I feel that pain now, right here as I write

My mother saved Francis for long years with her prayers especially during his courageous and life threatening march to liberate Goa.

My Dad saved him and made him strong by not allowing “grace marks” to condone his academic failure although he was Under Secretary Education at the time Francis appeared for his Matriculation exam.

Ada, my sister saved him by harnessing all the power of her faith and converting it into beautifully candid and frank letters that she alone could write.

Armida my youngest sister who was Dean of Sion Hospital  saved him by her warm and competent presence in his every illness, big or small.

Louis, Ignatius and Lenny my brothers were there for him materially some rare times, siblingly most of the time.

And I the eldest, the “morgado” the loved one of the family?

Let me take you to a time when as kids we found ourselves playing on the edge of the river at “Vitagem”, a pier off the Mandovi river in our ancestral island village in Goa.

 We had come to watch the arrival of the “gazolina”, the deisel engine driven boat that made its daily trip to Panjim and back.

Francis dared the river as he dared everything in life that were obstacles to his road less traveled on his journey of self discovery.

He dared and he slipped and he fell into the swirling waters of the Mandovi. As he was being carried away I grabbed his outstretched hand and pulled him ashore.

Many years later, differences of opinion led to a slanging match between Francis and me which was never resolved and ended quickly when my mother started the family rosary earlier than usual.

He asked me later, very seriously, whether I had ever regretted saving his life, denying the great Goan river its genuine victim?

How could I? Could I deny the family, the community and the nation he so loved, years and years of stellar and unaccountable contribution?

Could I let a mere river take him away when the waters of the Arabian sea were inadequate to embrace him and  the mountains of the Sayadiri range could not prevent him from planting the Indian flag on the soil of Portugese governed Goa ?

Francis was and will always remain an enigma. His towering scholarship was at times so childlike. His brilliance was often misunderstood for stubbornness and for inflexibility by pygmy brothers like me who found him uncompromising in his goals and yet gentle when he tried hard to “suffer fools gladly”

Could I have been able to deny his community and his beloved mother land a maverick genius who gave a new meaning and purpose to sensitivity training and the holistic development of people?

A dreamer of his own complex dreams and a ruthless and uncanny interpreter of the dreams of hundreds of disciples who grew tall and strong and hoped in their great love for him that his “guruship” would never end

They were right. His reluctant guruship will never end.

As we watch in utter amazement, two yellow butterflies settle on two sides of his bier. I hear one say “What manner of men are these who see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower?”

“I will tell you” says the other butterfly.

“The poet Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy wrote about them”

WE are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;–
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

But I still walk the Bandra waterfront. Carter Road, Bandstand and the Joggers Park, come rain or shine. But now I walk slowly, deliberately preserving by breath as well as my footfalls as if the treasure God has gifted to me for “caretaking” might suddenly disappear.

And I walk early in the morning or late at night insensitive to lovers sculpted in their own personalized embraces, oblivious to sleeping watchmen, stray dogs and a rare “expat” walking his “German Shepherd” with the right implements for collecting his doggie’s poo.

“Why can’t the other pet owners do likewise?” he asks

“Because”, I say sadly and softly to myself, “we locals walk our dogs but do not walk our talk.”

As he goes out of sight I hear a gentle voice calling me. “You and I need to talk” the voice says. I sit down on the promenade’s retaining wall and look towards the sea. The voice seems to come from the crest of each rising and falling wave.

I am a great conversationalist. Mostly one way. I talk. Others hopefully listen. But the voice I hear now has a ring of urgency. I decide to listen.

“Okay” I say “talk, I am listening”

“Do you see the 18 hole golf course with the English style Club House on the hill ? It was called the Danda Green” I turn to look behind me and see nothing but hideous doors and windows jutting out of masses of concrete structures. I shake my head in dismay.

“That was the time” says the voice “when I had the privilege and complete freedom to wash these shores, foray deep into the uncluttered land dotted with pretty little bungalows with large gardens and orchards that were rented for as little as Rs.30 a month”.

“I have read and heard about how really beautiful Bandra was” I reply, “wrapped around by the glorious blanket of your clean and transparent waters. They tell me people walked to what is the Mahim Causeway to take the ferry to the city”

“That was the real Bandra to celebrate about. Not the one you are celebrating this fortnight” the voice says. Now no longer quiet and gentle but shrill.

