Of Irish Soldiers & English Poets – Part 1

“Bled!” said our new cook and houseboy (a misnomer here since he looked to be in his late 30s at least).

Mom, my brother and I looked at him blankly.  Our Kiswahili was sketchy at best since we had arrived in Tanzania only a month prior – in January 1977.  The cook’s English seemed equally minimal.

“Maybe he’s cut himself,” said Jay, reaching out tentatively and turning over both the cook’s hands.  But there was no sign of injury.

My mind, as it often does, shifted into reverse.  I dug into a kitchen drawer and wordlessly handed him a knife.

“Bled…” the man shook his head insistently.  “Bled!”

Then Mom opened the pantry door and handed him… a loaf of bread.

The cook nodded, his face wreathed in smiles.  “Ah!  Bled!”

Jay and I slapped our foreheads in unison.  We should have guessed sooner!  The previous day, his first day at work, we’d asked him his name.

“O’Malley!” he’d replied with a slow grin,  “O’Malley, O’Malley!”

My eyes had shot to his face in amazement.  A name that called to mind shamrock and St Patrick, Eire and County Cork – how on earth had he landed a true blue Irish name like that?

My mind drifted back to one of my favorite periods in 20th century world history -  WW II.  I’d devour Commando comics by the dozen, and one of my all time favorite works of non-fiction was The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan…

The South African Irish battalion had fought in East Africa during the Second World War.  Perhaps one of its soldiers had seen action of a – ahem – different kind…?  O’Malley was certainly the right age to be the result of such an – er – adventure…  But I frowned as I noticed he didn’t seem to have any physical trace of European ancestry.  His face looked as if it were carved from mahogany and his hair was a tight cap of black curls.

Mom burst out laughing when she heard my far fetched theory.

“His name…” she educated me, “…is Omari Omari.”

Omari, it seemed, couldn’t get his tongue around the letter “r”.

The following Sunday afternoon I was curled up on the sofa with a delightful new discovery I’d made at the school library - Gerald Durrell’s My Family and other Animals.  Dad had done his weekend vanishing act (only to reappear at the Gymkhana Club, I was sure).  Mom was taking a siesta and my mechanical minded sibling was messing about in the garage.  Omari, directly in my line of sight, at the center of the wide L-shaped passage to the bedrooms, was busy with a pile of laundry fresh from the line.

I suddenly let out a loud whoop of laughter in the middle of the chapter The Great Magenpie Caper. Who wouldn’t reading this?

“Piles of typing paper lay scattered about on the floor, most of them with an attractive pattern of holes punched in them.  Larry’s typewriter looked like a disembowelled horse in a bullring, its ribbon coiling out of its interior, its keys bespattered with droppings…  The table, a manuscript, the bed and the pillows were decorated with an artistic chain of footprints in green and red ink, apparently their favorite colors, since a bottle of blue ink was ignored.”

“Hoo!  Hoo!  Hoo!”

I almost fell off the couch at the sound of the deep, loud guffaw.  I looked up startled.  Omari had turned around with a huge grin on his face.  He said something incomprehensible in Swahili and then turned back to the ironing board.  He shook his head and chiuckled and again, obviously amused by my display of hilarity…

My jaw dropped when I noticed he had a pair of Jay’s underpants on the board and was actually ironing them!  It was my turn to shake my head.  The things people do to keep busy I thought as I dipped my head back into the book.

© Sosha Srinivasan

Bookmad and other connections

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am an avid reader.  I am especially enamored of books that are hard bound.  Take off that dust cover and you get a glowing jewel – ruby or perhaps jade green or deep blue with indented letters in gilt.  It feels heavy and solid and somehow rooted in your hands.  The best thing is tha pages don’t break away from the spine as they do in paperbacks.

In January 2006, I read in a local paper that there were used hardcover books to be had for I Rs 50 only (USD 1.10) outside the premises where the Chennai Book Fair was being held.  I rushed over.  I was over the moon when I realized ot was true!  I snapped up about 50 of which 40 were Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.  Of course I remembered to ask for the chappie’s business card and I made sure I visited his shop atleast every 2 months since.  My collection has since burgeoned to 100…  The list is on my Books Read pages.  I read more than half of them in 2006. 

Then I was struck by a doubt – perhaps this was just the tip of the used book market I’d unearthed – was I losing out on choice by restricting myself to one dealer… So I googled – second hand books Chennai – and up popped a kindred spirit – Mrs Fife, who seems to wander quite far south in search of those beautiful tomes.  Though I don’t share her primary obsessions of crocheting or knitting (cross stitch, a bit of tapestry and macrame with a couple of soft toys thrown in is as adventurous as I have got so far in that department), I was hooked (!) by her humorous turn of phrase…  here’s to more of her kind.

Talking of humor, James Thurber is absolutely one of my faves – I’ve re-read The Secret Life of Walter Mitty several times and it never fails to raise a laugh.  Ditto for The Catbird Seat.

Like Mrs Fife I enjoy British more than American authors – Daphne du Maurier, Mary Stewart, Gervase Phinn (Up and Down in the Dales is a hilarious must read), Marcia Willett, …  Then why is it that two of my all time fave books are by Americans – Jack Schaefer’s Shane and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird?  Does it have something to do with the fact that I read them in my early to mid teens and they made a terrific dent in my impressionable teen psyche?  Still trying to figure that one out!

So what the progress on the pals from IST I was trying to get back in touch with?  Morten and I mail each other quite regularly, once or twice a week – he called Dar-es Salaam “paradise”.  My son says we should visit Tanzania – but I know it won’t be the same – Places, like people change, often to be unrecognizable – and after almost three decades?  No, I think I’ll stay with the memories so beautifully blurred at the edges.  Now don’t misunderstand – it wasn’t all that hunky dory when you push away the nostalgia – there were plenty of miserable moments too.  Racism, for instance, was quite rampant among several students cliques and perhaps a few teachers.  We just kept away from them and made friends with those who were not.

I managed to trace one of the best teachers I’ve had the good fortune to know.  Mr Wolpert took Math – not one of my favorite subjects, but just his sheer enthusiasm and verve made me work hard.  His approach to teaching was fun – he was and still is an inspiration to me.  I used some of the concepts he used when I taught.  He’s still teaching - now in Pennsylvania.

I mailed Anna at her office – no reply yet becaiuse she is “out of office” till the 16th.  I called DuBois – and couldn’t get through – probably will have to resort to snail mail.

Finally I traced another classmate, John.  He is a physician now living in Texas and he mailed me back – catching up.  This reconnect was especially poignant since our families knew each other very well – Syrian Christians from Kerala.

© Sosha Srinivasan