03 My Mother and Calicut Days

Both my parents belong to the GSB Community. They were in fact cousins, and their families lived in Calicut and Tellicherry (now Thalaserry) respectively. My Mother whom I called Amma, was a posthumous child – she lost her Father to Typhoid while my grandmother was about 7 months pregnant. Amma, whose name was Premalata, was brought up by her grandfather and they all lived as a large joint family in Swargamadom, our ancestral house in Calicut.

Amma was a sensitive child and was in a way, over protected by her doting grandfather who was a highly respected teacher in Ganapath High School, a family run School. The school was started by my great-grandfather – an educationist named Ganapath Rao in 1886. Ganapath Rao later on in his life became an ascetic and took the name of Swami Suvicharananda. Spirituality was certainly running in the family and Amma especially, had a deep interest in all things spiritual as you will see later on in the story.

Amma often recounted to me her memories of Calicut of those days including her happy childhood when she was at school. She remembers meeting Mahatma Gandhi when he visited Calicut, and she was asked by her school to present him with a purse for the Freedom Movement. She was also cautioned by the family members not to wear any jewelry on her person, when she met Gandhiji, as the Mahatma had the habit of asking people to part with their jewelry as a contribution for the Freedom Movement!

Amma told me of the many trips that her grandfather took her on especially to the picturesque Calicut Beach, especially down Beach Road where the Beach Hotel was located – this was earlier the Malabar English Club built in 1890 but converted to a Hotel in the early 1940s.

Calicut was a very cosmopolitan town even in those days where Gujarati businessmen, Moplahs, Tamil Brahmins and Konkanis lived happily cheek by jowl – the Gujarathis spoke fluent Malayalam! Calicut was abuzz with commerce and trade.

And in another beach town of Malabar just 75 kms north of Calicut was Tellicherry where lived another GSB family, the Mallers or Mallyas as some of them spelt their name and into this family in 1920 was born, my Father!