Interviewing the Inimitable Sam Kerawala and a Rotary International Reunion after 30 years!

Tuesday, November 28, 2018
Bombay

Interviewing the Inimitable Sam Kerawala and a Rotary International Reunion after 30 years!

     Namaste from Bombay!
     I had a profoundly fulfilling day--the interview I did today more than made up for the unsatisfactory one of yesterday.  Plus, I met friends from long ago for a lovely reunion at the Bombay Gymkhana. But let's begin at the beginning...
     I woke at 6.30 and blogged, went through Twitter, downloaded today's Times of London (to read on the train into the city), showered, dressed, ate my breakfast super fast (muesli--no coffee as I did not have the time), showered, made myself a Club Sandwich of cheese and chicken cutlets and rushed to Dad's to be in time for Russel's session with the physiotherapist Lenita, as I wanted to chat with her.
     Once at Dad's, Lenita, Dad and myself sat down for a quick meeting.  I could only spare 15 minutes as I had to catch a train to go into the city for my interview. But our meeting was productive. It seems that trying to teach Russel to climb stairs had been a daunting task and traumatic for him. If I remember correctly, another person I had seen with such a fracture and a cast had moved from the walker to a walking stick and from the stick to walking independently before tackling stairs. I suggested to Lenita that perhaps we should proceed in that manner and she agreed. So the next task is to get a hold of the walking stick that had been used by my Aunt Ella who passed away a few months ago.  Her daughters had offered it to us if we needed it for Russel.  I decided to text them to find out if they could deliver it to Dad's and one of them said she would do so tomorrow. When Lenita comes next on Saturday, we shall try to get Russel to progress towards using a stick.  He is--touch wood--doing very well with the walker now and is able to move independently with it around the house. Please continue to pray for his recovery.

Off to the City and my Next Interview:
     I left Dad's in time to make my 9.45am Bandra Local train that got me to the city in a half-hour. Next I hopped into the waiting bus at Churchgate Station that took me to Nariman Point where at 11.00 am, I had scheduled an interview with a man who has been an English language theater veteran for 66 years. It turned out to be one of the most fruitful interviews I have done so far.
     I remember, before I left Bombay, seeing plays by Sam Kerawala whose name used to be in the playbills we received at the time. He is so well known to the folks at the NCPA that he kept saying Hello to every person who passed by as we sat to do the interview in the foyer of the Little Theater. When I had told Sam that I would meet him at the Reception area as I was not sure they would permit him to go up to the library, he said to me, on the phone, "My dear girl, I have been associated with the NCPA even before they broke ground to construct the building!" I loved it!
     Well, it turned out to be actually true. Sam was able to go back historically to the time even before the construction of the NCPA. He took me to his childhood and his boarding school in Panchgani where his passion for theater developed. He took me to the time when he lost his voice for six months because he was spray painting stage sets and had inhaled paint that had stuck in his vocal cords and prevented them from vibrating. I had that much in common with him as I told him about my thyroidectomy and my loss of voice for six months and the trauma through which I had lived as I undertook speech therapy to get it back.  Once again, I heard the name of Sam Berkeley-Hill, the father of my friend Owen in London, who Sam Kerawala said taught him the aduction exercises that had allowed his voice to return. He was able to comment on what it was like working with some of the greatest Bombay English stage directors of all time--Adi Marzban, Pearl Padamsee,  Hima Devi, Alyque Padamsee, Burjor Patel, Hosi Vasunia, etc. He was full of anecdotes at every turn. It was endlessly fascinating to me.

Lunch at the Wodehouse Gymkhana:
     As our interview began at 11.00 am and we were still deep into it at 1.00 pm, Sam asked me when my next appointment was. I told him it was at 3.30 pm at the Bombay Gymkhana.  He then invited me to have lunch with him at his Club--the Wodehouse Gymkhana--so that we could continue our conversation. I thought of my sandwich in my bag but then I figured I could simply have it for breakfast tomorrow. So I graciously accepted his invitation and off we went in his little Smart car to the venue.
     The Club is one of those old-world bungalows that still stands in the heart of Colaba's Wodehouse Road. It has the graciousness of colonial times stamped all over it--a far more modest affair that the grand Willingdon Sports Club or the Bombay Gymkhana--to which I would be headed later.  As a point of clarification, I ought to mention that everyone in Bombay is now a member of a 'gymkhana' which has come to mean a private, Members Only, Club.  I am simply astonished at how many of them there are in Bombay and how the oldest ones now exist side by side with the newer ones that have mushroomed in the last ten years.
     We settled outside on the patio overlooking a lovely garden and were waited on by a man who had no one else to look after. Sam offered me a drink but I simply chose water and we had a cold Bisleri brought to the table.  For starters, he ordered Eggs Kejriwal--which was toast with grilled cheese and a beaten egg on it sprinkled with chopped green chilies and coriander. It was very good. Sam is a pescatarian--and so we chose to eat fish: Rawas in a Lemon-Mustard Sauce which was served with mashed potato and mixed vegetables--very English that. We also had Pad Thai with prawns. The food was good and filling and the setting perfect for a late summer's afternoon.  All the humidity has disappeared from the air in Bombay and it is really very pleasant now. The joy of being able to wear shorts and capris and sandals in late November is something I am truly savoring here.
     During lunch, Sam continued to talk about his association with so many theater greats.  He truly knew everyone in the field including a very dear friend of mine called Vinod Mehta who died a few years ago.  I still miss my friend so much and feel sorry as he too could have been such a valuable resource for me in the study I am now conducting.  Vinod used to be my contact man when I needed press passes for all the theater shows I used to report on, thirty years ago. He grew very fond of Chriselle whom he always referred to as "your little girl" (she was only 6 or 7 then) and became a close family friend. At several junctures in the work I am now doing, I think of Vinod with affection.
     At 3.00 pm, when we had finished our lunch with lovely malai kulfi for dessert, Sam drove me to my next point of contact--the Bombay Gymkhana.

