangalore at 20 Cline Road, not far from my other sister, Dr. Marie

Mignon’s place in Cooke Town. Marie’s mother, Dora, was the prin-

cipal of the nursing school. She and the family lived in the quarters

within the school complex.

Earlier, I was told, we stayed in an old thatched-roofed house in

Buty’s compound about a kilometre away at the junction of Sadar

Bazaar Road and Mount Road. My own early memories go back to

sitting on the front steps of Chateau d’Emilia, watching the world go

by on the Kamptee Road in front of our house.

In some ways, it was a small and connected world.

Our dad purchased the land around 1935 from some Parsees. Olaf

Manor was built in 1936-37, around the time my elder brother Olaf

was born. Chateau d’Emilia was built in 1940. For both the construc-

tions, Brother Harold who lived in St. John’s High School, was the

engineer and builder-in-charge. He was thorough in his work and su-

pervision. He moved around in his tonga. In summer, we all slept in

the backyard, which was sprinkled with water by Rama, our house

help. I always gave the area under my bed an extra dose of water to

make the ground cooler for a sound night’s sleep.

Rama, our handyman, lived on the premises with his family – An-

jini, his second wife, Shanti, his daughter from his first wife and one

late born little son Girdhar – in one of the outhouses. The other out-

house adjacent to the girls’ bathrooms was used as a coal and wood

godown, and a storehouse for old spares. Around the back veranda,

with its small forest of trees behind, it tended to be cooler. In summer,

we often dined just outside the back veranda after the dining table

was moved out.

In keeping with the Army style, enforced by Daddy, we all used

mosquito nets to keep malaria away. Sometimes, just after a fleeting

summer shower of rain, many insects hovered around the veranda’s

electric light. Sliced onions over a basin of water were kept below

the electric lights, working wonders. Somehow, possibly due to the

scent of the onions, the insects fell into the basin of water below, and

drowned.

The house had a smaller veranda and two godowns, besides two

chicken coops on one side. Later, a big and thick steel mesh poultry

house was built adjacent to the garage, under the big sweet tamarind

14

A Goan Family Away From Home

tree. Once this came up, we did not lose any more chickens to the

mongooses.

When I was about six, I took charge of the poultry. I used to run

to collect the eggs early in the morning and at afternoon, on returning

from school. Mum paid me at the rate of one paisa per egg deposited

with her. Most of our chickens had names. Our elder siblings, Ossie

and Yvette bought these chickens from the Seven DayAdventist Farm

in Pune (then Poona). The chicks grew and multiplied. There were

White Leghorns, Black Minorcas, Rhode Island Reds, New Hamp-

shires and a grey and white speckled variety called the Plymouth

Rock.

The da Costas in Nagpur, in 1950.

In summer, Daddy slept in his bed near the breezy garage, fur-

therest away from the house. Mummy was the first to get up in the

15


morning. She attended the 5.30 a.m. cathedral Mass daily along with

Sara Roque, Mary D’Souza, Effie Paul and the others of the ‘5.30 gang’

as they were known. Daddy went for the 6.30 a.m. daily mass in his

Morris 10, and later Morris Minor, cars. We started his car by crank-

ing the handle in those frugal times. Dad believed that this prolonged

the life of the battery.

Nagpur had pleasant earlymornings, cool even in summer. In fact,

they were so nippy that one needed to cover up with a bed sheet. If

we were thirsty at night, we would walk up to the kooja – a traditional

pot of claywith a narrow neck used to store water – which was kept in

the veranda on a high wooden stand. The moonlight and stars made

the sky quite bright and the setting romantic.

Palace Talkies, later renamed Bharat Cinema, was round the cor-

ner. The cinema was bought from some Parsees by Shyamji Kheta,

a city businessman who also bought Billimoria’s property. Liberty

Cinema was just beyond Marie’s compound and it belonged to the

Naidus, some of whomwere my sister Marie Mignon’s school friends.

Late night summer shows at the two cinemas often kept us awake

well past midnight with their extra loud sound. However, all in our

brood enjoyed this. We kept talking and discussing the film being

shown.

