George Menezes

Today I am a wordsmith without my ammunition of words. That is the fate of

Writers experiencing loss and unbearable grief.

I am haunted by a hundred questions. Is it too early to write this? Is it too late?

Should I write about it at all? Should I share with my readers something that is so

private and personal ? The triumphant return of my old girl to a place of eternal

peace and serenity in the midst of the silence of green pastures; broken only by the

sound of running brooks?

I know only one thing with certainty. I must write or I will die!

Are you listening to me, my loved one?

In your passing on, God gave me two precious gifts. The gift of “never

living in denial” and the gift “of always remembering all that is good and beautiful

in other people”

Hey. come to think of it, you must have asked the Lord to transfer your gift to me.

You knew I would need it. You had that great ability to anticipate the needs of

others and to do something about it.

I walk through the rooms of this beautiful house like a tenant. Everything we have,

we owned jointly. Today you own the house by your absence. How we fought over

every purchase we made. The Rajastani dowry chest that became a bar, the carved

ivory figure of Jesus on the cross that you loved so much, the “dwarpas,” wooden

sentinels of temples that became our lamp stands. I touch them in passing and

each time the memory makes me “whole”, knowing always, that the beauty of our

home was never ever in its contents but your magical, caring, effervescent and

truly spiritual presence.

I remember a line I wrote for you in my newspaper column on our 50th Wedding

Anniversary. It was a description of seeing you standing in a motley group of young

Goans at the Saligao Ball.

”She stood there in her yellow dress, a wild flower growing astonishingly in a field

of cacti, bramble bush and wilted shrubs”

You had grace and presence which always stood out as, I remember, it did on

India’s Republic day function in the year 1961.

We were standing at the entrance of the Indian Embassy in Paris welcoming our

guests. Our Ambassador Nawab Ali Yavar Jung and ten of us, wives included, who

served as diplomats. You, my dear, stood out for more reasons than one. Not only

for the grace with which you spoke fluent French but also because you were the

only one dressed in an elegantly draped sari. The other wives were all non Indians.

The guests literally swooned over you.

I remember our first date. Blue Air Force uniform with gold stripes on my sleeve I

rode up on my motor bike to the YWCA where you were studying to be an

Executive Secretary.

We went to Leopold Café. We have had many explosive situations in our lives but

that was years and years before 26/11. In 1956 Leopold Cafe provided privacy for

young lovers. Not targets for terrorists.

It had those little cabins with half swinging doors like bikinis hiding the essential. If

you recall, we only talked and joked and laughed and every time you laughed the

waiter came rushing in with a dirty towel on his shoulder as if in response to the

ringing of some distant temple bell. Such was your magic.

Alas, when the bill for “falooda” and “khara” biscuits arrived I found I was short of

money. We stopped laughing and you quietly paid the bill as you have done during

most of our married life.

On our way back home my jaded motor-cycle stopped dead thrice and you had to

push it to get it going. When it stopped a fourth time you turned round and said”

Is this what I am going to do all my life?” “Yes” I replied “will you marry me?”

You jumped in the air like a ballet dancer and started to scream. The crowd

gathered on the pavement soon realized what was happening and cheerfully pushed

the bike right up to the door of your house and waved us a fond farewell.

If today I live “fully alive” reborn on beautiful memories of you, it is because all

those whose lives you touched, hundreds of them who overflowed on to the roads

at your funeral service, remember you with joy.

Let me tell you about something unexpected that happened the other day. A kindly

Bishop came to visit me. Anjali our daughter who had come down from London for

a whole month was still around.

“I was a contemporary of your mother” he said to Anjali. “She was the most

beautiful girl who came to the Mahim Gymkhana. We Mahim boys competed for her

attention and were very upset when we heard that she was getting married to

much older guy from Dharwad”.

“Dad was 27 and Mama was 20”, Anjali said authoritatively”

“Would you really mind if I saw the Wedding album?” the Bishop said sounding like

a helpful yet curious Income Tax officer on a verification visit.

For the next half an hour he was still looking at the pictures his face full of joy on

discovering that the lovely girl from his gang had married a dashing young officer in

a blue and gold uniform of the Indian Air Force, never mind his “unda-gunda” accent.

“What a nice gold crown Mama is wearing” said Anjali. I was about to open my

foolish mouth and tell her it was made of cardboard, but better counsel prevailed.

I realized that as usual you would have liked to keep your simplicity and austerity

to yourself.

People whom I do not even know wrote how you traveled with them from Chembur

to Victoria Terminus. Some one wrote that you had gifted her a German sewing

machine and two French copper-base pans which she is still using in the USA.

Colleagues from your office wrote that if you happened not to turn up for work,

there was no noise of laughter in the office.

As I read slowly, one by one, the eulogies piled up on my desk, I realize how many

people of all walks of life loved you dearly.

Did I do you justice, old girl? In my proverbial inadequacy, did I care for you enough ?

God help me. It is far too late to ask.