Mrs. Pereira's Boys

Remigia Claudina Pereira was a dour looking 24 year old, when girls that age look anything but dour. She trained to be a nurse at the Provincial Government of Bombay's St George Hospital near the landmark Victoria Railway Terminus in the city's south. No matter what St Georges looks today, it was then the premier hospital of the city. Anglo-Indian matrons and nurses many of them young and pretty, reigned supreme. Of the brightest minds in residency, there were many Goans and Parsis, training for their MDs and MSs - the medical and surgical masters degrees of that era.

Half a world away in Sindh-Hyderabad the Asrani brothers Gopal and Nandlal bade farewell to their father's family business and left for Bombay. They had nothing but the clothes they wore, a small suitcase each of personal possessions and photographs, and the most valuable asset of all, a couple of letters from their father Gulab Asrani. The letters were addressed to a few prominent Sindhi businessmen settled earlier in the city. These men were the original DPs (displaced
persons), Hindu refugees from an increasingly intolerant Muslim Pakistan. Gulab was the scion of a long line of wealthy shroffs, local bankers who made their living from lending money to aristocrat landowners and merchant princes. His reputation in Sindh was impeccable. Gopal and Nandlal were his only sons, nay his only children.

Remigia Claudina or Cloudy as her Anglo Indian colleagues called her, had an illustrious career path as a nurse-sister at Bombay's St Elizabeth Nursing home and later assistant matron at Breach Candy hospital. Both these august institutions were located in the elite Breach Candy and Malabar Hill areas of Bombay and well known for the excellent care provided to their patients. They were also expensive and therefore the haunt of only the elite citizenry. Cloudy was five feet eight but looked taller than that. A Goan to the core, from the village of Assolna, she was the terror of every ward. She knew no compromise as far as hygiene and strict hospital rules and regulations were concerned. And in the realm of nursing practice, neither patient, nurse nor doctor would be spared the sharp edge of her tongue or the bite of her pen if they were in transgression by even the smallest fault. But beyond this, Cloudy was a woman of patience, understanding, empathy for suffering and charity towards those that needed it. Humanity came first, sometimes even before her family, consisting of a quiet but loyal husband and two devoted daughters.

Gopal and Nandlal prospered in Bombay like most of their fellow Sindhis did. They conducted their money lending business in an honest but shrewd manner. Their customers eventually were the Mafatlals, Birlas, Khataus, Watumulls, Ispats, Singanias and every other big name that beat a path to the Asranis' Malabar hill mansion. The home was right next to the deserted bungalow of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the arch-nemesis of the Sindhi Hindu community of Pakistan, owned by the Custodian of Enemy Property. In the world of high finance in Bombay, large sums of money are needed at very short notice by business barons. Banks and other traditional lenders are not quick enough. This money is often exchanged at enormous profit on both sides, no accompanying paperwork and always sealed with a handshake that is never betrayed. Bad faith is quickly punished with the perpetrator being banished from Bombay's business world, although delayed repayment due to genuine hardship is sometimes condoned.

It was inevitable that the path of the money lender kings of Bombay would quickly cross that of the assistant matron of the nearby Breach Candy. Gopal and Nandlal had nine daughters between them. It started off with the eldest pregnant daughter. They could think of no one else but the redoubtable Mrs Pereira for the best care at final trimester. A few words were exchanged with the hospital management, a very generous offer was made to Cloudy and she was granted a sabbatical from BCH. The first grandchild was a boy and the Asranis' joy knew no bounds. They lavished on Cloudy expensive gifts, double the money they had promised and air tickets to London for her family. Cloudy took every gift and every paisa surplus to her salary and gave it to the Pedder Road nuns, to be given to the poor children under their care. The tickets she sold back to the airlines and put the money away for her daughter's education. The family lived in far away Bandra. She could have bought a car with some of the money but she didn't.

After that, with their succeeding daughters marriages and later pregnancies, the Asranis would have no other midwife but Cloudy. Like most Hindu businessmen of Bombay, they were extremely superstitious and they decided not to tinker with God's gift to them. In the Indian Hindu family, the birth of a boy is celebrated with great pomp and joy while that of a daughter is gamely accepted but only so. Cloudy lived up to expectations. The scene became almost routine. No matter where the grandchild was born, whether in London, Paris or Berne, Gopal and Nandlal would be waiting outside the delivery door like anxious fathers. Cloudy would come out with the baby and announce "it's a boy Mr Asrani". The grandfather would hold the child for a minute, then pass him off to his son-in-law, the father and only then would Cloudy take the little bouncer back to his mother. Entire floors of the best hotels in the city were booked off for the Asrani retinue and the celebrations would add up to more than the latter-day oil rich Arabs would ever splurge.

Had Cloudy kept all the money and gifts she was given by the Asranis, her next three generations would have lived in comfort, not needing to work. That would have never crossed her mind. Nuns and the institutions they ran all over Bombay benefited much from Cloudy's firm principles that she was the mere custodian of what God had given her and that true happiness came from giving not from keeping. Her husband died a decade ago, a happy man from a happy marriage. No matter where she was with the Asranis, she would always contact him and let him know he and the girls were the love of her life. Her daughters went through good higher education and eventually crossed India's borders to settle in the US and in Canada. They married well and they are happy. Mrs Pereira, the Cloudy of Bombay, the sunshine of the Asrani family and the guardian angel of many poor and needy children in Bombay will be sorely missed.