Appa’s older brother Joy Mathew, we called him Joyppachayan, who was conferred Chevalier position by the Church, was an industrialist in Bombay. He lived in Chembur.
A small built man with extraordinary skills in manufacturing and fabrication engineering, very witty, and his wife Maayi (short of Ammayi) was tall and big made. He used to tell us, the reason he married a big lady strong and tall, was to make sure there is someone to carry him in case he gets sick.
Have you got your fingers caught in a mouse trap ever, if you have been caught, you know the scream you do, it will be a shrieking one, I am pretty careful, when I try to keep the cheese with peanut butter which is the favorite of American rats and mice in a mouse trap. I got caught in such a slip, and I did scream, I do the same when I see the lizards in my house. Oh my God they are the size of mice, I truly yell when I see them fall from nowhere and Appa used to get alarmed with my scream.
Joyppachayan had a walking stick in steel; he never left that from his sight. I was pretty curious at the disc welded to the middle of the walking stick.
This is way back in the 1970’s, once when he came home, he left it in the porch and I went to the item number and tried to see what it is about. The concoction just opened in my hand and Lo! It slipped, I did scream with awe, as it fell with many parts sliding down alongside a hinge and 2 legs slipped out, guess what it was a stool to sit, and the handle of the stick is a back support. He carried it wherever he went. He couldn’t stand for long and carried this collapsible stool cum walking stick, he designed and manufactured. He was a genius.
He passed away in 2016, we all miss him dearly. He had two sons and a daughter, sons were into engineering fabrication, oldest cousin Binu, a go getter is no more, Sunil younger to me did his engineering at Tumkur, Mysore and Sapna lives in Canada with her husband James and kids.
The first multilevel shop I visited was Akbarally’s, a stone’s throw from Joyppachayan’s home in Chembur. What amazed me was the attitude of the staff, this is where I framed my motto “Client is King”, in Akbarally’s Customer was right all the time.
They had Indian and foreign goods, an array of household items unmatched. I do not indulge in shopping except vegetable and fish, I get headaches if I have to walk through malls or shops for more than 5 minutes, without anything specific to buy, but I loved viewing the goods displayed in an orderly and appealing manner in Akbarally’s.
When Maayi saw my interest in surfing for household gadgets, she took me in an auto to a place close by; she didn’t say much until we reached. I had my eyes popping out there; this is one place you can find everything else other than your mother and father. It’s a treat to walk in there and lose your imagination about creativity, indigenous to India. Lakshmi Market in Bombay.
I still possess household items I bought there, which has circumnavigated around the world in 30 years unlike Phileas Fogg and his French Valet Passepartout who did in 80 days. The wonderful non-detailed I studied in school, which taught me a few lessons in how to live with mathematical precision.
The only other place I have experienced skills in manufacturing duplicates and intricate items from diamond jewelry to Ophthalmology instruments, are in Kunnumkulam, Trichur District where my Amma’s sister was married to.
Later in 1988, when I left overseas to work, in Zambia, Africa, my flight was from Bombay and I can never forget the support they all gave me, Sunil and Sapna chauffeuring my grandparents and us through the length and breadth of Bombay, and my first Air B&B in 1988, without paying in Bitcoin.
Unforgettable hospitality by my dear buddy Chandran who allowed us to use his 3 bed room ONGC quarters.
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