“Walk down from The old fort , past Bandstand , Joggers park and down to Carter Road and find a stretch of sand where you can lie down and talk to me leisurely as your previous generations did not long ago”.

“I see couples sitting on the rocks” I say “but I cannot find a stretch of sand even to sit down”.

I hear a roar from the voice and a crash of waves.” The beach has disappeared; sand has been carted away in a million trucks. Mangroves have been destroyed as a result. The cottages have gone. Tall ugly buildings have replaced them”. The voice is getting angry.

I hang my head in shame. We need to stop mocking the sea, I say to myself. I am suddenly afraid. Another day, another time the sea will reclaim the land that was once her own. And our grand children will no longer be safe on the water front.

I try to find a piece of beach to sit down and wet my feet. Through the skeletons of the mangroves festooned with plastic bags and other indefinable waste I spot a stretch of beach. I creep through the mangroves and sit on the sand.

“I have found a tiny spot of beach to sit on and talk to you at leisure” I say to the voice from the sea

“There is much we can share” says the sea.

“After the Tsunami some years ago”, I say, “I am afraid to run carefree into your warm and wet embrace as I used to once in Gorai and Goa. Even the tip of your tongue caressing my feet as I sit here scares me”

“No more Tsunamis please.” I beg “Thousands died and were rendered homeless that 26th December 2004”

“Homeless?” The sea screams back at me. Have you city folks ever given thought to my homelessness? For centuries my playing fields have been dredged. Hundreds of shacks and massive hotels have plundered my territory and made me a prisoner in the home God gifted to me at the time of Creation. The nurseries and cradles of my fish have been desecrated by the destruction of mangroves. You have driven away myriads of birds that once dipped their silken wings upon my breast.”

“God gave you the planet in caretaking. In your greed and arrogance you have ambitions to become the planet’s owner.”

“Don’t take this personally.” The voice continues “I appreciate you for the time you were beaten up trying to stop sand from being taken away from the Gorai beach. I appreciate your friends who are working so hard to save open spaces in Bandra.

“Do not worry about me. Time will heal my wounds. I have powers to heal myself and to rejuvenate. There will come a time when I will reclaim my territory. It will be a time of my choosing. I will select those whom I will destroy and those whom I will save. The Old Testament will be revisited and Celebrate Bandra‘s Space ship will replace Noah’s Ark”

“Tell your grand children and your friend’s grandchildren to come and play on the endless beaches and my wholesome, transparent waters and really celebrate the awakening of a new dawn”

They make for BMC forgotten temporary, very temporary housing for millions of homeless people who are merely a statistic for the powers that govern the city and a passing landscape for the well heeled people like you and me.

There is one such pipe, now frayed at its circumference near the road across where I live. In its benevolent radius, protected from rain and sun, lives a woman who could walk the ramp even in the ragged “saree” and “choli” that she washes under a garden tap or over a leaking pipe in the neighborhood.

She is dark, just the shade I like in women, large, sad eyes, small firm breasts a determined jaw and she walks in the sensuous manner village women walk when they carry pots on their heads.

Amazing I thought for a woman who lived back bent in a cylindrical home.

“We should sponsor a fashion show under the auspices of our Residents Association for these really beautiful, homeless women” I said to the old girl.

She gave me a look dirtier than a garbage dump, took my spectacles off my nose, wiped them clean and said with a smile “age has not dimmed your weakness for village women”

What could I say? After all I am a boy from a village in Goa.

Her name was Namrata and she lived with Govind her five year old son. Her husband had been killed the previous Christmas in their village. She worked on the construction site of a hotel that been recently demolished by terrorists.

When his mother was away Govind played with a wooden doll which he carried all the time like some thing precious, keeping it hidden in his pocket when he played road side cricket with neighboring children from the hutments.

I stopped by the cylinder one day on my way to buy fish at the Chimbai fishing village. Must have been Namrata’s day off, I thought foolishly.
“No” she said. “Govind was not feeling well. The burn scars on his face and hand were itching and bothering him”. She spoke broken Hindi and even some broken English as if, once upon a time, she had studied in a convent school.

