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From Kippers to
Karimeen: A Life
SOON after I joined The Tribune five years ago, I got a call from Psyche Abraham. Her husband Abu Abraham who died a few months earlier used to do a column for the paper. She had received some cheques which were in his name. She wanted us to cancel those cheques and send new ones in her name. This was the least I could do for Abu who was one of India’s greatest cartoonists. His cartoon depicting then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed in a bathtub signing an ordinance during the Emergency is still etched in the memory of all newspaper readers of the period. Equally memorable is my meeting with Abu. I had gone to meet Nikhil Chakravartty at the Bhopal Junction. He had come to the city to attend a Press Council meeting. He introduced me to Abu as "your country cousin". Abu seemed to be engrossed in thoughts and puffing at his cigar. He extended his hand without even looking at me.
As it turns out, it was after reading the novel that Psyche suggested the name which means ‘shelter’ to Abu, who found it perfect for their dream house. From Kippers to Karimeen, too, is a meaningful title. "Kippers are salted and smoked herring, found in the cold waters around the British coast and traditionally eaten by the English and Scots for breakfast. Karimeen is known in English as Pearl Spot and is found in abundance in the warm, brackish waters of the lakes and backwaters of Kerala and is considered a delicacy by fish lovers". As someone said, everybody has a tale. In Psyche’s case, she has several. Her name itself has a story. Christened Valerie Anne, she thinks it was one of her lovers, poet James Michie, who nicknamed her Psyche. What is most striking about the book is its candour. Russy Karanjia of Blitz was not wide of the mark when he gave her a letter of recommendation: "We found her to be an exceptionally talented writer of short stories and human interest features. She has a pleasant and sensitive style of writing and an inquisitive mind. She should make an excellent journalist with adequate experience in a newspaper office". But Psyche’s interests were elsewhere. From the age of seven, she "became fascinated by those creatures called men". Within a period of six months after leaving the cloistered environment of a girls’ boarding school, she had packed in quite a lot of relationships. "Apart from the chiropodist, I’d also had romantic affairs with a film extra, a male model, an antiquarian bookseller, and a poet – quite a variety!" A turning point came in her life when she fell in love with Jhupu, "the Indian from Bengal", while the two were sorting letters at Mount Pleasant post office in London. Her knowledge about India was limited to the Battle of Plassey and the Black Hole of Calcutta. Psyche had difficulty in adjusting with the joint family of her husband at Calcutta. She describes in detail how Jhupu’s youngest uncle doted on his only son. "He would sit with him before leaving for work in the mornings and after he returned in the evenings. This young man, Gautam Adhikari, became `85 finally editor of a national newspaper". Not long after the couple shifted to Bombay and had two babies, she fell for her husband’s boss Jog Chatterjee, "a very attractive man with a great deal of charm". She "betrayed" her husband and "abandoned" her children and left for London in the hope that she and Jog could lead a happy life thereafter. While waiting for Jog, she had an affair with a Canadian, John, and she became pregnant. A high society abortionist demanded `A3200 for the job. But John would spend only `A350. So she decided to have a baby, instead. Meanwhile, another Canadian, a journalist, came into her life. When the time came, she shifted to an unmarried mothers’ home. Priya was born there. "She was blond and blue-eyed, the only blond and blue-eyed child I have had". She was given away in adoption. Now no barrier existed between her and Jog. They shifted to Saurashtra when Jog got a job there and finally to New Delhi, where they got formally married. Not long afterwards, "a great upheaval" occurred when she felt attracted to Abu Abraham, staff cartoonist of the Indian Express – "this lean, dark-skinned, taciturn South Indian" — who "knew almost nothing about my life until I started writing this book!" After being ‘constant companions’, Psyche and Abu got married and took shelter in Saranam. A high-water mark in her life was meeting Priya, now called Louise. At the end of it all, she has "five healthy, bright and beautiful children with all of whom I share a warm and close relationship". Besides, she has six grandchildren, two stepdaughters and a step-grandson, not to mention Louis and two more grandsons. Looking back, after many ups and downs, she finds that there was nothing so bad that she could not handle it. She always landed on her feet. "When it comes to getting what I want, nothing must stand in my way – no entreaties, no appeals to my better nature – nothing". Moralists may find fault with her but her story is riveting, not just for the sexual escapades but for the comments she makes on the turbulent times she passed through like the Blitzkrieg in London and the Emergency in India.
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That did not dim my
respect for Abu, who was close to my friend and cartoonist Sudhir
Tailang. From Sudhir I heard many stories about Abu, Psyche and the
nest designed by Laurie Baker they built in Thiruvananthapuram called
Saranam. The name Saranam reminded me of Gandhi’s grandson Gopal
Gandhi’s novel by the same title about the Tamils in Sri Lanka.