TAKING YOU BACK TO 1875 Some people work their heart out but do not meet success at all. Jamshedji andhyarujina, my great grandfather was one such hapless individual. By profession he was a priest and also had a small agricultural land 11 miles away in the jungle off Udwada where our holy fire temple was and is situated. He never ever made money and was always in debt right thru his life. He had a family of 5 to support and was barely living most frugally. His sons later did well....in the sense far better than when he was around. My grandfather Bhikhaji andhyarujina often related his fathers tale of misery. One such tale happened in 1875 which goes........ Jamshedji had borrowed some money from a sahukar which means a money lender. Try as he could he could not repay the full amount plus interest to the sahukar who after a warning approached the big Patel stationed in Pardi. The patel was a parsi stationed in pardi and covered over 50 hamlets till Vapi. Every 15 days he came over to Udwada and settled such small issues. His word was law. He and his entourage of 3 other persons would come to solve smaller cases. He came with a whip and one of the whippers was from his coterie of three. The case or cases were summarily dismissed by him either with whipping or by fines. He did his patelai to all and sundry.....parsis as well as non parsis. On this day the sahukar was very much there and there stood my great grandfather at his wits end awaiting the consequences. The result was a fine of rs 10. The fine had to be paid immediately FAILING WHICH 10 whiplashes was the order of the day. By then and i mean by 1875 it had become uncommon for the lashes to be administered to elderly mobeds or parsi priests. Jamshedji did not have the money. So had little recourse but to accept the humiliation of a severe whipping. However the crafty sahukar who was a non parsi offered him a chance ( ofcourse to his own benefit ) THE BASTARD. He offered to buy over jamshedjis solitary cow which used to give him milk for rs. 10. The price of a cow was between 18 to 20 rupees. The sahukar thought that the time of his pound of flesh had come AND IT HAD. To avoid the ignominy of a whipping and the general embarassment which followed such a sentence Jamshedji with tears in his eyes sold the cow to the ever greedy sahukar with a promise to pay the remaining debt within a month. Just the thought of my elderly grandparent standing dejected, defeated and mentally broken in front of the f...ung patel and the unscrupulous sahukar, makes my blood boil even today. That is the end of the story. Whether a month later jamshedji somehow managed to settle the remainder of his debt, dad did not know. Presumably he must have. AND TO THINK JAMSHEDJIS LUCK DESERTED HIM RIGHT THRU HIS LIFE GIVES ME A REAL SICK FEELING. POOR MAN.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 05:35:39 +0000
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