It was a simple lifestyle, lived with great pleasure. It was such fun.

Summer nights somehow saw quite a few house fires in town. Fire

Brigade engines and their warning bells and sirens kept us both fear-

ful and wondering whose house would be next. Nagpur by then al-

ready had telephones in people’s residences. Our telephone number

was the three-digit 636, before Nagpur grew into a Telephone Circle.

Before the sun came up, all our beds were carried back into the

veranda, and the bedding rolled and put away. Holidays coincided

with the summer. Summer days were spent either on homework, or

cycling, playing a traditional game that needed hand-eye coordina-

tion called gullie danda and ‘packets’ (a game with cigarette packets),

marbles and more. There was also kite flying with the sharp cutting-

thread called manja, playing carom, millionaire, snakes and ladders,

visiting T. Fernandes’ compound, and also going out in groups on cy-

cles and shooting birds and chameleons with the catapult, at which

we were all pretty skilled. Olaf was a master at this skill, though not

without picking up the occasional wound.

16


Dad and Mum in Nagpur in 1952.

In our home the piano was played for most of the day. Yvette and

Gilda learnt fromMissWest who lived on Mount Road and the rest of

17


us from Marie Mignon. Olaf, myself and Emile were taught by Mrs.

Flory Almeida, closer home on Kamptee Road.

From 1950 to 1954, Gilda, Emile and I were the only siblings at

the Chateau. Gilda got married in 1954 and Emile then went to St

Mary’s School in Bombay. Yvette, long since married, went to Devgad,

a small port on the Maharashtra coast, with her husband, Osmond

Gonsalves. Olaf went to school in Darjeeling at St Joseph’s, North

Point.

Gilda, my elder sister, gave me monthly pocket money of a rupee

and four annas, then a princely amount! Olaf, Emile and Iwere always

very close for many reasons, though I really missed my siblings who

had already left home.

Daddy’s bedroom was converted into a family sleeping room dur-

ing summer afternoons. We slept on mats on the floor. The rear door

was initially fitted with a khus-khus tatti, a simple mechanism to beat

the heat of those times. It was periodically drenched with mugs of

water thrown on it from outside. Later, we had a desert cooler fitted

on the side window with a powerful exhaust fan that made the room

very cool. Sometimes we would go for a swim in the Corporation’s

public swimming pool near Mount Hotel on Mount Road. We also

read books brought from the British Council Library run by Mrs. E.

Hymeon, wife of Justice Hymeon, of what later became the Madhya

Pradesh High Court. Mrs. Hymeon was fond of India and had stayed

on in Nagpur for many years, even after the death of her husband.

She traveled about in a rickshaw and seemed to enjoy it.

There were no televisions, compact disc players, two-in-ones or

even transistor radios in those times. But Yvette and Gilda listened to

music from our Phillips radio bought from Unique Radio belonging

to Mr. Kumar, a Sindhi refugee who lived in Kamptee3. The Commer-

cial Services of Radio Ceylon4 was the most popular music station.

3 Kamptee was founded in 1821 when the British established a military cantonmenton the banks of the Kanhan River. According to one account, Kamptee was pre-viously named Camp-T for its geographical shape. The town quickly became animportant center for trade, but trade dwindled with the arrival of the railway inthe late 19th century to Nagpur.

4 Radio Ceylon is the oldest radio station in Asia. Broadcasting was started on anexperimental basis in Ceylon by the Telegraph Department in 1923, just three yearsafter the inauguration of broadcasting in Europe. The station’s Commercial Servicereached many parts of Asia.

18


Greg was its most popular announcer. My sisters took down words

of songs and entered them into a song book, which was used when

practicing the piano and entertaining guests during parties. One such

guest was the affluent Seth Gulab Das Saraf Tumsar Wala. Gilda

played the piano and sang Gloria for him. She was promptly re-

warded with a crisp one hundred rupee note, a shockingly high sum

in those times!

