These are the stories of my father's life as written by him when he was alive.  He left behind a rich trove of stories and I wanted to share a few of them with you.
- Francisco D'Souza


The first eight years of my life were spent in East Africa, mainly in Dar-es-Salaam, capital of Tanzania, where I was born.  I was a bonny baby, some 9 pounds at birth.

My mother would often tell me that the Governor's daughter was also in the same hospital where I was born and seemed to like to take me for a walk along with her own baby who was not as healthy-looking as I was!

My father worked in the Customs Department of the then Government of Tanaganyika. He attained what was probably the highest level possible for Asians at that time – that of Grade I Clerk. His was a very active life, and he engaged in all forms of sports including hockey, angling, and shikar.

He took interest in a variety of other things. He was fond of films that had just been invented and introduced to East Africa at that time. He was so fond of them that he had a special uniform made so that he could avail of the special rates available to such personnel.

He seemed an adventurous type of person. Airplanes were still a novelty and when one came to Tanganyika, he did not hesitate to go on a joy ride along with my mother. It must have been an exciting and seemingly dangerous trip in those distant days.

He was a convivial type of person – outgoing and involved in the Goan Institute club activities.

I have few memories of Dar-es-Salaam, and fewer photographs to jog my memory.

I do remember quite well the school I went to – St. Joseph’s - and the inspection of our fingernails that took place before class began. If one forgot to have them neatly cut, one was punished or at least received a reprimand. To avoid this we would, if we had forgotten to get them cut, scrape them on a huge stone in a corner. This was quite painful but effective!

Another vivid memory that remains with me is of the house we lived in – a small flat on the first floor. Below it was a printer’s shop that was also a bookshop. I would scour the environs of the printer’s shop for the coloured paper shreds that were thrown away, and use them for drawing and painting.

From the bookshop, I would insist on getting the weekly comics magazine. I could not read but would pester my sister to read them to me – generally over and over again, which no doubt irritated her no end. But she was coaxed by my mother to give in to my entreaties.

The school was not far from the beach and from time to time, the teacher would take us there during class hours. That was most exciting, and I recall a sand castle that I built with great care on one such occasion. It was a big castle decorated with seashells and other trivia from the beach, and I was devastated when the tide came in and washed away my effort.

We spent a few months in Bukoba on the shores of Lake Victoria, but returned as the climate was not congenial and my father asked to be transferred.

I have a few other stray memories – of my class friend Freddy Cordeiro who later joined me in class in India; of Rolly, our dog who was run over by a car on Christmas day, and of the local servant Yusuf, who looked after me and generally helped around the house.

In 1939, the Second World War broke out and there was the danger of getting involved in the war. There were frequent blackouts, and we used to have dinner in the kitchen. It had just one small window that my father covered with a blanket, folded several times, to avoid the police from seeing the light of the candles that faintly illuminated the room.

In 1941, my father finally took premature retirement for health reasons, and believing that a change of climate would help, decided to return to India.

We travelled by ship – by deck class. Fortunately, there were Goan stewards on board who were prevailed upon to let us use the bathing and toilet facilities of the upper classes. I remember taking along for the journey a cigarette tin full of ground gram and sugar which was generally an ingredient in neureo, the Goan Christmas sweetmeat.

The war was not over, and at night, no lights were allowed on the ship for fear of alerting some lurking German submarine.

We arrived in Bombay and after customs clearance left by train for Pune – a move that was to prove of seminal significance in my life.

These are the stories of my father's life as written by him when he was alive.  He left behind a rich trove of stories and I wanted to share a few of them with you.
- Francisco D'Souza

My father could have settled down in Goa where his roots were embedded.  However, for the sake of the education of the children which he, wisely, realised would be the foundation for their future, he decided to move to Pune. Goa was then under Portuguese rule and educational facilities were very limited, to put it mildly. Even the schools in Goa were affiliated to Bombay University, and taking the high school leaving examination, students from Goa had to come to Pune or Bombay.

Pune was an accidental - and happy - choice. Accidental because my father had just one contact there, someone from his village in Goa whom he had known and helped earlier. The latter was instrumental in finding a place for us to live – achieved, unbelievable as it may seem today, during the course of a day while the rest of the family waited at the railway station!

