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PRELUDE
This story is true. Some names and details have been changed to
bring continuity, clarity and anonymity to the characters, otherwise
all the details are as I know and remember them.
CHAPTER 1
“I will not go to visit your Charo Mami . . .” snapped my wife, when
I said that I wanted to see if Charo Mami was still alive and still
lived there, “ . . .I really don’t want to know if she is dead or
alive.” This was said with such finality that only a man who is
married for over 40 years could understand when spoken thusly by his
wife! No arguments, pleadings and/or coaxing permitted!!!
So, I had to go into the old tenement that I had not seen for the
past 50+ years on my own. And I had no problems finding the exact
kholi (one-room apartment) in the rows and rows of tenement
buildings, which all looked alike, known as the “Cement Chawls” at
Worli. But though my old Bombay, now called, Mumbai, exists really
only in my memories, it has not changed so much that I would not
recognize Chote Mama’s kholi!
How could I ever forget that kholi? I had known that kholi since I
was 5 years old and there were so many memories associated with it
though I had not visited that kholi for the past 45+ years! It was
the kholi that belonged to my Chote Mama since the time he was a
bachelor and this is where he had lived (and died) as long as he was
at Bombay.
And may be, just may be, this kholi was the root cause of his
untimely and mysterious death!
The kholi door was open with only a thin curtain on the door. I
entered and there she was – Charo Mami – lying on a small bed,
looking shorter than what I remembered her to be. She got up from
the bed as I entered, a bit nonplussed at this bold entry of a
stranger and when I asked her if she recognized me, she was a bit
confused. It was the other woman, sitting next to her bed in a small
chair that recognized me. That was the original “Mrs. Vermaji”! And
when I looked into Charo Mami’s eyes, I realized the reason why she
had not recognized me – it was the cataract in both her eyes that
had not been operated upon - that prevented her from recognizing me!
But for an 82 – 84 year old woman, she seemed to be in good health.
She got up and hugged me and I discretely put a Rupees 500 ($12)
bill in her hand, knowing that she would appreciate it much more
than any memory of me. I spoke to her and the original Mrs. Vermaji
for a few minutes, inquiring about her health and being introduced
to her two step granddaughters (about 17 & 12), declined her
invitation to have tea, pretending that I was in a hurry and had a
plane to catch as I was on a business trip to India – and left.
And the visit again brought back memories of times gone by and the
perennial question – Was she guilty of, or had a hand in, the death
of my Chote Mama?
Charo Mami really is, or should I say, was, my Mami. She was married
to my mother’s younger brother, my Chote Mama, and that, of course,
makes her my Mami. She subsequently remarried after my Chote Mama
passed away, and, technically speaking, she was no longer my Mami.
But my mother, Ammaji, was a loving soul and always insisted in
“treating Charo right” and always said that Charo was a “needy and
poor” woman, despite the fact that Charo Mami stole petty items (and
Ammaji was aware of it!) from our palatial house at Dadar, a suburb
of Bombay (then), a few miles north of Worli.
Ammaji always maintained the same relationship with Charo Mami even
after Chote Mama died, and also after she remarried, so we still
called her Charo Mami. The relationship was a wee bit strained, and
that was not only because she had remarried, but also whom she had
remarried, and under what circumstances, but I am running ahead of
my story so I had better stop and start from the beginning.
CHAPTER 2
I first remember Charo Mami from the time that I must have been
about 5 years old and she must have been about 18 or 19 years of age
and was already married to my Chote Mama. Charo Mami was short,
thin, and ugly. She had a couple of protruding teeth and was a
typical “Goan ki gori” (village lass). I believe that she had
studied till the 5th or 6th grade, and could speak little or no
English. Later on, she got her two front teeth straightened out, but
that did not do much to improve her looks. Over the years, she shed
the “village lass” image, and become a “worldly” city woman. She
became “street wise” and was quite cunning in her ways, but,
somehow, I felt that her ways always carried a rather “crooked”
tinge to them. I have learned that I was 3 years old when Chote Mama
and Charo Mami were married, but, of course, I don’t remember
anything about the marriage.
The first that I remember about Chote Mama is also about the time
that I was about 5 years old. He was a handsome man, about 24-25
years old, tall and slim, with a Groucho Marx type moustache, which
frequently became a Hitler type moustache, depending on the
sharpness and direction that the long razor took in his daily ritual
of shaving. Eventually, in later years the moustache came off
completely, and in the next 10 years or so, the only thing Chote
Mama shed were the moustaches, but as if to compensate for their
loss, he put on some weight, and would have been classified as a
“stout” if not “fat” man in the next 10 years. He always remained a
happy—go—lucky fellow, very friendly, rather irresponsible, a great
“pet” of my mother, and generally liked by almost everybody he met.