I also remember being driven to Mure Memorial Hospital in our

Morris 10 car a few days after Emile was born on December 17, 1943.

After distractingmyself on a hospital swing, Yvette held my hand and

took me in to see my newborn brother. But he was too small for me to

be allowed to carry.

There was, a dhunkeen (hand water pump) in the rear compound

as well as drumstick and chickoo trees. I had taught Blackie our dog

to climb upto the first fork of the chikoo tree.

Blackie, atop the chikoo tree, with Emile, Olaf and the author.

In summer, we took turns to pump and fill the tank, then took

turns lolling in it, to keep ourselves cool. It was only four feet deep.

The tank had been built to soak bricks and for watering the walls of

19


Olaf Manor and the Chateau when they were being built in 1936 and

1940.

The mochi (cobbler) would come once a month with his bags, sit

down, and repair all the shoes. What with us kicking stones and

playing football in school with these, the shoes needed heavy repairs.

Once in a fewmonths, themanwho applied polish (kalai) to the inside

of the brass cooking pots and pans would come and set up shop. He

had an air bellow which pumped hot air onto a charcoal-wood fire.

After heating the pots, he would perform what we would call magic

and all the insides of the brass pots would be shining and as good as

new. These are things of the past, forgotten in our stainless steel and

Teflon generation. Our days were fun and living was robust, with out

any fuss. Our children and grand children miss all these things today.

Another frequent visitor to the Chateau was Leo ‘Pip’ Dias. He

was a thin old man, good at playing the mandolin and mouth organ.

He often led the crowd in group singing, especially at Christmas and

New Year bonfires and picnics. He also used to give my sisters a good

oil head massage and they enjoyed it. Pip often had lunch with us on

Sundays. He died in Nagpur and was buried in the Jaripatka Catholic

Cemetery.

The Joe Dias family were earlier in Karachi, then still a part of un-

divided India. After a couple of decades in Nagpur, Joe’s family then

moved to Goa, before migrating to Canada. Gladys (Honey) Dias,

the eldest, and her husband visited Goa around 2003 and dropped

in at Miramar and my sister Gilda hosted them to a pot-luck lunch.

She looked the same – the thin, smart and smiling Nagpur girl. Her

younger sister was Celine, nicknamed Siloo, a nurse who also mi-

grated to Canada. I happened to be visiting Gilda and we sat down

and recalled old Nagpur days. These few lines give a hint of what life

in Nagpur was like for us in those times.

20

The Doctor and his Garden

D AD was born on January 13, 1889, the eldest son of BaptistaCaetano da Costa and Rosalinda Cordeiro e da Costa at Bairo

Alto, Arrarim, Saligão, Bardez, Goa. They say that he was a live wire,intelligent, playful and naughty as a little boy. Both his parents diedin 1910, within ten months of each other.

He had two sisters and two brothers – Sylvia, Melita, Bernard and

Euclid. Sylvia married Dr Joe Fernandes of Assagão. They settled in

Nagpur where he had a private medical practice. Their son Walter

joined the Indian Air Force as a pilot and retired as Air Commodore.

He was a Master Green, who was allowed to fly any plane, even in

bad weather. Melita, the second sister, was very good looking, pretty

and known for her culinary prowess. She was sought after for mar-

riage. She married Advocate Carlisto Nazareth of Nagpur and lived

at Angelic Nest in Tent Lines. Advocate Romulus Nazareth, Carlisto’s

younger brother also wanted to marry Melita, but it was decided by

the Nazareth parents that the elder son wouldmarry her. Carlisto and

Romulus lived in the same building in similar styled north and south

wings which were joined together at the middle by a common wall

and common big wooden doors which were opened during parties.

Dad’s younger brother Bernard (Benny) did his schooling in Nag-

pur and later passed out from the then Thomason College of Civil

Engineering (the predecessor of IIT Roorkee). He was one of the few

Indian students there. He was a well known engineer in government

service and was married to Dr Flory Machado of Jhansi. Benny died

21


young of blackwater fever, a complication of malaria, which he con-

tacted while he was posted at Dharamjaigarh State in Central India.

