Ammu on our life in Delhi and people who touched our lives

The Indo - Pak war happened when we were living at Gole Market and when Reggie was with us.  We dug trenches  and pasted brown paper on the glass windows to ensure that no light escaped our homes that could be detected by Pakistani bombers. When the siren sounded we would crouch  under the table lest a bomb would fall and send the ceilings crumbling down on to us and  thought that we would be protected by the table top. Those were frightening days.

My dad's brother Babypapen and his Tamilian Catholic wife Chellamamma are legendary figures who touched many lives with their hospitality. Many people including our family stayed at Minto Road with Babypapen when in need. Chellamama touched our lives with her kebabs and prawn pickle that she made and sold  at church fetes and to whom ever placed orders and ofcourse for her own table.  There was hardly any profit in these activities except affection and gratitude from the people. Chellamamma was also requested to run the Canteen at St Stephen´s hospital where Lucy aunty (Dr Lucy Ommen) was the Chief Medical officer and Director.

MINTO road was a place we would go to during Dussehra hindu festival around the Autumn school break, to see the street theatre processions of Ramayana. Chellamama had a child like personality and enjoyed this with us. Ammachy stayed away from the madding crowd. She was too refined for such plebeian activities.

Chakuttypapen my dad's youngest brother touched our lives when he had to leave Manipur where he was principal founder of a school for the tribal Nagas and his wife Annamamma also worked. Chakuttypapen had to leave Manipur in a hurry because he was identified with the Naga separatist movement.

They came and lived in Minto Road with Babypapen.  Chakuttypapen, Mary his daughter and I had a common interest on Basketball. He came for our practices and became patron of our club called Hoopsters. I was to become the Captain of the Delhi University Women's Basketball team in 1971 and be awarded the University Colour.

My cousin Mary later did her MBBS from the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) in Pune and marry Aroop Ray, a Bengali plastic surgeon she met at CMC Vellore, while doing her internship and lives in Glasgow. Both became consultants and Heads of Departments  of Pediatrics and plastic surgery and Skin, respectively.  Santosh knows them well when he was at Glasgow doing his PhD in Bio-Medicin.

I came away to Sweden and married a Swede, Bengt Eric Meynert who was a liberal party politician, a town councillor and Business Management teacher  at the Kristianstad University.

I started my PhD at Lund university and ended up with a Phil.Lic degree in Social Sciences and book on Childhood and Postmodernity, published  by Cambridge Scholars Publishers.

Leela a pediatrician ended up as a chief Medical Officer of a big dispensary in Mumbai and married Ashok - Palakunnathu George  Mathai, who retired as a very senior editor for Anand Bazaar Patrika. Their son Adit became a journalist  and is just now in between professions

My maternal cousin Reggie touched our lives when he came to live with us at Gole Market in Delhi, to study in an English medium school.

Reggie now is a farmer in Dahanu near Mumbai  growing  ecological Chikoo and drumsticks and other fruits and vegetables after being a banker and making his millions in Nigeria. His wife Mini is a journalist and a great cook and homemaker.

I have seen a photo of Maggie Kochamma carrying both me and Leela standing in the Hailey Lane cottage in Delhi, where she lived with mummy and daddy while studying at an elite college called Lady Irwin College, where I was to do my University studies too.

I heard from Leela that after her Diploma in Home Science Maggie mama and Leela went to kerala and stayed with Valiammachy and Valliapachen at Theepany for a year.

Maggiemama  taught sewing at Nicholson school and later married Mathukutty Chayan who was an eligible bachelor with an Engineering degree,

We used to visit Maggiemama at Pallom where Mathukutty Chayan was posted.

I came to know Maggiemama well after mummy came to live in Amalloor and mathukutty chayan  and Maggiemamma lived at Kuttapuzha. After appachen´s death mummy was alone and Maggiemamma and Mathukuttychayan took care of her and visited her.


Maggiemama had a great sense of humour and took off on everyone including mathukuttychayan with his fetish for cleanliness.

Her 3 boys - Thomachen, Sajan and Thambi  used to entertain us when we visited them with their Radio Kuttapuzha commentary of our visit.

Maggiemama was very important to mummy and later to me. I visited her and chatted with her while helping her in her kitchen. Those were the days when people were getting desperate because I was still unmarried and producing unsuitable matches for me.

I write what I remember vividly. Mercy was the beauty with voice of a bird, who later married Abbi, an engineer, and went to live in Mumbai.

Sajan became a Naval Architect,  Thomachen an Orthopaedic surgeon and Thambi an Associate Professor in Chemistry at St Stephen´s College in Delhi.

Mercy , Abbi and their children Rita and Rajiv are in Canada at this moment. I shall be visiting and staying with them in Toronto, where I am going to present a paper at the World Congress of the International Sociological Association in July 2018..