Like all Indian marriages at that time, Chote Mama and Charo Mami’s
marriage was also an arranged one, and although she belonged to the
same caste and sub-caste as my Chote Mama, her family background was
not held in high esteem as her father was known as a gambler and
womanizer. My Chote Mama was also not highly educated, had either
studied up to the 11th grade or 12th grade and spoke broken English.
He started in my father’s factory, as a clerk and gradually rose to
become the sales manager. Chote Mama and Charo Mami had no children.
Nani, Chote Mama’s mother (and, of course, my grandmother and Charo
Mami’s mother-in-law) lived with them. She was a pleasant old lady,
very much like my Chote Mama, and must have been about 50 years old
about the time when I am recollecting the first impressions of that
whole family.
There was a special bond of love between Chote Mama and my mother.
My mother was two and a half years older than my Chote Mama. They
had an older brother, my Bade Mama, who was about 10 years older
than my mother and although the whole family was affectionate, there
seemed to be no special bond between my mother and Bare Mama. I was
told that when Nani was visiting her father at the time of Chote
Mama’s birth, her husband (my maternal grandfather) died suddenly
from the great plague of 1917 that swept much of Northern India, and
Nani just continued to stay on at her father’s house thereafter.
Bade Mama, was 13 years old when his father died, and was sent to a
boarding school. Chote Mama was only a couple of months old at that
time and poor Nani brought up Choti Mama and Ammaji with help from
her father at his house at Mathura, U.P.
Ammaji got married when she was 17 years old, and my father, Babuji,
was 10 years older than her. Babuji was very highly educated, having
a post graduate degree in chemical technology and soon after their
marriage he got a very good job with a chemical factory run by some
Britishers at Lahore (now in Pakistan). My father invited Chote Mama
to Lahore so that he could study there, but Chote Mama was not too
interested in studies and started helping my father at his factory.
Babuji was a very good technologist and impressed his British
employers very much with his hard work, technical knowledge and
honesty, and they asked him to open a factory for them at Bombay,
which was their main market for the factory’s chemicals. Babuji came
to Bombay in 1935 and Chote Mama accompanied Ammaji and Babuji to
Bombay. After staying a few years with Ammaji and Babuji, Chote Mama
found the kholi at Worli (the factory was also at Worli) and Nani
came to stay with him from Mathura. With Babuji’s help, Chote Mama
also was hired as a clerk in the factory and as I mentioned earlier,
rose to become the sales manager there when my father became the
owner of the factory, which the Britishers sold to Babuji when they
left India in 1947. Ammaji and Babuji arranged Chote Mama’s marriage
to Charo Mami also and she too came to the kholi after her marriage.
Bare Mama had settled in Delhi and Bare Mama and Chote Mama did not
get along too well. Bare Mama had lived all his life in Delhi, but
had come to settle at Bombay in 1953. Bare Mama’s oldest son, Shail,
lived for a long time with my Nani and Chote Mama in Bombay, but as
Shail grew older, he always fought with Charo Mami and he had gone
to stay with his father at Delhi when he was 17 or so. Shail
returned to Bombay when he was about 22 and Bare Mama had also
retired and settled at Bombay with his son then. Shail was about 6
years older to me.
CHAPTER 3
Sant Kabir, a famous Indian philosopher of the 16th century, is
reputed to have said:
Bura jo dekhan mai chala,
bura na milya koi,
Jo dii khojo aapno,
mujsa bura na koi.
Loosely translated, the saying means:
When I seek a wicked person,
No such person is found by me,
If one searches one‘s own heart,
No person is worse than me.
Subscribing to the above philosophy, it is rather difficult for me
to call Charo Mami a wicked person. In fact, it is this whole
dilemma of determining whether Charo Mami did anything wicked that
is the crux of this whole story.
It all starts with the death of Chote Mama. He died at Worli
Municipal Hospital in the November of the year that I was in my
second year of college. College life begins early in India and I was
only about 17 years of age. The college administrative office
summoned me from my math class at about 11 A.M, and I knew that
something really important was up. I was told that there was an
important phone call for me at the college office. It was my
father’s factory manager calling, and the manager wanted me to come
immediately to the factory. I do not now remember if he mentioned
why I was to come immediately to my father’s factory, but I do
remember that on that particular day I had taken the family car to
the college; that both my mother, father, oldest sister and youngest
sister, had gone to Delhi to a cousin’s marriage; and that the phone
call had scared the hell out of me!
