When Jaggi Met Tara
How an 84-year-old former corporate leader met his 92-year-old aunt, whose marriage he attended at 13
Time flies! And even faster in the age of the Internet. But for those that have seen many other ages come and go — the more it changes the more some things remain the same.
When Jaggi left Tonse, a tiny fishing hamlet off the west coast in southern India he was all of 16. Torn between the options of tending to the coconut palms meandering along the backwaters of the Arabian sea and roughing it out in the big city, Jaggi chose the latter. With a mere Rs 200 ($3), borrowed from his father, Jaggi stormed off to the extreme city: Bombay.
The young kid decided that he would go all the way — doing whatever it took, to strike it big in the maximum city. If you had stars in your eyes, Bombay was always the place to go. And it didn’t matter where you came from. Over the next decade, Jaggi worked during the day and attended college in the evening — acing his academics. By 26 he had finished a couple of degrees and pretty much worked his way up, brick by brick doing various jobs, saving for college but never losing sight of his destination.
By sheer dint of merit, Jaggi started surfing the waves of corporate India, and never looked back. Over the next 4 decades, he held senior executive positions with global consumer goods makers and rose to establish new records in business growth and export volumes, finally retiring as executive vice president of a top global pharmaceutical supplier.
But this memoir is not about Jaggi’s corporate career, which was anyway spectacular. This is about something more precious and fundamental: human relations and family values.
Yesterday, Jaggi met Tara, his 92-year-old aunt, who married his uncle, Ramanath in Udupi in 1949. Ramanath and Jaggi were both students of Shenoy Mashtru (PM Shenoy) in The Milagres School in Kalyanpur. Ramanath mam’s sister was Jaggi’s mum, a bright, beaming, voluble loving woman, with a big bright smile that was unmissable.
The unexpected family reunion happened in Jaggi’s home in Bangalore. The quiet evening shuddered into silence — as the 92-year-old Tara, gently stepped into the living room, unannounced. Jaggi’s sister who was visiting from Mumbai (formerly Bombay) was shocked into silence too.
The next several hours rocked the house with cross conversations covering several decades, a rare milieu indeed. It only took a few minutes to cross the chasm of several decades. As they say, when the hearts meet, time becomes history.
An always quiet Tara was shaken into conversations — some funny, some strange, some surprising but all in all, an evening that reverberated with memories and emotions. I can tell for sure, that it will take some time for it to sink in for the nonagenarian. I should know. She is my mum.
(thanks to the Padiyars, Soumya for making it happen)