Dad and mum in their office. 1964.

Dad’s youngest brother, Euclid did his schooling in St. Joseph’s,

Nainital, and was a brilliant student who passed out first class first in

the BA exam from Nagpur University. He was a bit of a spoilt child

being the youngest. He played the piano and sang very well. He was

also good at mimicry and telling stories to children. He married Irene

da Silva of Bombay. Their son Vernon migrated to Australia. Euclid

and Vernon have both passed on, the former in Nagpur and the latter

in Bombay when Vernon was on one of his visits to India to see his

Mum.

My Dad was 21 and was yet to complete his medical studies in

Bombay when his parents passed away, casting a very heavy bur-

den on his young but broad shoulders. He was later awarded the

LM&S (Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery) from Grant Medical Col-

lege. Later he went on to do a DTM (Diploma in Tropical Medicine)

from Calcutta and was awarded the prestigious FRCS (Fellowship of

the Royal College of Surgeons) from Edinburgh, in the United King-

dom. He was a hard worker and one of the very few Indians then to

complete his FRCS in the very first attempt. Dad first saw to the stud-

22


ies of his brothers and sisters and then got his sisters married before

getting married himself at the age of thirty four. He married Maria

Emilia Rocha Heredia in 1924 in Nagpur. She was the third daugh-

ter of Dr. Manoel Agostinho de Heredia of Piedade (Divar), Goa and

Bombay.

Dad with army medals and the

Bene Merenti awarded by Pope

Pius XII, 1952.

Dad served in the British Indian

Army as a medical officer during

World War I. He was the Regimen-

tal Medical Officer of 2/9 Gorkha Ri-

fles, which was part of the Indian

4 Infantry Division of General Al-

lenby’s famous Middle East Expedi-

tionary Force (1916 to 1918). Dad

took part in the famous Battle of

Shumran near Basra (in present day

Iraq) just across the Tigris River,

where the British crossed over and

pushed back the Turks and the Ger-

mans. It was here that an Indian

Engineer Regiment built one of the

longest floating pontoon bridges of

that time over the Tigris River. Dad

performed surgery on Lt Wheeler of

2/9 GR in a tent in the Regimental

Aid Post and removed a bullet from

his lung with a penknife! Lt Wheeler

lived on and was awarded the Victo-

ria Cross.

Dad himself earned the Volun-

teer Officers Decoration (besides

other medals during the War and in later army life). He told us how

most of the men in the Battle of Shumran, died because their wounds

festered due to sandstorms, heat and flies. They were moved down

the River Tigris in open barges and left to their luck to survive. Of

course, most succumbed to their injuries. Medical aid in the field

army was primitive in those days.

In 1981, I presented Dad’s Armymedals to Lt Gen E.A. Vas, PVSM,

AVSM, the Colonel of the Ninth Gorkha Rifles at a function at the Col-

23


lege of Combat, Mhow1. The medals are now displayed in the officers

mess. Incidentally, Lt Gen E.A. Vas also hailed from our home village

of Saligão, while his wife Maureen de Lapa, a charming lady and an

excellent person, was from Pilerne, the village just above Saligão, on

the other side of the hill! She was the daughter of Captain de Lapa of

the merchant navy.

Dadwas in the IndianMedical Services when he transferred to the

civil services after his FRCS in the mid 1920s. He then served as Assis-

tant Civil Surgeon and Civil Surgeon in the district towns of Central

Provinces & Berar. He served in Hoshangabad, Durg, Jabalpur, Buld-

hana, Chanda, Amravati, Raipur, Bhandara and finally in Nagpur. He

was later alsoMedical Officer of the Nagpur Rifles located at Sitabuldi

Fort, Nagpur, that was later converted to 118 Infantry Battalion Terri-

torial Army (Grenadiers2). He took an early retirement in 1940, the

year I was born. At this point of time, he was the Civil Surgeon and

Professor of Surgery at Robertson Medical School, Nagpur. He fol-

lowed a strict army regimen all through his life and was very strict

with himself and others. He was a good horse-polo player and also

played tennis and won many prizes in both sports.