I rarely drove the family car to college, but as my parents were
away from Bombay at that particular time, I had permission to drive
the “local” distances (say within 4 or 5 miles of our house) in
Bombay. The college was only about 4 miles from where we lived and
my father’s factory was also about 3 or 4 miles from our house, but
on the other side of town and the total distance from the college to
the factory was about 8 miles or so. Anyway, all these distances
were still “local” and so I drove straight to the factory from the
college.
At the factory, I am sure I was aware of Chote Mama’s death, and the
assistant factory manager accompanied me to Worli Municipal
Hospital, which was now outside my “local” driving range, but only a
couple of miles from the factory.
At the hospital, my sister, Chotijiji, was already there, as she
used to work part—time as a clerk at my father’s factory after her
classes at college. She was at the factory when the call of Chote
Mama’s death came to the factory. She had rushed to the hospital on
hearing about Chote Mama’s death before I got there. Chotijiji was
crying her head off and Charo Mami was in a state of real or
pretended hysterics. And the only other person there, besides the
hospital staff, and of our acquaintance, was Vermaji.
This Vermaji fellow was a local merchant whom we had casually met at
Chote Mama and Charo Mami’s house once or twice before, and did not
think him to be any great friend of Chote Mama. We did not give his
presence there much importance, as we knew that his shop was close
to the hospital, and rationalized that he was there because of this
proximity. Vermaji was of medium height, dark skin color, and
tending towards a slight potbelly. Vermaji seemed to take charge of
the whole situation, and asked me to go fetch Bare Mama’s son
(Shail), about 23 years of age, from downtown Bombay.
Now I was scared stiff to drive to downtown Bombay, never having
done so before, but somehow I did manage to go to downtown Bombay
and fetch Shail and drove straight to the tenement house where Chote
Mama, Charo Mami and Nani lived. I came back with Shail by about 2
P.M. By this time Chote Mama’s body had been brought to the tenement
house also, as is customary in India, to prepare the body for the
funeral pyre. My Bare Mama, who lived in a northern suburb of
Bombay, was also there by then, and it was a sad occasion for the
whole family assembled there.
Unlike the U.S., “preparing” a dead body for the funeral pyre for
any Hindu family in India usually involves no mortician and/or
chemical preparation. After a ceremonial bath, the body is tied to
bamboo sticks and leaves with jute strings, lavishly sprinkled with
jasmine flowers and is cremated at local cremation grounds. These
cremation grounds are nothing more than park—like places set aside
for this purpose, and the whole atmosphere of these places is
frightening. To prevent deterioration and decomposition of the dead
body, the cremation is usually performed within 6 to 8 hours after
the person’s death.
When the dead body is taken for cremation, in high caste Hindus it
is usually customary that only adult men of the family walk in a
procession with the body on shoulders of 4 men on the wooden
“stretcher” prepared at the deceased’s house to the cremation
grounds. The men in the procession take turns after 10-15 minute
intervals in carrying the body. The distance is usually about a mile
or so and the eldest son of the dead person, or the closest male
relative (who could represent a son) of the dead person takes the
“sacred fire’ in a pot and goes ahead of the whole entourage to the
cremation grounds. The sacred fire is nothing more than a fire lit
at the house of the deceased with some ritual prayers. It is with
this sacred fire that the carrier of the fire lights the funeral
pyre at the cremation grounds.
Here the abnormalities in Chote Mama’s cremation started. First,
Charo Mami insisted that I be designated as this “closest male
relative” of Chote Mama, when in truth, I was not. Shail, who not
only was, at least in the Indian tradition, a closer relative (being
the deceased’s brother’s son, rather than the deceased’s sister’s
son), but also had lived for years with Chote Mama and he had
practically grown up as his son. Moreover, I was only 17 years old,
had never even seen a dead body before, and had I been only a couple
of years younger, would not even have been permitted to go to Chote
Mama’s funeral! At that time, due to the fact that there were
strained relations between Chote Mama and Bare Mama just prior to
Chote Mama’s death, everybody reluctantly agreed to let me officiate
as the “closest male relative” of Chote Mama.
The next abnormal procedure at the cremation ceremony was that Charo
Mami insisted that she accompany the body to the cremation grounds!
