Ludi's Travels: December 2022

Mum: the Fulcrum of our Lives!

Mum’s can-do spirit was the essence of her being! She always had plans for the future, people to meet, home improvements to undertake, closets to clean, new recipes to try — she never stopped! Last Christmas I helped her bake fruit cakes and cookies with all the endless cutting and mixing, not once, but thrice!

She was born in the Portuguese territory of Goa on India’s west coast. Her family were Roman Catholic for many generations and were probably converted at the time of the mission to India of Spanish Jesuit, St. Francis Xavier — more than 400 years ago! She was always an Indian loyalist but would’ve been disappointed that Portugal lost in the FIFA World Cup!

Loreto Convent

She and her older sister Millie went to Loreto Convent school in Entally, Calcutta, then British India, more than a thousand miles from Goa. It was a boarding school, Mum was 8 or 9 years old, spoke no English, and only saw her folks once a year. Loreto is known for its Irish nuns and one famous non-Irish, the Albanian-born Mother Teresa (now Saint Teresa), who began her career teaching Bengali and Hindi at Loreto! Mum traveled to Calcutta many years later (as did I) to get a special blessing from Mother Teresa. She also received blessings from a few Popes although not from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as I used to kid her — I got that during a holiday in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh where the Dalai Lama still lives after he fled Tibet ahead of the 1950 Chinese invasion.

Indus Valley

When Mum met my Dad, he was at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai (Bombay), doing his thesis on deciphering the Indus Valley script under ancient civilization expert, Fr. Heras, a Spanish Jesuit. She was with the British Indian Railways, one of the first Indian women to work for them. They moved to Lucknow where Mum joined the South Vietnamese Consulate and later to New Delhi where she worked for U.S. A.I.D. agencies, Wheat Loans to India and the National Science Foundation.

Although Dad’s book on the Indus Valley script was published many years later, he spent his early days in Delhi writing articles on Tamil culture, Mohenjodaro and Harappa, and “middles” for newspapers, which Mum prepped for publication. She was very proud of how well Dad was regarded in academic circles. One of the VIPs who came to pay his respects was Mexican poet-diplomat, Octavio Paz, who was ambassador to India at the time; us kids were captivated with his liveried driver and car flying the Mexican flag! Paz later won the Nobel for Literature.

Life in Vikram Vihar

We lived in Vikram Vihar, Lajpat Nagar. Our Block had a great community of kids that grew up together with most of us going to the same school, Frank Anthony’s, playing Cricket, Dog and the Bone, Kabbaddi, and Rounders in the playground outside our homes. Some evenings we would gather on our next door neighbor Mr Dawes’ “charpoy” (cot), strategically placed to catch unsuspecting passersby! He always addressed Mum as “Memsahib” and his jokes made her (and us) blush! Dick, another friend, would bring his guitar and we would sing along to old songs by Pat Boone and Jim Reeves: “Speedy Gonzales” was a fave! The Block celebrated Christmas, Eid-ul-Zuha, Lohri, Holi, Dussehra, Durga Puja, Diwali; neighbors shared trays of homemade food and desserts while children and parents (including mine) participated enthusiastically in the tradition.

Christmas Cake!

At Christmas time, Mum and her BFF-school pal, Margaret Baker, would get together to bake a huge batch of fruit cake. In America, everyone makes jokes about fruit cake (what’s that about?) — I’m referring to the rich, fruity British Indian (Caribbean) variety! Mum would get the ingredients together while the rest of us, Dad included, were roped in to wash, dry, and cut the candied fruit and nuts. The flour, sugar, eggs, butter, rum, brandy, and spices were taken to a baker in Jor Bagh market who had been warned in advance. He deftly mixed the ingredients while Mum and Aunty Margaret helped. It had to be baked outside our home as quantities were so large. I remember going with them one time and getting scolded by the baker for beating the batter in the wrong direction! (“Kya kar rahe ho beta?” What are you doing, child?) which earned me another scold from Mum! We returned home with tin trunks each holding 20-30 pounds of cake which we distributed to friends and neighbors on Christmas morning and mailed to my grandmother in Goa.

Passings

Mum moved to New York in the 80s followed by my brother Leslie, my sister Lorna, and moi. Sadly, Dad had passed away while we were studying. So did many of our neighbors: the Karambelkars (also Jayant and Mangal), the Georges, Mr Vajpai who took the most evocative b/w photos, our teacher Mr Andrade, the Banerjees, the Dawes’, the Sunderams (and their son Govind), the Sehgals, and non-Block dwellers: Dick, Indus, and Carl. Many had moved away or emigrated: to Oz (Jimmy, Sushma), to Norway (Twinkle, Teddy, Paddy), to Canada (the Sunderams), and many (like us) who came Stateside.

My Old Lady!

In New York, Mum began with a big law firm, then worked with a religious order (Dominican Charities), and later volunteered at the parish church: preparing food packages for the poor and visiting disabled parishioners to pick up groceries. As Leslie said in his Eulogy during the Funeral Mass, many of them were years junior; in fact, one of them was 20 years younger, but Mum still referred to her as “my old lady!”

We traveled with Mum on many memorable trips: to Egypt, France (Lourdes), Hawaii, the Bahamas, Atlanta and Sydney for the Olympics, an Alaskan cruise, California, New England, Miami, Savannah, and Charleston. She was always up for an adventure and hated being home alone! As Lorna said, she loved to “loaf around!” Such a “desi” expression!

Mum had a fall, April 2021, and broke her right shoulder. She refused surgery although therapy helped. I spent most of the last 18 months with her in Flushing. She would always make plans about who to meet next, never mind her state of health! It is sad that she never got to see her dear friend, Subramanian Iyer (Uncle Subru to us) from her U.S. Embassy days. She was happiest when surrounded by family and loved to see her only grandchild, Lori.

Farewell!

We finally laid Mummy to rest on December 10 with the Wake/Visitation the previous evening. I think she would have liked the elegance of the sendoff! Msgr. Edward Wetterer spoke eloquently at the Wake as did Mum’s only surviving brother, Msgr. Nicholas Soares, who also celebrated the Funeral Mass with Fathers Vincentius Do and Jaime Hernandez at St. Michael’s Church in Flushing. Most of Mum’s family (the Soares clan in New York) were present, including her youngest sibling, my aunt Laura Doyle, and other friends and church volunteers who worked with her. The hymns chosen, Nearer My God To Thee, Abide With Me, Precious Lord, Take My Hand, and How Great Thou Art were meaningful: the first two (along with Lead Kindly Light) were favorites of Mahatma Gandhi who played them when he was incarcerated by the British during India’s freedom struggle. Abide With Me (until recently, when it was deemed too Colonial!) was played at every Beating The Retreat in Delhi, a symbolic ceremony that occurs a few days after the Republic Day Parade in January.

Mum was one tough lady, indestructible to the end! At times her health seemed to decline but her unflagging spirit was such that she would always rally — to our delight and the surprise of her doctors — until she did not. We were privileged to have her in our lives for many years. She had a spark and a warmth that she shared with all. She leaves a void.