A God-fearing man, he worked tirelessly for the Church and the

Catholic community. He served Mass whenever he could on Sundays

and also on weekdays, right up to the ripe old age of seventy. He

was General Secretary of the Catholic Union of India during the late

1940s and early 1950s when Mr. M Ruthnaswamy, MP from Madras

was the President. He fought against the Niyogi Enquiry Committee

and its questionable stance on the freedom to practice religion. He

1 Mhow is a cantonment in the Indore District inMadhya Pradesh, India. It is located23 kilometres (14 mi) south of Indore city towards Mumbai on the Mumbai-AgraRoad. The town was renamed as Dr Ambedkar Nagar in 2003, by the Governmentof Madhya Pradesh. This cantonment town was founded in 1818 by John Malcolmas a result of the Treaty of Mandsaur between the English and the Holkars whowere the Maratha Maharajas of Indore. There is total lack of unanimity on howMhowgot its name. One possible source of the namemight be theMahua (Madhucalongifolia) tree, which grows in profusion in the forests aroundMhow. Some articlesin popular literature state that MHOW stands for Military Headquarters Of War.

2 The oldest grenadier regiment of the armies in the Commonwealth belongs to theIndian Army. The concept of ‘Grenadiers’ evolved from the practice of selecting thebravest and strongest men for the most dangerous tasks in combat. The Grenadiershave the longest unbroken record of existence in the Indian Army.

24


was decorated with the Bene Merenti Gold Medal by Pope Pius XII in

1951 for his services to the community.

The author, with wife Gladys and daughter Nafisa, before Chateau D’Emelia,

Nagpur, in 1994.

Dad was a person with high personal standards of integrity and

honesty. He expected the same standards from all of us, his children.

He had a quick temper. We all used to try and be away from him at

those times. He was a self-made man who stuck to his principles re-

gardless of the consequences. He used to say: “A place for everything

and everything in its place. A time for everything and everything in

its time! Waste not, want not!”

He worked very hard and went out to visit his sick patients on

their request, even on a hot summer afternoon. We could hear and

recognize the sound of the horn of his car and he blew it often before

he arrived at the gate which was about 50 meters in front of our house

and we went out running and tried to be the first to open it for him!

He enjoyed it when we helped him with changing his clothes when

he returned home tired from a hot afternoon’s work after one of his

medical rounds. He enjoyed a dish of fish every day. Mumwould see

to it that he got it somehow.

He arranged for his friends to buy, fry, pack in banana leaves

and send him some pomfrets, shark, king fish, salmon and mack-

25


erels through their friends in the railways. They obliged him, and

the parcels reached us through the railway dining cars from Bombay

or Kalyan as they had a Frigidaire on the train. I used to go to the

railway yard, locate the dining car that had just come in and pick up

these parcels and bring them home. In Nagpur, Bachu Seth was the

local fish vendor in Gaddi Gudam who provided fish when nothing

was forthcoming from our sources in Bombay. This was mostly river

fish, like murrel, rahu and katla. Dad always advocated light meals in

summer.

Dad was the personal physician to Governor Pattabhi Sitaramaiah

and Chief Minister Ravi Shankar Shukla. He was family doctor to

most ministers of the C.P. & Berar Cabinet. He had a nice waywith his

patients and would bring them quick relief. He had a large number of

patients from across all faiths and religions, including Muslims who

had blind faith in him. He also did a lot of honorary work for the

poor, including the Sisters of Charity and their huge orphanage at

Nagpur. There were always a handful of patients hanging around his

consulting room at the house.I remember one incident when one of

his old patients came to the Chateau at about 2 a.m., with his sick child

and insisted Dad should attend to his little son. I told him repeatedly

that Dad was now old, over 74 years and unwell himself. The man

would have nothing of it. After half an hour of arguing with us, he

got his way. Dad asked me to sterilize an injection set (there were

no disposable syringes in those days). He said he would give him

an injection of distilled water. He did accordingly. The old patient

left after thanking Dad profusely. He was back in the early morning

to inform us that his son was quite well now and that the injection

had acted like magic on the boy as he had predicted. Here was a case

where faith had provided the cure, if not exactly moved mountains!

