Lorna

She had a lovely smile – after all she always seemed happy. I never quite understood how she could be this happy. Maybe it was in the way she lived.
The lady in question – Lorna Martin, my grandmother.

My earliest memories of her were from the age of two. We were going through difficult times and stayed with my grandparents. Grand Dad was a police inspector and had palatial quarters in the police lines of Hyderabad, next to the present airport.

I remembered her sitting in a garden chair smoking Charminar cigarettes with a style that could have made the Marlboro man look like an amateur. She had great posture and a certain air of dignity around her that made you feel you were talking to royalty. Her quick smile however caught you off guard and very quickly you would be quickly taken up by her charm and sense of humor.

She was born into a typical middle class Anglo Indian family the eldest daughter of four sisters. At an early age she got to be responsible by caring for her pretty young siblings. At the age of twenty she fell in love with and was married to Alan Martin (my Grand Dad) a charming young educated Anglo Indian and a police officer.

They moved from the dusty outpost of Ballarsha a town in southern Maharashtra to quarters in Vikarabad a small railway town around 50 kilometers from the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. They later settled down in Hyderabad.

Very soon they had five children the eldest Christine (my mom) Everad, Marilyn, Rosalind and Garene within the span of a decade.

She held fort at home while Grand Dad established himself as an honest officer who had a reputation for never taking a single bribe.

So when a dashing honest young man named George (my Dad) came along and married their eldest daughter Christine, I imagine they were thrilled and perhaps apprehensive (he worked in the private sector) of the union. They almost always stood by us in times of trouble.

Now in those days (the sixties) if you were a police officer, people presumed, that you had to have lived a comfortable life. After all corruption was rampant and it was not uncommon to receive bribes in cash to help augment a meager salary. But I know for sure that Grandma would have never tolerated it!!

Grand Dad’s salary was just enough so when my Dad fell on rough times and was laid off, we moved in to stay with them for almost a year and it was here that I recall some of my earliest memories of her.

She always believed in paying off her debts and never speaking an unkind word. She treated the servants (they had two) like equals and spoke to them like she would, to any guest. They took some time to get used to it! She would dress up and get ready around the time Grand Dad was due back home and made sure he had his cup of tea.

Later she would play the proper hostess with charm and wit and make sure that any guests of Grand Dad were properly taken care of.

I was around the age of ten when Grand Dad had retired and they rented a duplex home near the Begumpet that I heard of anecdotes that reflected her values of honesty, kindness and perseverance.
Values that have stood by me in very difficult times.

It was in 1985 that my Grand Dad was diagnosed with Lung Cancer and was admitted in St. Teresa’s. He would sit upright in his bed and look at her by his bedside, on occasion I did see them hold hands, and silently look at each other with what I concluded was love.

Her strong Christian beliefs that gave her strength to put her values into practice. So when he passed away a few days later, she cried a few tears and believed in the vision of hope that these beliefs imbibed in her.

He was given an honorable Police funeral. A big police truck drove by to pick us up and take us to the graveyard. It looked impressive. I thought he deserved the honor of a good farewell. He had a reputation. Years later when I was on a legal case and accompanied an Inspector from the Central Crime Station, he would remark, “ You are Alan Martin’s grandson?” Hmm, a very honest officer!! A lot of cops still remember him!!

My aunts and my uncle all of whom were married and had families by then, offered to keep her with them on rotation and so I did not see her for until much later. I was going through my teens and experiencing new challenges in life myself so it was not until I graduated from college in the early nineties that she came to live with us in our flat in Srinagar Colony. I looked forward to her stay. She was not doing too well.

A few years earlier while she was staying with Marilyn, her second oldest daughter that she had an accident and the auto rickshaw she was traveling in turned over and fractured her hand, she held her broken hand and calmly walked out and asked a bystander to help her to the local hospital from where she called an aunt of mine and informed her of her condition. My aunt never recalled her crying in pain, but told us that she looked a little uneasy!

Here she was seen walking around the ward making friends and praying over other patients whenever she could. She would share her food with anyone who needed it and would be seen frequently advising younger women who perhaps saw in her a woman who could be trusted.

She was least concerned about her hand! In fact she did not even remember the pain, she would often remember the names of the people she was able to help while in hospital, so when she was discharged it was not surprising that she had a small coterie escort her till the gate of the hospital so she could get an auto to come home with an aunt of mine.

She never was able to use that hand again. It was useless from the wrist down. She did try to grasp things with her thumb and forefinger but after some time it was apparent that she would need to use her left hand so she practiced till she was able to achieve a few basic actions that would fulfill the need for her to be able to refuse any help with objects that she would use in her daily life. I never heard her once complain.

She would just say, “Hmm I’ve got to get used to this bally thing”!

I often spent an hour at least talking to her. She shared the same room, and I would catch up on the time she had spent with her family and learn from her experiences.
“You must get a good job, baba”! She would tell me. “Always help your Mom and Dad”!
“Never be dishonest”! “Marry a good girl”! But mostly it was from her personal example that I learnt. Her grit and courage while in pain or when financially down and out was what I admired. She also prayed a lot.

I did get a “good job”. One that took me almost 400 kilometers northwest to Pune as a field officer with a finance company. This was the first time I lived alone and got ample opportunity to practice the values I learned from her.

Years later I did “Marry a good girl”! I would have loved for her to have known and seen Anne. After all she was a girl just like her!

I also believed I was honest and helped my Mom and Dad. And most of all I try to set a personal example.

So when I got the call that she had passed away I took the earliest available bus and travelled back to see her. I reached home at around 7 in the evening after a drive of almost 10 hours - and still remember looking at her. She seemed serenely at peace. If ever there was a feeling of peace, I felt it then. Not sadness, strangely. I gazed at her and missed her. I wanted her to share my success - to see the fruits of her example.

A couple of days later we buried her next to her beloved husband Alan. It was the night before she passed on, that my youngest brother Dean had dreamed that Grand Dad had come smiling and extended his hand to her. He had awoken with a start. They both looked completely happy.

I believed quite naturally, that they were!