It was a good choice as Pune had excellent facilities for school and college. It was to be my home for the next sixteen years, during which I finished my school and college education before venturing into the wide world.

I clearly remember my first day in school – in what was known as Higher Preparatory B. I cried incessantly and was miserable for several days, resisting going to school. My brother had to take me and put me in the care of a teacher who was not quite used to this kind of behaviour. But she was kind to me, and for a few days, let me sit on the platform next to her.

I was in the B stream as we had joined in the middle of the academic year, and the A division – meant for the brighter boys - had no place. However, I did get used to school and did quite well. In the first quarterly exam that I took, I was third in class, and in the next, the final, I was second. That prompted the Principal to move me to the A division of the next class, Standard I.

It was not to my liking however, and for a week or so, I continued to attend the B division class of Standard I where I had all my friends, until one day, the teacher suddenly noticed, when taking roll call that I was not responding. I was promptly sent to the Principal, a rather terrifying experience in those days. Fr. Ricklin, a Swiss Jesuit and a strict disciplinarian to boot, was not very pleased and sent me with a note to Std I A, and I remained in the A division till I left school.

I did well in the very first quarterly exam and stood first. I was so excited and thrilled, that as soon as school was over, I ran all the way home to show my report card, totally ignoring the pleas of my school mates to show them the report. From then on, I continued to do well in exams being generally within the first three or four in the class. I won several prizes, but till the war ended, these were just merit cards with a little note at the bottom to say that the cost of the prizes had been donated to the Red Cross.

As the war came to an end, I would scan the newspaper every day which invariably carried a map of Europe showing the Allied advance and Hitler’s retreat. Finally when the war ended, we began to get prizes which consisted mainly of books of our choice. I would look with impatience at the slow Allied advance as we were suffering all sorts of deprivations.

The war affected us in many ways. Rice, wheat, cloth, and sugar were rationed, and other commodities were in scarce supply. My parents, brother, and sister would go and stand in line before school began to collect the cup of sugar that was doled out. Sometimes they would go to two such centres. We tried to use jaggery, but this did not dissolve easily in the cup of coffee that, along with a chappati constituted breakfast.

I have many happy memories of my school days, of friends and teachers who moulded and guided us with such care and affection. I owe them a great debt and much of what they taught me still lives with me.

Another aspect of school that I loved was the emphasis on games and sports. Every evening, practically the whole class would re-assemble on the playground after school was over and we had had our tea. Each class had its allotted area where we played either hockey or football. I was fond of all games but never excelled in any. The best I did was to make it to the school junior football team which lost a crucial game thanks to a lapse by me.

I had many friends in school, most of whom are no longer in Pune. Some I have managed to contact after fifty years, like Paul who is a Carmelite monk whom I tracked down a year or so ago. Another, Seshmal, I have just discovered, and hope to meet soon – after over half a century! Vincent Suryawanshi became an advocate and was a good and useful friend over the years till he passed away of lung cancer.

My general impression of life in school was favourable, though I yearned for more freedom, which came when I entered college. It had been a time when one had little to worry about. I was good at studies, though I did have anxious moments before exams, and invariably went to St Antony’s shrine on St Vincent’s Street to say a prayer and promise to visit the shrine regularly in future! I am ashamed to say I seldom kept my promise.

Yet college opened my eyes to many new things for which I was ill prepared. Fortunately, I went through without any major scratch.

These are the stories of my father's life as written by him when he was alive.  He left behind a rich trove of stories and I wanted to share a few of them with you.
- Francisco D'Souza

I was very excited about going to college. Above all, it meant freedom – freedom from the discipline of regular attendance of classes as at school, and more excitingly, social freedom to mix with the opposite sex who had been so far a closed book to me.

My first problem was to choose what I was to do with my life. I was ill-prepared to make this decision. At school, one went from class to class routinely, and the question of taking such important decisions hardly ever arose. In those days, the first step was to decide whether to join the Arts or Science streams. The latter meant one intended to take up either medicine or engineering. Most boys from my class opted for Science as the alternative provided for a vague future as a lecturer or lawyer or clerk.

