Here is Part Three of my Grandpa series. (In case you've missed the earlier two, here are
Part One and
Part Two)
Sometime in 1953, Granny moved the entire family to Bombay, which meant a 24-hour journey by the steamer ships of the old days. (I have spent many a day and night traversing the “rough seas” on an empty stomach. And thanks to the motion sickness that I was born with, I puked my guts out all the way from the Bhaucha Dakka ferry wharf in Bombay to the Panjim jetty in Goa.)
Grandpa had travelled to Bombay several times before, when he worked in the merchant navy. Though, he made sure not to stay more than a day or two. He loved Goa; it was where his home and heart was and always would be.
Now, living in Bombay fractured his identity and sense of belonging. It was a city that didn’t speak his mother tongue or his dreams. It was the bustling nerve centre of a country that recently had the sweet taste of freedom. A taste, he could not partake of because his home was still weighed down by the shackles of colonialism.
Then, in the 60s, when the fight for freedom back home gained momentum, its ripple effects travelled to the shores of Bombay where the tiny expat Goan community banded together in solidarity.
Grandpa had a routine in those days. He would wake up every morning to the radio playing his favourite Western classical music. He would get dressed, have his breakfast and watch his three sons leave for their respective workplaces. Then, he picked up his umbrella and mumbled goodbye to Granny as he set out for the public library. She always reminded him to bring the umbrella back and not leave it behind
inga tinga (here and there). He always came home without it.
At the public library Grandpa would read from 10 am to 1 pm; the day’s newspapers, journals, magazines, any books that caught his fancy. Then he would return home for lunch and by then, one or two of the boys would also be back. He sometimes asked them about their days and what they were up to. Most of the time he ate in silence; while Granny complained about the neighbours, the maid, the laundry down the road, the butcher, the vegetable sellers, and about Grandpa as well.
One day, as Grandpa was leaving the library to go home for lunch, he heard about some commotion going on near the church. So instead of taking his usual route of going down the street with the mosque in the middle, Grandpa went by the church to check out what was happening. A large crowd had gathered outside the publishing office of a Bombay-based Konkani tabloid, and several policemen were trying to control the chaos.
This paper, which came out once a week and was circulated among the expat Goan community in Bombay, was published by a Goan Catholic family that were known to be pro-Portuguese. Grandpa did not favour their views or subscribe to this newspaper. That day, or maybe a couple of days earlier, an editorial in the paper belittled freedom fighters in Goa by calling them “lions abroad and lambs at home”. So all the patriotic Goans, who did not like this editorial, gathered outside the office and protested.
Back home, Granny turned to the clock on the wall repeatedly and asked her eldest son, “Why hasn’t Daddy returned as yet? It’s past his lunch time.” She repeated this several times and then left to go and gossip with one of the neighbours. Her son, who was working the second shift and had to leave for work a few hours later, decided to take his afternoon siesta. (A lovely habit he has managed to continue throughout his life, and still follows!)
A while later, Granny and Grandpa’s eldest son, my father, was startled by a rap across his rear end. He woke up to find his father, who rarely spoke to him, now yelling at the top of his voice, “What are you sleeping for? Don’t you know what’s happening near the church? Those imbeciles have written nonsense. Get up! Go and protest, like the other young men.”
Not too happy about being disturbed during his siesta, Daddy reluctantly got out of bed and went to call his mother. Granny came running home to serve her husband lunch and to listen to an earful of complaints, “Your sons are useless. Are they going to remain asleep their whole lives? Don’t they want to go back home? Don’t they want to become part of India?”
If nothing else but just to check out what all the noise was about Daddy, who was still in his shorts, ran out of the house towards the church. After having his lunch, Grandpa too returned to the hotbed of activity. The protests continued and a few weeks later, the editor of the newspaper was packed off to Goa. The police thought that it was the best thing to do. He was too much trouble in Bombay and in Goa; his beloved Portuguese would take care of him.
Apart from the odd protests, the second half of Grandpa’s days also followed a routine. After a lunch of mostly fish/beef curry and rice, Grandpa would take out his little tiny transistor radio and catch up with the news and later fall asleep to the strains of Handel, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.
A short nap later, he would wake up and have tea with Granny. He would potter around the house for a bit and then, around 4.30 pm, he would set out again. This time, he would head to the football ground to watch the young men play. It reminded him of his days back home when, every evening, the boys of the village would gather in the fields to play football.
By 7.30 pm, as the young men stopped their playing, Grandpa would head back home. He would shower and wait for his sons to return home. The family then had dinner, which was usually roast beef or beef chilly fry or beef in some other form, and chapatis or bread.
So that was Grandpa’s day for a long time. Later, when his sons got married and the grandsons were born, Grandpa would spend his days with the little ones. When they grew a little older, he would take them to the circus or to the beach or for a buggy ride near the Gateway.
Grandpa also briefly worked as a cashier at the men’s salon run by a friend. He did it as favour and also to get away from Granny’s incessant chatter. Sometimes, his oldest son’s boy would come to visit him at the salon. He would jump up into Grandpa’s lap and make him open the till.
The little boy would then scoop up fists full of coins with each of his tiny toddler hands and grin at Grandpa, his favourite person in the whole world. Grandpa counted all the coins his little grandson took and let him keep them. Then, he made a note of the amount and deducted from his salary at the end of the month.
Grandpa spent a lot of time with this grandson, and the rare pictures that we have of him were mostly taken with this little fellow. I have never been more jealous of my brother! There isn’t a single picture taken with only my Grandpa and me :-(
To be continued.
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