Govind sat up. He showed me the toy he was clutching to his breast. It was made of wood. Baby Jesus he said simply. A baby face on a fat body, carved by a carpenter whose tools needed sharpening. It had been burnt on one side like the doll I had seen when I visited the Best Bakery in Gujarat during the 2002 carnage.

“I see you watching me from your window” she said. “I am a writer and I am always curious and looking for a story” I said “especially since I see you and your little boy in Church sometimes”.

“We are Christians” she said. “Converts from my grandfather’s time”. There was joy in her voice and it echoed in the Hume pipe that was her temporary home.

“I am from Kandhamal in Orissa .We lived on the edge of a beautiful forest full of wild birds, butterflies and animals. Last Christmas when the fanatics came they killed my husband and burnt down our house. We hid in the forest for months and then the refugee camp and recently Mumbai.

We are secure here but we miss Kandhamal. We are going back this Christmas.

“Baby Jesus will protect us” said Govind

In Dharwad, in Karnataka, where we lived for many years, I went to school in a “tonga” with four pretty looking Saraswat girls who lived in the house next door. It was a bit of a squeeze, with three of them sitting behind and one of them, Prema Sirur sitting next to me in front with a sweat-exuding “tongawalla” who mercilessly whipped the emaciated horse.

At that time and age I did not enjoy being squeezed between the “tongawalla” and a pretty Saraswat girl. So a few months later, I decided to go to school on a borrowed bicycle.

It was an enjoyable experience being in control, feeling the freshness of the wind in my face and able to show off with the old stunt “Hey guys, look no hands.”

It took me many years to own my own bicycle. I bought it with the first salary from my summer holiday job as a Rationing Inspector. It was a “Raleigh” a famous name in bicycles in those days.

It took me places and it took me faster than the “tongas” and it was romantic. Innumerable are the women who took a ride on the cycle bar including my pint-sized mother who agreed to be dropped for Mass as the tongawallas were celebrating “Id”

She said it was the first and last time. Not so the girls from my college who were thrilled as the bicycle tore down the slope from the college past the All India Radio Station towards Kelgeri lake and, despite the sudden braking or perhaps because of it, never volunteered to sit behind on the butt-snapping carrier.

In the meanwhile I enjoyed the jasmine scented ride as the tresses of my bar-riders flew into my face.

The bicycle was I believe the precursor of the Lambretta scooter that drove Roman couples to ecstasy on wheels. The wheel was reinvented one more time.

On one of my vacations to Dharwad from the Indian Air Force I met the Police Superintendent of Dharwad district. He invited me to play for the Police Hockey team which I enjoyed, and we became really close friends.

One day I had to visit an old classmate from Hubli, 12 miles away. Half an hour by the local train. Wanting to impress her I asked my friend if I could borrow his car. Turning down offers of his constables taking me to Hubli in a jeep, I agreed that a constable would ride with me as I drove the Police Superintendent’s Ambassador car.

On the way back from Hubli a cow suddenly crossed the road. In my panic to avoid the cow I drove to the extreme end of the road and hit a cyclist. An old farmer wearing a dhoti. By the time I had brought the car to a stop the cycle looked like an “avant garde” sculpture by Salvador Dali.

Luckily the cyclist had not been run over. As I got down I witnessed a scene I will never forget in my life. The policeman had jumped out of my car and was beating the cyclist to pulp.

I intervened, and was happy to discover that the only injuries to the cyclist were from the blows of the policeman’s “lathi”.

We took the old farmer for some First Aid treatment and I gave him money to buy a new cycle much against the wishes of the policeman whose mantra was that no body should have the gumption to come in front of his Saheb’s car.

A few years ago when I moved to the suburbs of Bandra and saw friends of all ages, including elderly nuns and pregnant mothers, cycling away to wherever they were going and I overcame my allergy to bicycles and my fear of policemen who were integrating themselves into our Citizen’s movements.

In fact only a month ago my grandchildren who have picked up cycling skills on their vacations in Goa wanted to go bike riding in Bandra.
I took them to a shop not far from where we live and bought them a brand new shiny blue bike and have grown ten years younger seeing their tresses blowing in the wind as they ride the curves in our local park.

And now Bangalore and Ahmedabad. And bicycles with bombs becoming the permanent and most repulsive face of terror.

We too must weep or we will die.
And the country will die with us.