Married at a young age, my grandmother moved to Bombay with her husband, Jaffer Ali Padamsee, who joined the family business, Saleh Mohamed...
Married at a young age, my grandmother moved to Bombay with her husband, Jaffer Ali Padamsee, who joined the family business, Saleh Mohamed Padamsee, that dealt with exclusive glass imported from Czechoslovakia among other places. Till today some of the windows of my grandmother’s flat have her initials KJP etched on them in an elaborate arabesque design. This is only an indication of the kind of affluent lifestyle the Padamsee family could afford. The Khoja community in Bombay to which they belonged was wealthy, progressive and liberal.
This was my grandfather’s second marriage. His first wife had died early after giving birth to five children who had all passed away in infancy. The second time round he would ensure that his children would survive.
‘Positively parsimonious’
I remember her always in a long floor-length dress usually of dark blue cotton with a small print in white. The neck is round, the sleeves are short. Her bunch of keys, for she is constantly locking and unlocking everything, are in her pocket. Her hair is cut short in what we today call a “boy cut”, and she washes it with aretha, a nut with a strange smell that she soaks in a brass vessel that lies on the...
