ANNUAL ACADEMIC ADVENTURE! (publishhed in DH 2017)

At this time of year Sri Durga Book Stall comes to my mind! Still unmoved from its nook in the wall opposite Russell Market, within a bylane off the square, it stirs up nostalgia each trip I pass by, as i remember the excitement of shopping there for school text books and exercise books as we referred to them, each fresh academic year. The major thrill was the brown paper and labels that would carefully be carried home as well, spread out on the dining table; and how impatient was the wait until mum or an older sibling obliged with measuring and cutting this to size of the required books and covering them. What a joy when old enough to take care of the task oneself but by then other distractions beckoned and it did tend towards being viewed as a chore! Label sticking was an art without messing up the cover, there being no gum tubes to ease the job, while writing one's name and upgraded class no. offered a sense of great self importance. 
Those days, about fifty odd years ago, we carried our books to school in suitcases if i remember right, and unlike today, we were thoughtfully provided lockable desks so we did not have to cart the entire load to and fro daily. Just the ones needed for homework use. The desks also provided us a place to store illegally, goodies bought from Balaswamy who managed the school canteen or Robin tuck shop across the street from our school St. Francis Xavier GHS at Fraser Town, and sneak beneath the cover for a quick bite while the teacher was elsewhere engaged!
The other annual delight was new uniform and shoes. Casement and Poplin material was purchased at Binny's shop on Commercial Street and the family tailor Venkoba Rao, from Moore Road, Fraser Town, was summoned with his cloth bundle neatly attached to his cycle carrier, to come by, measure and stitch as per school requirements. He must have been seeing blue and white or checks or whatever in his daily dreams during school starting season! 
Woe if we'd not shot up, we'd not merit a new uniform... 
Of course we'd have to get a new tie. No way that could endure more than a year of nibbling or whatever self conscious kids do to them to ensure their ragged appearance at the close of the year... 
Same with shoes and socks. These don't last either through the escapades of the young and energetic...
When I moved to college I guess I had to hit Avenue Road for my commerce syllabus textbooks. Not too sure. But i still had to cycle past Sri Durga Book Stall on the way to Ramnarayan Chellaram College of Commerce and continued to purchase my exercise books and stationery needs from there. 

I wish this stall many more years of academic service to us Bengalureans!

300 IS NOT A CROWD!

300 IS NOT A CROWD!

by Jacqueline Colaco - 2014

     Clans aren’t much in vogue these days, but ours is still going strong – the P.G. D’Souzas’ of Vittal Mallya Road, winners (during the 1940s) of the Polson Butter ‘CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN’ award because of their 17 children. Peter and Rose, my grandparents, are no more, but lived to the ripe old ages of 83 and 96 respectively and are still a legend in the old Bangalore/Mangalore community. They loved to have their progeny around them, and opened their home to many others in need. Till today, the close family ties they forged continue among the surviving four generations.

     My mother, Tilly, their eldest, passed away in 1998, aged 86. Since then some more of her siblings have passed on too, leaving the present number living at 4. Aunty Irene who lives on Walton Road is 95. She is the current matriarch, with Blanche the youngest at 77. I rank 21 in the hierarchy of 64 grandchildren and have 51 living first cousins, all of whom I know pretty well. That’s apart from about two dozen first cousins on my paternal side! A couple of my sisters are older than my youngest aunt and a few of my nephews and nieces are older than my first cousins. My eldest sister Muriel, her son Loy and his son Nishadh, continue to hold pride of place like my mother, as the first born in each generation. No generation gap exists in this family. There just cannot be one, as all generations overlap in terms of age. I had the privilege of Nishadh being my escort (pusher!) in the Mumbai Marathon wheel chair event in 2011 to raise funds for The Association of People with Disability, Bangalore where I’ve served as a Hon.Trustee and Treasurer.