While my selection as the closest male relative of Chote Mama was
accepted rather reluctantly, there was great opposition to Charo
Mami’s accompanying Chote Mama’s body to the cremation grounds. But
nothing could be done, as Charo Mami was in hysterics, it was
getting past many hours since Chote Mama had died, and the body was
starting to turn dark! Charo Mami insisted that she carry the
“sacred fire” in front of the whole cremation procession after I had
carried it for some distance, and she gave me the death certificate
that was required to be given to the guard at the gate of the
cremation grounds. She had the death certificate with her all the
time and she gave it to me just as we came to the guard¬house on the
cremation grounds. While throughout the time that we were en-route
to the cremation grounds, Charo Mami had acted as though she was
very distraught and was having sort of fainting fits, as soon as we
reached the place where the certificate of death is to be given to
the cremation grounds “keeper”, she was “sober” enough to take the
certificate out of her “secret-pocket” – which was really the cavity
between her two boobs (and quite common in India in those days for
women to hide valuables and money there!) and hand the certificate
to me. The one page death certificate was an official looking
document but was rather crumpled up. I distinctly remember that I
glanced at the certificate before I gave it to the guard and it said
very clearly that Chote Mama had died of “coronary thrombosis”.
Now to describe the cremation grounds, which has a significant
bearing on my story. I have seen many Indian cremation grounds since
the one in which Chote Mama was cremated, and though almost all of
them are rather grim places, I have not as yet seen a more macabre
place than that particular one. It was a shadowy place, with big
trees that looked like weeping willows and it was very dark even at
3 or 3.30 in the afternoon! To say that I was scared of that place
and especially at that time would be an understatement. Anyway, the
funeral pyre was made with wooden logs that are usually bought right
at the cremation grounds by the relatives and friends of the
deceased, and the body was placed on most of the wooden logs, with a
few logs placed above the body as well. Again, Charo Mami insisted
that she would light the funeral pyre, and she was allowed to do
that reluctantly. When the body was burning, more than once she ran
towards the burning body shouting that she would burn herself with
the body of Chote Mama, and, naturally, was prevented from doing so
by all the relatives and friends present there.
Chote Mama’s funeral pyre was lit at about 3:30 or 4 P.M. and all of
us stayed there (as is usually customary) for 3 or 4 hours. An
important ceremony at the funeral is the “tap” with a bamboo stick
that is given to the deceased’s head while the body is burning so
that the inside of the skull is also consumed by the fire. This
“tap” has to be given by the “closest male relative’. In Chote
Mama’s case, I had to do it, as Charo Mami would not let Shail
perform this ceremony either. After 3 or 4 hours, the fire consumed
most of the body of the deceased and we all returned to Chote Mama’s
tenement.
Another important ceremony is that the next day (when the funeral
fire has cooled down) the close relatives of the deceased gather the
bones that have not burned and bring them back in an earthen pot to
be put into a sacred river or the sea by the closest male relative.
Now it was decided at night that since the tenement of Chote Mama
was so small, my sister, Chotijiji, and I were to go home for the
night, and return the next morning, when, along with a few other
relatives, we would go to the cremation ground and gather the bones.
Let me assure you that I was not looking too eagerly to this return
trip to the cremation grounds, and both Chotijiji and I had hardly
slept the whole night, anyway. When we both reached the tenement at
7 A.M. the next morning, however, I was informed that Charo Mami had
gone alone to the cremation grounds without informing anybody and
had brought back the remnant bones of Chote Mama at 3 or 4 A.M.! To
say that everybody was surprised and shocked at what Charo Mami had
done is an understatement and nobody then understood why she had
done it. But to be honest, at least I was secretly glad that I had
been spared the frightening ordeal of having to again go to that
ghastly cremation ground!
CHAPTER 3
My dad, Babuji had been sent a telegram about Chote Mama death at
the marriage at Indore (about 500 miles from Bombay) where all our
family had gone except me and Chotijiji. Not to spoil the
festivities of the marriage, Babuji did not inform my mother,
Ammaji, that Chote Mama had expired immediately on receipt of the
telegram, but did cut short the trip and insisted that she return
with him to Bombay right after the marriage ceremony although Ammaji
had made plans to visit other relatives at Delhi (another 500 miles
north). Babuji informed Ammaji of Chote Mama’s death on arrival at
Bombay, and Ammaji was devastated. Not only was she so upset that
her favorite brother, Chote Mama, had died and in her absence from
Bombay, but also because she had left him at Bombay thinking that he
was only slightly ill and would be better when she returned from her
trip.
Ammaji knew that Chote Mama had some problems with his kidneys and
could not pass urine and that he was in the hospital for some minor
medical or surgical procedure. He had been admitted to Potdar
Hospital, a large private hospital at Worli, where the Hospital
Administrator was Babuji’s personal friend, and he had assured
Ammaji that Chote Mama was is no danger just the night before she
left Bombay for the marriage.
