First, a confession. I picked up this book simply because it was the life story of Sachin Tendulkar’s mother-in-law. But just two pages down into Annabel Mehta’s memoirs and I was hooked. It’s a warm, intimate account of an English woman straddling two cultures as she marries into a Gujarati Mehta family and moves to India. Of course, Sachin figures in the book and there are delicious nuggets on how he and his wife Anjali met, their courtship and also glimpses into the cricket idol’s life, but by the time you finish, it is Annabel’s story that enchants you.
The story came to be written because Georgina Brown, a British journalist and theatre critic, whose husband was posted in India and was at a loose end, got acquainted with Mehta and was so entranced by her work and life that she took it up as a project to write it. The world of biographies is richer as a result — for Annabel’s is not a story that may otherwise have got written. Extraordinary though her life is, and utterly interesting her observations, she is not a celebrity. She is an upper class English woman (though she calls herself middle class) married into a wealthy SoBo (South Bombay) Indian family who gave up a music career and threw herself into social work.
Striking observations
It’s a story told with affection and humour, peppered with PG Wodehousian phrases (Plum fans will be delighted as Mehta is one too and talks about it) and striking observations about Indian society, politics and cultural practices. The outside in view of her first glimpses of Indian life is utterly fascinating as she adapted from British style baths soaking in tubs (termed unhygienic by her husband Anand) to bucket baths, different gifting traditions (she is taken aback at our practice of giving money in an envelope at weddings and other occasions) and so on.
The first chapter ‘Who Am I?’ completely captures Annabel’s personality so much so that you feel you know her intimately. It’s not a bland where she was born, where she schooled account, rather it is a rich portrait. “I belong to the distinctly British genus of women who went to boarding school in the 1950s. I sleep with the window open; I would still win the Tidiness Cup; my posture is excellent for one in her ninth decade; I can knit, badly, I can pack, expertly….”
That paragraph really sets the tone as she draws out the characters of each one of her family members — her frugal, patriarchal dad, her sacrificing mom, her two brothers and sister — their holidays in Devon, and so on. Similarly, she gets under the skin of the Mehta family members too who stay in a joint family. Unusually for the 60s, Annabel who is still making up her mind whether to marry Anand who she met in LSE, is invited by his parents to live in Mumbai with them for a couple of months before she decides. How exceptional is that!
It’s a candid autobiography. You are touched when Annabel confesses to not being too nice to her mother when she was a kid, rebuffing her hugs and so on. You cry with her as she details her emotions on the death of her younger daughter Tara.
You are so caught up in Annabel’s life that the Sachin-Anjali chapter almost comes as a surprise. Spoiler — it was love at first sight, Cupid striking at an airport! And of course, the Mehta parents were completely unaware the two were dating. Everyone knows Sachin the cricketer, here you meet Sachin, the dutiful son, affectionate son-in-law and loving husband. And while we all know about his love for dogs, we get to know about his love for cows and how Irfan Pathan gifts him one. There is enough about cricket too to please as her husband Anand Mehta (who is a bridge champ incidentally) is a cricket fanatic.
Mehta’s gritty work with Apnalaya and her compassionate accounts of the challenges faced by the disadvantaged show how beautifully she straddled the two worlds of India — the rich and poor. It’s a winner of a book, and kudos to Westland for publishing it. We need more accounts of lives like this.
Title: My Passage to India: A Life
Author: Annabel Mehta/ As told by Georgina Brown
Publisher: Westland Books
Price: ₹699
Pages: 236