     Three generations have crossed the borders of community, religion and nationality through their marriages to Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Parsi, Dutch, French, Danish, Japanese, American, English and Vietnamese, to name a few! Room for many more with social networking the order of the day and and every country so easily accessible! My then Mumbai based niece Nyna met her San Francisco located film maker husband Gino almost a decade ago now, courtesy the Internet! The fourth generation therefore has a mix of blood that even the United Nations would be proud to endorse!  But for all family members, their roots are still alive at Oorgaum House on Vittal Mallya Road, formerly Grant Road – the ancestral two acres where a number of the family still have their homes and apartments built on inherited sites.

     The clan now spread across the world, numbers more than 325 at present, with about 100 of us resident in Bangalore. Family celebrations of all descriptions from births to religious observances, engagements, marriages, milestone anniversaries happen with regularity, and occasionally so do deaths to mourn a dear departed. Each has a mega presence of D’Souzas’ and more D’Souzas’ mingling together – though some bear other last names through marriage. And out-of-town relatives, even those abroad, keep in touch and strengthen the bonds, through their ‘home’ visits and interaction on the clan website. Their spouses too from whatever different backgrounds have blended in and have become part of the close-knit culture of our clan. Perhaps it’s because as an initiation rite they have to learn the ‘Litany of the 17’ – Tilly, Sonny, Gerry, Mary, Bullu, Tittu, Irene, Otty, Xavy, Gussie, Tony, Joey, Alphy, Corinne, Noel, Louise, Blanche!!

OF CLUTTER CLEARING!

OF CLUTTER CLEARING…

By JACQUELINE COLACO

     I am beginning to think that I need a clutter counsellor, because this area of one’s life seems to be the hardest to tackle, especially when you have collected sixty odd years of miscellany around you. But in all earnestness I have made an attempt. Turning sixty, two plus years ago, jolted me into the realization that I had now moved into the ‘fragile’ bracket of the living, and so it was time to put my life (or should I say ‘after life’) in order. In all fairness to myself, I got cracking and within three months had done with the making of my will and instructions for donating my body for medical research, so that my ‘after life’ clutter causes no dilemmas.

     Now to the present, which is proving more difficult. I made a start by opening up a large wooden box, a great hideaway for stuff, under what functions as my divan. I was overawed by the surprises that tumbled out; stuff from my parental home in its day of elegant entertaining - fish forks and knives, after dinner coffee spoons, some bits of china crockery, an assortment of this and that, other pieces of which had gone to my siblings. As a natural consequence, my memories drifted back to the days of that home, with its houseful of seven children. Those were the days, so how could I throw away these lovely reminders, although redundant as far as now using them in my own home is concerned. Nostalgically, I placed them back in the box. What else came out was easier to deal with - an array of steel ‘tiffin boxes’- the giveaways from my erstwhile employer Bank of Baroda, every Foundation Day. These I pulled out and have since distributed to eager maids. Hurrah! One step forward. There were other things as well; you cannot imagine how large that box is! I think it was used by my uncle Gerry D’Souza, an army man during WWII, because it bears his name painted on top of it. Thereafter I guess my parents found it useful to cart their bulky ‘household’ from place to place on every railway transfer. Let’s not digress however, as there was more to find in this bottomless box. Lots of crystal/glass dishes purchased by me during my own sojourn in New York during the eighties. In my last year there, I shopped till I dropped, imagining I’d come back to India and live in Buckingham Palace style! Still, the box is handy to plunge into when one hurriedly needs to give a gift, and these collections come in useful. So after this great exercise the box is half full. Great achievement!

