A tribute to late 47er Farrokh Mehta

 I am well on the way to organising the 65th Reunion of our Class of 59.

47er Farrokh Mehta (1932-2023)

I was looking for infomation about the many Cathedralites who have over the years had been regularly corresponding with me.

One was 47er Farrokh Mehta.

Although I did not meet Farrokh in my school years, when Annikki and I travelled back to India on board the M. S. Victoria in 1969, on board was another Indian family, Farrokh, his wife, Vijaya, and two small children.

On board there was a chess competition and the final was between a very racist South African, who thought us brown people were inferior, and me. 

Standing behind me was Farrokh who spurred me on to win that battle.

Photos from our 1969 trip on the Lloyd Triestino M. S. Victoria.

Later there was a battle between Farrokh and me in the ship Table Tennis competition. Farrokh was a mile ahead of me and it was tough playing table tennis on a tilting lilting ship.

 Farrokh and my paths crossed a fews years later as he was working with a couple of dear friends of mine, Nargis and late Vinci Wadia of Interpublicity. 

Farrokh was a regular correspondent and would read this blog. 

Farrokh was married to Vijaya, one of the most well known and celebrated stage actresses of Marathi theatre. Farrokh was also well recognised in the field of theatre as is conveyed in these articles.

It was a shock to read that last June (2023) Farrokh, at the age of 91, he had passed away.

And here is another report on the passing of Farrokh.

When reading the reports online I found that his daughter was Anahita Uberoi, who had married the son of one of my dearest friends, late 56er Harminder Uberoi (Ubi), my friend guide and counsellor. Ubi had adopted me, a 59er as an honorary member of the Class of 56 as I helped him organise his class Golden Reunion! Ubi's sister , Harmoihina, had been my classmate in school.

Anahita had married her classmate, Samir, Ubi’s son. Both had been school captains.

I addressed a condolence letter to Anahita and she replied me immediately with a lovely tribute to her father who had passed away peacefully with Anahita at his bedside.

A few moments later I had an email from Farrokh’s son, Deven, who sent me the above photo of his father.

We rejoice in having had the pleasure to know Farrokh. 

We honour Farrokh, remembering him with a smile on his face and the joy of the jazz beat of Charlie Parker in our hearts.

Back again to our teeny weeny world

Posted on my Jacob's Blog, on the Mumbai Cathedralites Seventh Heaven Blog, on the Stephanian Kooler Talk Blog, and the Oulu CHAFF Blog.

Glad to get back to regular blogging.

The last two weeks were a delight in that we were were not snowed under by snow, but with love and affection and greetings from all over the world.

(Sadly, as an aside, this is the first time in the last I winters we have been in Finland (and Annikki's some 40 winters she has been in Finland out of her 63 winters) that we did not have snow in this near Arctic location. Remember we are just 200 km from the Arctic Circle! A sad reflection of the effect of global warming!)

Into our 10 email addresses, 5 Blog Accounts, 3 Google Groups, our mobile phone number, our landline phone and our snail mail postbox, a total of just around 70000 (YES 70000!) season's greetings poured in.

I had a task sorting them out and then updating mailing addresses in our numerous mailing lists, grouping them into the various groups, i.e., family (Maliyakals and Kandathils), friends (Indian, Finnish, world), Mumbai Cathedralites, Delhi Stephanians, Bishop Cottonians (Bangalore), Findians, CHAFF Participants, O-Indians, past colleagues, present colleagues and others - making sure we were not sending out duplicates or to dead addresses and then send our greetings to all on our lists. (If it was not for 3 trustworthy Macs working round the clock this task would have been impossible for just one computer idiot!)

Out of a total 37000 postings (the last ones were today), I am glad to say that this year we had hardly around 300 returns! I had taken out all those who had university addresses in the US and UK, and that had cut the mailing list from the 80000+ to this more manageable figure.

We are sorry to all whom we may have missed.

But this is proof that we have a teeny weeny world of our own. But this teeny weeny world is even smaller than we thought!

A few weeks ago I had about 6 emails, all with the same attachment - some pictures of the Old Bombay - a truly great collection of pictures. Most of the emails were forward.

One of the persons who forwards me great emails is Cathedralite from Mumbai) 56er Ubi (HS Uberoi). (Another is Cathedralite 49er from Mysore, Naval Patel.)

When I looked at the forward I noted that it was from his daughter-in-law, Anahita. Besides Ubi, she had forwarded it to one Farookh Mehta.

I sent an email to Ubi asking him whether this "Farookh" was the same "advertising" Farookh who was married to a great Maharashtrian stage actress, Vijaya. I explained to Ubi that we had sailed together from Venice to Bombay in 1969, round the Cape, and Farookh had beaten me in the Table Tennis final on board the ship. Farookh played well on a tilting and listing ship!

Ubi's reply was swift as it was amazing. Yes, this was the self-same Farookh, who was also a Cathedralite of the 47 era, married to the Maharashtrian stage legend, Vijaya, and whose daughter, Anahita, who had been a few months on that voyage was Head Girl in Cathedral School in 1985, when Ubi's son, Samir, was Head Boy, and the two were married!

A year or so ago, Farookh and Vijaya's son, Ravi Khote, had passed through Finland and I had talked to him about his parents.

Since this exchange of emails I have had emails and photographs from Farookh, which I will blog soon.

But the moral is that our teeny weeny world is much much smaller than we thought!