George Menezes

Some things catch up with you no matter how fast you attempt to run.

One, of course, is my two granddaughters who fly past me at the Joggers Park despite giving me a generous handicap.

When I look back and don’t find them behind me I imagine, falsely as ever, that I have won the race.

I remember the time when I was invited to give the keynote address at the 75th anniversary of my old college in Dharwar

After the speech, tea and snacks were served to the invitees.

From a distance I noticed a man in a white kurta and pyjama, giving me a dirty look. He sneaked up to me and said softly “Mr George you have an outstanding bill of Rs.200 in the college canteen of which I am the contractor

I apologised, took him aside and paid the bill, tip included, turning around and quickly moving into the august company of retired vice chancellors with no bills to pay.

Another time, not too long ago, I foolishly decided to participate in a Senior Citizen mini Marathon around the residential areas of Bandra. At the end of ten minutes I was feeling faint and dehydrated and decided to knock at the door of a house whose nameplate seemed terribly familiar.

I rang the bell and asked for a glass of water. “You liar” said the lady who opened the door. “50 years ago you promised to marry me during the choir practice of St Joseph’s Church. God forgive you as I have done. Have a cold Pepsi, get back to your running and never return again”

I never returned. I do not want an angry spinster to smash my head with an aluminum crutch.

But let me tell you how even recently the past has come back to stare me in the face.

In order to do that I have to tell you about Janet.

As I write this I remember that this very evening I have to pick up Father Paul from the Retreat House to say Mass at Janet’s place because she’s celebrating her mother’s birthday which she does unfailingly every year.

I’ve agreed to do this knowing fully well that the 10 min walking distance will have to be covered by my car through the chaos of the Bandra fair to pick up Father Paul. I don’t do it everyday but I owe Janet a great deal.

This year is her mothers 92nd birthday and although she’s intermittently bedridden she has the same glow and brilliance in her eyes as she had when she danced the waltz on her 90th birthday and ready to dance again with the redoubtable Alan Noronha strumming his guitar and singing all the old-fashioned music in the world, enough to loosen the joints of all the septuagenarians and above, present at the party

And that is where one more time the past has come back to haunt me

You see Alan Noronha is a great admirer of Janet. I’m not sure where he stands in the long queue of Janet’s admirers but I know one thing and that is that he was recently looking for a gift to give her.

Alan, it seems, was browsing through some shops on the way to the Railway Station where some antiques and a lot of junk is sold. Looking closely at the things in a particular shop he saw a familiar face framed in expensive gilded wood.

It was a charcoal drawing of a man with a beard and a none too flattering nose.
“My god” he said “that is a drawing of our common friend George Menezes obviously done by a gifted artist and indicating that it was done in Paris in the year of our Lord 1985”.

I know how much Janet looks up to George, he thought to himself not realising that the looking up was merely because of the difference in height. That would make a good gift for Janet, he thought. So he asked the shopkeeper for the price.

“Panch hazar” said the shopkeeper. Restraining himself from hitting the shopkeeper on the head with his heavy duty guitar, Alan decided to negotiate.

“Woh antik hai” .said the shopkeeper trying to justify the price tag of Rs.5000.

“Arre baba” said Alan “woh antique nahin hai, woh zinda admi hai aur hamara neighbour hai.”

All this conversation has been related to me by Janet herself. Finally after suggesting that he would produce me personally for the shopkeeper to see, he apparently got a bargain, packed it nicely and gifted it to Janet.

“What a precious gift” she was supposed to have said to Alan before swooning at the thought of finding another place on a wall to hang it.

Finally, to cut a long story short, Janet brought the drawing to my house to check its authenticity and its background.

When Janet told me the whole story I suddenly realised what had happened and I laughed

From time to time the old girl, God bless her soul, took some drastic decisions to deal with clutter and also to confirm a genuine belief that we cannot take our material goods with us when we go no matter where we go, and therefore it is best to get rid of things we have not used for some time.

On the basis of such a philosophy she used to get rid of everything that she deemed “useless” and she did it once a year.

Once, while trying to search for my trophies and medals and sundry awards just to satisfy my ego, I discovered that they were no longer in the house.
A heated discussion revealed that she had handed them over to the “jalipuranawalla” or junk dealer.

In the course of a few years she had got rid of a whole lot of my precious books, bundles of letters from old girlfriends as well as photographs, including her own.

I suddenly realised that this painting done by an artist at the steps of Sacre Coeur church in Paris had also been one of the “useless” objects that she had got rid of with an innocent smile on her very beautiful face.

As I said before, some things come back to haunt me without warning.

That’s what I said to Janet as she stood precariously on a chair trying to hang a useless thing on her wall. Fortunately not on the bathroom wall.

Janet is and will always remain a precious friend. Except that she has poor taste in works of art.