Ammaji could not understand, and in fact everybody wondered why
Chote Mama had been moved (at the insistence of Charo Mami) to Worli
Municipal Hospital, without any surgery or medical procedure having
been performed on Chote Mama at Potdar Hospital, and how he had died
when he was not even on the “critical” list of patients.
Of course, Charo Mami insisted that Chote Mama had been moved to
Worli Municipal Hospital because she knew many of the surgeons at
that hospital and that he was not being well “looked after” at
Potdar Hospital! And anybody could get a heart attack!
Nani, my maternal grandmother, just couldn’t take the shock of Chote
Mama’s death. She died within a year of his death. She just would
not eat and the doctors told us that she had no desire to eat.
Charo Mami went to her father’s home at Calcutta after Chote Mama’s
death and came back to Bombay soon after Nani died. Ammaji would
visit Mami at her tenement any time we were going to downtown Bombay
(as Worli was on the to downtown Bombay from Dadar) and as I was
Ammaji’s “official” chauffeur, I too would visit Charo Mami. On many
occasions, we would find Vermaji at Charo Mami’s, and Charo Mami
would tell Ammaji that she had started cooking food for Vermaji and
that he paid her for the cooking. In a couple years time, however,
Charo Mami finally told Ammaji that she was marrying Vermaji, and
even invited her for the marriage ceremony. Ammaji did not go to the
marriage ceremony, and we do not know to this date if there really
was a ceremony, but Vermaji and Charo Mami started living as man and
wife, in Chote Mama’s kholi!
Now there was nothing special about this marriage, except that
Vermaji already had a previous wife, and she lived right there in
Worli at another tenement, not too far from Charo Mami’s tenement.
It was about this time or may be earlier that relatives started to
question the untimely and strange death of Chote Mama. Many of our
relatives wrote to us from Delhi and Mathura inquiring about Chote
Mama’s death. It seems that when Pare Mami had visited her father at
Calcutta and her uncle at Mathura, she had said that Shail had
poisoned Chote Mama! Now we all knew that this was a complete lie,
as Shail was not even aware of Chote Mama’s death till I went and
got him from downtown Bombay myself!
Also at the time that Chote Mama died, it was later learned, that
our assistant works manager, Venkut, was at Chote Mama’s bedside
when he had the fatal “heart attack”. As Venkut described it, both
he and Chote Mama had a cup of tea each, and as Chote Mama drank the
tea, he complained to Venkut that his tea tasted bitter, and
immediately thereafter Chote Mama collapsed with his fatal ‘heart
attack”. Venkut insisted that Vermaji had brought them the two cups
of tea. It was his theory that Charo Mami and Vermaji had conspired
to poison Chote Mama and that there was some poison in Chote Mama’s
tea the morning he died.
While the death certificate clearly stated that the cause of Chote
Mamaji’s death was coronary thrombosis, there are so many questions
that have been raised about his death that it is very possible that
either Charo Mami poisoned him or conspired with Vermaji to murder
Chote Mamaji.
The first question: Why was Chote Mama moved from Potdar Hospital to
Worli Municipal Hospital, even when the Director of Potdar Hospital
was a personal fried of my father, Babuji?
Another question: Why did Charo Mami go alone (or with someone
else?? And who???) at about 4 AM on the day after Chote Mama was
cremated to bring back the “small bones” of Chote Mama that had not
burnt in the cremation? Was she afraid that somebody might “examine”
the bones closely and there might be some “evidence” of the poison
on the bones?
Another question: Why had Charo Mami spread false rumors that Shail
had “poisoned” Chote Mama, when Shail did not even know about Chote
Mama’s death till about 4 or 5 hours after Chote Mama had died?
Another question: How come Vermaji was “in-charge” of the whole
funeral and cremation ceremony when he was not even a close friend
or relative?
Another question: How come Charo Mami became so friendly with
Vermaji so soon after Chote Mama’s death that she started “cooking”
for Vermaji? and soon afterwards married Vermaji (when Vermaji
already had a wife who lived not too far away from Chote Mama’s
kholi)?
Another question: Vermaji not only moved into Chote Mama’s kholi
after Chote Mama’s death, he successfully got the kholi next door
and got his first wife to move into that kholi.
Many years later, I learned that Vermaji also died of a heart attack
and that Charo Mami now lived with Vermaji’s first wife and son, and
that she ran the whole family. And when times got bad, she started
to sell Pakore (fried potato-balls) in the local trains of Bombay. I
do not know if it is the circumstances, rumors or just my
imagination that I still ask the perennial question after all these
years about Charo Mami - did she or didn’t she have a hand in the
death of Chote Mama? - - - - You be the judge! !”
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