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The day I died SAMUEL Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida in November 1835 — he came in with the appearance of Hailey’s comet (every 75-76 years) and went out in Elmira, New York, in April 1910 with its next appearance. His first profession in life was as a river pilot on the Missouri, from where he moved on to journalism, first as a cub reporter with his elder brother’s newspaper in Virginia City, and then on to San Francisco as a short story writer for the ‘Saturday Press.’ Clemens maintained that his primary pen name, Mark Twain, came from his years on the riverboat, where two fathoms or ‘safe water’ was measured on the sounding line, and called by the sounder ‘mark twain.’ The Ratnagiris and Konkanis who sailed around our coast would have called out ‘Bey waam,’ and our men would have had it as ‘Doe waam.’ Clemens’ friends have the ‘Mark Twain’ origin differently. During his wild days in the West, he would buy two drinks and tell the bartender to ‘mark twain’ on the tab. Regardless of which version we accept, Clemens first used his pen name in 1863 on an article for the ‘Nevada Territorial Enterprise.’ Once, much later in life when he was a successful and popular author and had many books to his name, while travelling on a lecture tour in Europe in May 1897 he was told that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal. He sent off a note to AP: “James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness, the report of my death was an exaggeration.” He later sent off another note to his good friend Frank Bliss : “It has been reported that I was seriously ill — it was another man; dying — it was another man; dead — the other man again. As far as I can see, nothing remains to be reported, except that I have become a foreigner. When you hear it, don’t you believe it. And don’t take the trouble to deny it. Merely just raise the American flag on our house in Hartford and let it talk”. Mistaken announcements of death are not as rare as one might expect. The latest example is of Dave Swarbrick, the British folk-rock violinist, who was killed off mistakenly by the ‘Daily Telegraph’ in April 1999 when they reported that his visit to hospital in Coventry had resulted in his death. He did at least get the opportunity to read a rather favourable account of his life, not something we all get to do, and to deliver the gag, “It’s not the first time I have died in Coventry.”. Which brings me to the Metropolitan section of this newspaper on February 2 2006 when, on page 2, amongst the obituaries (second in line of a string of seven) was one which read : “Ardeshir S Cowasji expired on 1st February 2006. Funeral at 11.00 a.m. on 2nd February at 45-H Cyrus Colony, Parsi Gate, Mehmoodabad .........” Now, my full name and style is Ardeshir Rustom Fakirjee Cowasjee Rustomjee Variawa Dubash. Ardeshir, my distant kinsman, was known to us as Adi Shavakshaw Cowasji Vasuwalla. Somewhere along the line he dropped the Vasuwalla as it was consistently mis-spelt and mispronounced. Surely I am on the death wish list of several groups of people such as the rather nasty builders and developers and other ravagers of this city of ours. There once was a gentleman known in the building fraternity as ‘Rahimbhai’, who, a decade or so ago, used to regularly inquire after my health. One day I asked him why he was so concerned. His bland reply was that he valued time and money, that he and his partners had bought a plot of land in the vicinity of my house and were planning to build a 12- storey monstrosity. They were sure I would challenge them in court and possibly get a ‘stay’ which would be enforced for ten years. One of them had been told that my health was not exactly brilliant and that if they were lucky I would peg out in a couple of years leaving the field clear for them. Since then, they have realized that I have let them down and have sold the plot and moved on. Today a hideous ground plus one stands on poor old Rahimbhai’s treasure trove of a plot. The first phone call on the 2nd came at 0655, from an old friend from the ‘70s, Talat Tayyebji, who, in a tentative tone, on hearing my voice, asked “Ardeshir, how are you? Are you well?” Yes, I told her, thank you, chatted for a bit, wondered why she had called me at the crack of dawn, and, mystified, rolled over and went back to sleep. At 0750, my G-1 arrived as the phone rang for the second time. She picked it up and Mushtaq Chaapra, again most tentatively, asked her how she was. When he heard her tell him she was in fair nick, he was surprised and even more surprised when she asked if he wished to speak to me. No, no, all’s well, he said. From then on, the telephone rang at regular intervals. All was explained when I was told about the obituary notice before I had even opened up my daily ‘Dawn’. The first call which I myself answered came from an agitated vice-chancellor of the NED University, Abul Kalam. I admire Kalam’s capacity to be at his desk each morning before 0829 hours. That morn, in a funereal sounding voice, he politely asked who was speaking and in even more funereal tones I replied that I was Ardeshir’s son Rustom who had just flown in from the States. Kalam was taken in, expressed his profound sorrow, and advised ‘Rustom’ that the university was in the process of organizing a condolence meeting. Before I left the house to attend Adi’s funeral the ring tone continued on solidly and after some 20 calls, to many of which my response had been that poor old Ardeshir had finally turned up his toes, my daughter Ava rang : “Dada, will you please stop telling people you are dead. You have caused enough confusion. Hameedi is in tears, and his sister Suraiya Bajiya is on her way to your house.” She did arrive just as I was leaving and was pleasantly surprised to see the body upright and mobile. Arriving at the funeral venue, two cars drew up with mine and I spotted two friends dolefully stepping out. On seeing me they leapt back in and drove away. A couple of other friends were already there and stayed on throughout the proceedings. There was also a gathering of TV cameramen who on seeing me arrive hale and hearty left, disappointed, no hot news! The total tally of calls for that one day was 56, and from then on there have been a couple of calls each day inquiring about my health, the last call received was three days ago from a friend who had obviously been asleep for a week. There were also half a dozen e-mail messages expressing surprise that though they had been notified of my demise on the Thursday, my column appeared last Sunday. It’s rather amusing to ‘die’ and yet be alive.   |
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