      But wait, I did not close the box as I thought ‘what a waste of good storage space’, and so, when on to the cupboards, it was a simple task of clutter reorganization instead of clearing. All that the cupboards contained was precious. Again, the thought of that rainy day which looms in our minds when we have to part with unwanted stuff, popped up large as life. The box thus once again took care of the extras. As a result, I still have loads of un-needed possessions ranging from a Walkman to VCR and TV of ancient vintage, a wealth of LPs and Audio/Video cassettes  (believe they are catching the world’s fancy again, so aren’t I wise?); clothes so out of fashion from decades ago that they’re back in fashion too. An uncountable number of other odds and ends still lie around, especially in the kitchen. Papers too pile up for constant sorting. And what if I add what’s stored in the computer…another universe in itself, with CDs and DVDs to boot…

     In the final analysis - well - gold and silver have I none, so what the heck, let me cling on to all these inconsequential treasures collected over my six decades, each of which has  a special memory attached to its acquisition! But, but, but… a most challenging and niggling task still remains – cleansing the clutter of mind, heart and soul (and not to forget that of the body – FAT!). A resolution for 2012 perhaps…

WHAT’S IN THE GLASS (THE HINDU – OPEN PAGE 29.10.’17)

Freedom was ours to wander within their entwined rows, lost in admiration at their stretched acres, so near where we lived in Fraser Town. I recall Sevanagar’s vintage vineyards alongside Banaswadi, that boasted the famous ‘Bangalore Blue’ from which the wine prepared, graced many a celebration at which a toast was raised!

As like the vines we ourselves matured from teens to thirties between the nineteen sixties and eighties, our experiences included jaunts to purchase grapes sold wholesale in cane baskets, carried home for the large family to involve in wine making for Christmas, and if left over, to serve later.

Duties would be assigned to sort, destalk, weigh, wash, squash and layer out the juicy grapes in stone jars. Inevitable we surreptitiously devoured some! Anyone eager for an errand would dash round the corner to Albert Baker’s home on Robertson Road to fetch fresh yeast. The same Albert Bakery of today’s Mosque Road fame and Ramzan iftar name!

Blending a sweet mild red wine involved blue grapes, water, wheat, sugar, stiffly whipped egg white, all emptied into a stone jar tightly fitted with a screw top, to initiate the fermentation process for 21 days. This according to a recipe of proportions and preparation method, handed down through generations for guidance, but possibly modified according to individual taste.                                                                                                          

Thereafter, began twice daily stirring for a week with a long handle wooden spoon, entailing quite some muscle power. Stirring reduced to once daily for another week before the next arduous task was taken up, requiring muslin cloths for squeezing out the ‘gooey’ mixture into a huge vessel to extract the somewhat refined ‘wine in process’. Additionally, flies that appear from nowhere had to be kept at bay, as this liquid would be poured back into the jar, left untouched for another week to mature while sediment settled, and the ‘gooey’ skins and seeds mix was disposed as wet waste.

With eager expectation on ‘D’ or discovery day, tasting would occur. The wine would be poured out into the designated vessel, ensuring extreme care to retain the sediment in the jar. From here, a steady hand would funnel it into sparklingly washed sun dried empty glass bottles, perhaps once filled with Kissan Squash, stored for this.  Excitedly, all would glance at the hue, voice opinions, vie for the first sip to ensure it had not turned sour or become vinegar, but was just right! Thrilled if so, then a tot passed around to sample and approve. No indulging unfortunately, as those times, wine strangely was served in miniscule liqueur glasses. Liqueur itself was a dream and even though we did possess those glasses, did not own wine size glasses like today! Wine itself was then deemed ever so precious, perhaps because of the laborious preparation involved.

On festive occasions we enjoyed a choice from homes we visited and the tradition continues.  Bengalureans today are wine connoisseurs with ranges to choose from the home made to the high end, with vineyards spread and species of grapes grown expanded. Vintners have turned a lucrative industry into tourist attractions and educative expeditions. Mamas’ recipes though are still treasured by Gen Next who has extended their expertise to flavours embracing other fruits and grains…

Thus the humble and the haughty co-exist. To each an individual flavor is irreplaceable. Habits die hard...

Cheers ‘Bangalore Blue’ plus all that is new! A glass of wine still does me fine and mercifully too, no more do I sip it by the thimbleful…