India Family: Memories of India, the times, the people and places.
Hi All at India-L, and anyone wishing to join with inputs.
If you have a personal experience or a memory of places that you would
like to share with others that pertains to over 30 years ago perhaps, please
send a mail to Ronnie giving
the details. I think sharing of your impressions of a particular person,
place or incident would be really worth putting down.
How many of us have good memories that will be as fresh as the time of
the experience? How many of us will allow those memories to fade away,
not shared with anyone else who could have been there or yet, not there
and still enjoy it? Unless one is planning of writing a book, these memories,
like the photographs will be gathering dust on top of some cupboard or
attic, unless you decide that you do something about it. If you dont have
photos, that's ok, you can still share your thoughts.
I still regret not taking the trouble of writing down the experiences of
Seprian my father-in-law and Zac my uncle, both were prisoners of war under
the Japanese. One excaped back to India, the other was at the River Kuwai,
now both are dead, and who remembers what they saw, felt or experienced?
They did tell me their story once, and that too very late or one would
say early in the morning, and they never told the story again to anyone
else. I understand that BBC was to interview Zac, but the cancer in his
throat did not allow him to talk and I do not think they ever came to see
him. What about my own father, his ship being bombed on the voyage from
Singapore to India! Yes, I am yet to confirm about the ship Rhona's voyage
from Singapore.
These are just an examples, and I am never going to make the mistake again.
I must make an effort, won't you also think about it? About sharing what
you have been passed down?
I am sorry if I seem to hog up the ideas, but then, I also expect you all
to share in the 'think-tank' of the India Family and I don't find
them coming. One could put a title of the City, the town, the place the
year, and we could try and organize inputs into some zones, for this a
little help in ideas would be appreciated and encouraged, perhaps someone
would even volunteer to collate and send batches of 'memories' and these
could be uploaded onto the India Roots Family Photo Album site, what do
you think?
Thanks,
Ronnie
Hello Ronnie,
Gorgeous Monday morning here in Southern Ontario. It's our Thanksgiving holiday. Jean and I sat out on the gazebo, looking out over the fields,
enjoying the really hot sunshine, it's 70F, and enjoying a nice cup of coffee. Next thing was to get into "our", your, Photo Album site. I'm glad Jean
was able to dig up those pics, made quite a reasonable contribution to the album. We also enjoyed looking closely at all the other family and other
pics that are now up. I do hope others will begin to wake up and send in their pics. There must be ever so many of our folks all over the place who
have pics that we'd love to see. As this grows this is going to be a "site" for sore eyes, more to the point, a site for nostalgic eyes! I had Jean sitting
by me, chuckling to see herself and her old school friends now on the web. Wouldn't it be nice if somebody recognised some of the girls and were
able to contact us. After that I went into your own home site. Now this is something else. We lingered and reminisced over your pictures of those
lovely old bungalows. It must be awful for you to be there and to be witnessing the steady decay and decline of the homes and the areas. My son
and family happened to pop in, and I couldn't resist having them sit and look at some of the glory of the India we knew. Doesn't do them any harm
to see the magnificent world we grew up in, and which was part of our special society.
An uncle of mine, Ernleigh Ward, was Abcari Inspector of Mysore State or somewhere, but his home base was in Bangalore. One year when I
was about five or so my Mother and I accompanied him and my aunt Kay on one of his inspections deep into the country. It was an experience of a
lifetime. We traveled by bullock cart, and on a house boat, and were even carried in palanquins across some places. There's a photograph of me
with a big solar topee on my head, siting in one of these palanquins and being carried along by two coolies. I've been hunting high and low for that
photograph, still pestering my folks back home in England to look through their albums, but so far no joy. I also recall very clearly my aunt's lovely
bungalow in Bangalore, with the big garden ablaze with colours, and the pics of yours of some of those lovely old bungalows brings back vivid
memories.
Jean too spent a short time with her parents in Clement town (Cleveland?). They stayed in the Weslian church minister's house. A few years ago a nephew of
mine was visiting a friend in Bangalore, and to please Jean he went to the house and took a photograph for her. It didn't help really as she was
shocked at the sad change. Before leaving India in 1949 her father dragged the family to Madras to see his old home. Big mistake. he was appalled
to find it plastered with cow patties! The same thing happened to our lovely old bungalow, Louisville Cottage, in Trombay, which is just outside
Bombay. It was miles from anywhere, and at night the jackals howled around the place, and no doubt the chickens in their hen house shivered with
fright. No electricity, no toilets, but luckily it had running water, though we also had a big well where the mali would draw water for the rather
extensive fruit trees, using a couple of bullocks. Oh, what wouldn't I give now for all that lovely fresh fruit we enjoyed straight from the tree to our
table. Fresh papayas, chickoos, bananas (plantains?), Alphonso mangoes, pumalos (sp?), custard apples, love apples, but we never touched the huge
Jack fruit for some reason.
In digging up that photo of our Louisville Cottage in Trombay I came across
some other old pictures of Trombay. I shall send these to you separately for the Album.
Regards,
Bryan White, Tue, 12 Oct 1999
Dear Ronald
There is something I wonder, reminded by the era shown in some of the pics.
I went to Dundee High School, my secondary school, from 1946 to 1952. I
found out later that many Old Boys went to India to work in the Jute trade.
I lived in Broughty Ferry on the East coast of Scotland and there were
several arches made from whale jaws. This is luckily no longer something
people do. Whale oil was used to strengthen the jute in factories in Dundee
and there were very large and ornate houses built on the hill beside
Broughty Ferry where the "Jute Wallahs" lived - they were making so much
money. Fascinating that your photos have reminded me of all this - part of
my own Scottish background. There was even a special train station built
in the West Ferry a very short way from Broughty Ferry so that the Jute
Wallahs did not have to walk very far. One of the most ornate houses was
removed stone by stone in 1955. I was very sad. It was a favourite haunt
of mine as a child.
Funny to think there was a little bit of India in Scotland as there was a bit (lot?) of Scotland in India, at least in the form of hundreds of
ex-Duandee High School pupils.
Dian (NSW Australia)Mon, 25 Oct 1999
Memories of Cousin Marjorie, postmarked May 15, 1985, Hounslow, Middlesex
Submitted on : Date: Mon, 08 Nov 99 12:48PM MST From: Theresa Hemming
Memories of Bryan White Trombay ( trombay.doc)
Submitted on : Date: Mon, 29 Nov 99 Bryan White
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