06 Bappa Comes to Bombay circa 1943

My father, Bappa as I called him, was all of 23 years when he arrived in Bombay in 1943, with a freshly minted M.A.Degree (in Economics) from Madras University. Job prospects were dim in those days and with all Civil Services exams cancelled due to the ongoing War, he decided to study further. He wanted to do a course in Accounting and joined Davar’s College of Commerce at Flora Fountain to prepare himself for the Accounting examination. During this time, he stayed with his older cousin Dr Amembal Purshottam Pai, who had a thriving practice as a General Physician. He lived in their spacious flat in the Girgaum area and travelled by tram to attend his Accounting classes at the Davar’s College.

The Amembal family was a very talented family and as I mentioned earlier, Bappa was staying with Dr AP Pai and Dr Pai’s elder brother AV Pai, ICS who was at that time in Delhi had carved out a very illustrious career in the Indian Civil Service. AV Pai was a very helpful man and when Bappa asked him to help him get a job, he promptly called Governor Taylor, a fellow ICS man at the Reserve Bank of India, and put in a word for my father. Lo and behold, Bappa got a telegram from the Reserve Bank to attend an Interview. He promptly complied, and in a short while, Bappa joined the Reserve Bank of India as a Research Assistant in the newly formed Economic Research Department. The RBI was very small at that time (as it had just been set up in 1935) and Governor Taylor was its last British Governor. 

The tide of war was slowing turning in favour of the Allied Forces and Bappa told me that the Fort area in Bombay was swarming with British Tommies and American GIs who were in transit and going onto the Burma front to fight the Japanese. And in 1944 the Dock Explosion in the Bombay Docks took place, which he experienced first-hand – he remembers distinctly two loud explosions and the mayhem that followed. And in 1946 was the Naval Mutiny, where Indian Naval ratings of the Royal Indian Navy both on board ships in the Bombay Harbour and on shore establishments, revolted and ran amok in the Fort area.

The Freedom struggle reached its climax in 1947 when India became a free India. Around this time Bappa started receiving marriage proposals and one of these proposals was from Swargmadom in Calicut. As I said earlier, Bappa’s and Amma’s families were related and therefore both these families were well known to each other. So in 1948, Bappa took leave from his work in Bombay and went to Calicut to have a look at Amma.