Both Olaf Manor (built in 1936) and Chateau d’Emilia (1940)

which he built, are now part of the Pilar priests’ homes and have been

renamed as Mother Teresa Ashram and Pilar Niketan.

Dad was fond of flowers. He had a rose garden on either side

of the driveway from the gate. On the inner side of Olaf Manor he

also had a bed of cannas behind the roses. There was a rockery under

the mango tree along with a cement water tank with a tap to water

the plants. We had plants all along the front periphery of the com-

pound. The side towards Dongajee’s compound had a hedge along

26


the barbed wire fence. Closer to the Chateau as the In and Out, Dad

had a roundabout in the shape of a heart with a lawn in it. He had

evergreen trees, flowers and cannas closer to the Chateau and in front

of the porch. On the porch, steps and in the front veranda were pots

with crotons, ferns, and exotic plants of different kinds. All these were

carefully selected and cared for by Ramawho watered them regularly.

In summer all the pots and cannas were removed and put at the rear,

under the shade of the tamarind tree, with a bamboo matting roof.

Daddy kept a close watch on them and Rama would get a scolding if

any plant was neglected.

Dad always wore a rose in his bundgala coat, like Pundit Jawahar-

lal Nehru. He often went around the garden with a spade in his hand

tending to the plants himself. In the afternoon, birds used to congre-

gate here to enjoy the relative coolness of the place.

Mum was born on September 16, 1904, in Bombay. She was the

third child of the Heredia family of eleven, three brothers and eight

sisters. Her father Dr. Manoel Agostinho de Heredia (1870-1937) was

a physician, a diplomat and a businessman. He was a founder of

Asian Assurance Company Limited and he was the Honorary Consul

for Brazil. Mum grew up and passed her matriculation from Bombay

in the first class and was employed as a school teacher. Fr. Albino Fer-

nandes of Nagpur recommended her to Dad who readily agreed to

take her as his life partner after seeing her. She had charm and good

looks. She could speak well and could converse on any subject with

ease. Frugal in her ways and simple in her dress, she and Dad some-

how got known as the best dressed couple at parties in the districts

and in Nagpur.

Mumwas understanding and compassionate. She was not a party

cook, but was good at everyday cooking and in making pickles and

cakes. She always helped the poor and the underprivileged. She had

trained her voice in Europe when Dad was busy doing his FRCS (Fel-

lowship of the Royal College of Surgeons). She sang well and accom-

panied herself on the piano.

Mum always said I was the only child who knew all about the

house and what to find where. “If you want a nail, nut or bolt, ask

Ian and he will pull it out for you from the godown.” She told the

others, “Ian eats whatever I place on the table, that is why he is tall

and strong.” I cannot forget Antoni-ma, our cook of more than twenty

27


five years. She was thin and small, a Christian of South Indian origin.

Mum always gave her a sari and blouse as a Christmas present. She

was always punctual and regular. She came to work even when she

was sick, as she knew that Dad would give her some medicine and

she would get hot tea and something to eat. Servants are as good at

their work as you treat them. Antoni-ma and Rama both worked with

us happily for about 25 years or more.

I was fond of growing vegetables and Mum said that I had

green fingers. I had a small vegetable patch behind the kitchen and

godowns, where I grew lady-fingers, kadu or red pumpkin, beans,

brinjals (eggplant), chilies, tomatoes and other common vegetables.

Besides, I would go to the Gaddi-Gudam daily market and to the

Tuesdaymarket to bring discarded green leaves of cauliflower, radish,

cabbage and turnips for the poultry at home. These were cut into bits

and mixed with mashed eggshells, kitchen waste and leftover food

including rice and grain for the poultry. The birds gobbled it up and

wanted more.

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A Goan village in Nagpur