December 13 2021 This year, my father would have been 100. A friend who knew him, Roger Pereira, organized a celebration of his life - originally planned for June, when his birthday was, but postponed till yesterday. (See attached poster.)
Roger asked me to speak, and also to write a short article about him to appear in a local magazine. I thought both pieces might interest you. In this message, the article about him. cheers, dilip --- Right here with you, Bain One afternoon a few days before he died, my father, JB D'Souza, was lying propped up in the hospital bed we had for him at home. He had been talking to us, off and on. But out of the blue, he became almost catatonic: eyes staring, mouth slack, arms loose by his side. “He’s gone!” I thought. But he still had a pulse. I sat beside him, holding his hand. Perhaps an hour passed like that, quietly. I went over the last several weeks that, to his own dismay and ours, he had been declining. Then I reached out, drew his sadly shrunken body close and whispered in his ear: “Don’t think you have to hold on, Bain" - always Bain to the family and all his friends - "if you feel your time has come, just let go. All of us who love you are right here with you.” I don’t know if he heard me, scoffed a bit and decided he wanted a little more time with us. That would have been in character, for the Bain I knew. Because soon after, he came out of whatever state that was, spoke to us again in that firm voice he had and lived another three or four days. Of course we were sad to lose him. But here was one more little story to tell about him, in a life filled with them. Like the time he came first in some subject in school and returned home to Khotachiwadi carrying a few books - his prize. At the entrance to the lane stood scowling "Fee-rankie" - always pronounced that way - who muttered one angry word at Bain: "Worm!". Back home, he told the family Fee-rankie had been appreciative: "He called me bookworm!" Like all he learned from the man he considered his mentor, the bureaucrat-turned-politician SG Barve. I'll let Bain tell this story, in words he wrote to me in a letter once: "*Until the early '60s, my performance was not much better than perfunctory. I worked hard because I wanted a reputation for efficiency, but there was little dedication. And then in 1960 I began to work for SG Barve, and continued to do so off and on till he died in 1967 or 1968. The commitment to the people’s service Barve inspired gave my effort a totally different character, impetus and persistence. I no longer cared for whether people regarded me as efficient. I bothered very little about promotion. The reward I cherished was simply the opportunity to serve effectively. And when I no longer cared if people regarded me highly or whether I got a promotion, both those things came.*" So: Through a distinguished career in the IAS, JB D’Souza had a number of fascinating jobs. He was in charge of rehabilitating East Pakistan refugees in Chandrapur; General Manager of BEST, Bombay's bus service; Bombay's Municipal Commissioner; Maharashtra's Chief Secretary; and more. He retired in 1979, as Secretary of the Works and Housing Ministry in New Delhi. But he was also the man who taught us in the family mathematics and badminton, respect for agnosticism and integrity, the worth of hard work and a wicked sense of humour, and what public service must really mean. He was also the husband and father who told us story after story. It's a privilege to be your son, Bain. And you know, all of us who love you are still here with you. -- My book with Joy Ma: "The Deoliwallahs" Twitter: @DeathEndsFun Death Ends Fun: http://dcubed.blogspot.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Dilip's essays" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dilips-essays/CAEiMe8o5xicrEkxeRPmeYX0KbQUP7tjamkLU5Wrtdf7xot-PUw%40mail.gmail.com.