I did not fancy becoming either a doctor or engineer. I had some vague inclination to join the priesthood, but was not sure of my vocation. Every year, a few Redemptorist priests came to Pune from Bangalore and preached a series of sermons for a week or so. They made a great hit as their sermons were meaningful and laced with unusual humour. They were greatly admired and perhaps that attracted me to them.

Without telling my parents, I began a correspondence with one of them, telling him of my interest in their Order. He understood my hesitation and advised me to take my time to decide. I thought it would be best for my career as a priest if I joined the Arts stream, where I found myself one of the few boys, surrounded by a majority of girls.

My father consulted our landlord Mr. Oliver who studied my marks sheet and advised me that medicine would suit me best. But on my own, I went and enrolled in the First Year Arts class. My parents did not object. Nor did they ask the reason for my decision. I did blurt out my interest in the priesthood in answer to a question, and my mother showed some disappointment. I assured her that I had yet to decide. Her concern was that priests led a life of privation and knowing me as someone who was quite spoilt, she felt this would not suit me.

Anyhow, the die was cast, but as a way of keeping my options open I elected to take mathematics as one of my subjects. This I continued in the second year of college, partly in the hope of scoring well in the exams, which would not have been possible with other subjects like logic, economics etc.

I did very well in the exams in the first year of college, obtaining scholarships that virtually paid for my tuition. But in the second year, it gradually began to dawn on me that I had elected to go along a road that led to nowhere. I was thoroughly confused about my future. I fared poorly in mathematics in my second year and obtained a second class which was not going to be of much help in my career.

I then had to decide what subjects to take for the B.A. for the third and fourth years. I really had no idea. I had no special preferences. Nor had I any particular career goal in mind. The idea to become a priest had fallen by the wayside as I realized the discipline of that calling would be too much for me.

I toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist for two reasons. Frank Moraes had just become the first Indian editor of the Times of India, then the premier paper in our part of the country. He was greatly admired and lionized, and I looked on him as a role model, reading his editorials and columns with care and trying to imitate his style of writing.

At that time, too, we had in our class a student from Harvard, one, Premkumar Sadanand, son of the legendary freedom fighter and editor of the Free Press Journal. Prem and I were quite good friends and even though journalists were paid a pittance in those days, I thought I was cut out to be a journalist. (He once asked me to interview some American students who were visiting the University and write a short piece about it. It was published as a middle by his paper and I received the princely remuneration of Rs. 5!)

At that time, something else happened that was to change the course of my life. A fellow student, Jagdish Hiremath, who was two years ahead of me, got into the Indian diplomatic service. It was quite a sensation in Pune, when he emerged successful in the Union Public Service Commission examinations and entered the Indian Foreign Service – a profession about which little was known in the backwaters of Pune.

I was already beginning to wonder what I would do with my Arts degree which seemed inevitable after I had gradually decided that I was not going to join the priesthood. My father consulted Mr. Oliver again, who said we should talk to one of the college professors. We invited my French Professor, Prof. Chaubal, for a drink one morning, and I still remember the “elaborate” preparations we made for this unique occasion. Papa bought a bottle of beer and prepared salami sandwiches – neither of which I had seen before.

The professor was unable to give me any advice, and suggested I meet Prof. Choksi, the History Professor in our college. This may seem routine nowadays, but at that time, it was with some trepidation that I knocked on his door and spoke to him. He too could not help but suggested I meet Jagdish, which I did.

It was my intention to follow in his footsteps – get a 1st class in my B.A., go on scholarship to the USA, finish my M.A, as he had done in a year, appear for the competitive examination and enter the Foreign Service. I consulted him, and he advised me on the subjects I should take for the B.A. (General) course which would also cover subjects that I could take for the competitive examination for the Foreign Service.

I did work hard towards this goal, but sadly missed my 1st class by a couple of percentage points. That put paid to my dreams of going abroad for my second degree on scholarship, as I could not afford to go on my own.

I was a year too young at that stage to appear for the IFS exam, and so went on to do my Master’s with more or less the same subjects – history and political science. Here too, I once again did not make it to a 1st Class by a couple of percentage points, the added difficulty being that Pune University had fixed 65%, and not the usual 60%, as qualifying marks for a 1st class.

I finally appeared for the exam in 1956 and got through at the first attempt, much to the surprise of my friends and colleagues, and above all, myself!