A Rotary International Reunion After 30 Years!
     I was very excited about my next appointment.  Not many people know that the first time I ever visited the United States was in 1988 when I had been selected by Rotary International Bombay as one of four professional women to go to Los Angeles, California, on a Graduate Study Exchange (GSE) Program. I was one of four female professionals. The other gals who are selected (after several rounds of interviews plus group discussions and tests of public speaking) were Usha Meghani who was a banker at Scotiabank, a pathologist called Indu Nair who ran her own research laboratory, and a librarian who worked at the Alliance Francaise de Bombay named Shubhada Moghe. The tour leaders were a couple called Ajit and Sushu Kamlani.
      The six of us had traveled from Bombay to Los Angeles where we had spent 6 weeks--each week each of us was hosted by a local Rotarian and introduced to the manner in which our respective professions were carried out in California. Being a professor, I was put through a series of visits to high schools, colleges and universities in Southern California. The other ladies were led to places that were associated with their professions.  In the evenings and at the weekend, Rotary arranged all sorts of recreational activities for us that included going up in the Goodyear blimp, trips to Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Magic Castle, etc., our first roller-coaster ride called Montezuma's Revenge. Plus we were taken on a three-day cruise to Mexico! All this was All Expenses Paid--we were treated like royalty and lived in some of the grandest homes in some of the most expensive parts of the United States such as Malibu, Hollywood Hills, Pacific Palisades, Rancho Palos Verdes, etc. So you can just imagine what sort of a 6-week experience that was for us all--straight out of Bombay at that!  Chriselle is still amazed that when she wants to take me to any place in LA, I keep telling her that I had Been There, Done That--with Rotary International, 30 years ago!
     So, as it turns out, two of us (Usha and I) settled in the US (Usha lives in Minnesota) while the other two (Shubhada and Indu) continued to live in Bombay and very close to each other in Chembur. This is the first time in 30 years that Usha and I happened to be in Bombay at the same time and decided to meet at the Bombay Gymkhana (where Usha is a member). We invited the other two, Indu and Shubhada, to join us and despite the fact that we gave them very short notice and Indu has to rearrange her hospital schedule to see us, they both made it possible to join in.
     What a historic day it was for the four of us! Naturally, we kept exclaiming about the changes that time has wrought in our appearances and the fact that we have remained so young at heart.  Naturally, we kept recalling things that had happened so many years ago--which some remembered vividly and others had forgotten completely. Naturally we talked about the highs and lows of that time we had spent together and about the different paths through which Life has led us.
     It was nothing but fun through every second of it.  Usha, meanwhile, ordered freshly squeezed juices and eats for us.  I had watermelon juice and we shared a lot of chaat--dahi batata puri, sev puri and chili cheese toast (which is found on every Gymkhana menu, by the way--a decidedly Bombay thing). As we ate, we chatted. We took so many pictures--posed, unposed, you name it. We talked about our husbands, children and grandchildren (Indu has three!) and about the place we currently find ourselves in life. One has a mother who is 90, another has a disabled brother (me), another has just gone through a bitter divorce. Indu, who is the only one who joined Rotary International and has contributed and given back hugely is currently competing for the position of District Governor. More strength to her! It was Indu who had arranged for me to speak to her Rotary Club this past January on what Rotary International had done for me and how many doors it had opened on my own route through life. It had been a great opportunity for me to express my thanks to the organization for the great work they do in the lives of individuals and communities.We thought it would be a good idea for the six of us (including the Kamlanis) to join us on a trip somewhere out of Bombay next time we can all be together--which will be in March when Usha returns to Bombay. I will still be here at that time--so that might be a plan. And of course, we could not leave without forming a whatsapp group so that the four of us can now keep in touch privately. What a blast we had!
     At 5.30, Indu jumped up to leave as she was addressing a Rotary Club at 7.30 pm. She had a car and a driver who dropped me off at a spot from where I could walk across to Churchgate station for my train home.
     Although I did not have a physically tiring day, for some reason I felt really fatigued by the time I got home. I decided to skip Mass today and went straight home to relax. I read another story from my friend Michael Anderson's book Heaven's Above and then served myself an early dinner--the leftovers in my fridge as I will receive a new tiffin tomorrow--and finished watching The Princess Switch which really put me in the Christmas mood as it is set in the days before Christmas. Thanks to my friends the Colcloughs for recommending it to me from London and for flattering me by telling me that the female protagonist reminded them of me ("a real beauty" wrote Michael--music to my ears!)! She turns out to be the actress Vanessa Hudgens.
     I decided to do my nails as I had no time for my home-manicure yesterday and with that done, I turned off for the night after a truly memorable day!
     Until tomorrow...