Mister D’Brass

-Submitted by Christopher Angu. 

Oh, what a delightful conversation I encountered upon over the weekend. I was wrapped up chatting my Saturday afternoon away with a splendid character, Mr. Tyrone D’Brass, as we sipped our coffee at Glen’s Bakehouse.

Let me introduce to you Mister D’Brass. Mister D’Brass is the father of a friend, who I happened to meet as he was in town visiting his daughter. Perfect timing I would say, as an intriguing personality is exactly what I needed most at the moment. Well, anyway, continuing with the introduction. Mister D’Brass, has led the life of a humbler version of ‘rags to riches’, as he struggled through a childhood of surviving on merger necessities, working as a young teacher to receive a higher education for himself, while at the same time supporting his younger siblings to finish their school education, and ultimately create a mark for himself, as he set up his own school, that has now grown to become one of Meghalaya’s finest schools.

Mister D’Brass comes from a forgotten blood-line, the Anglo-Indians. The Anglo-Indians were a mixed race community that emerged from British India, that encouraged British men to engage in a marital agreement (or marriage) with Indian women, in order to ‘create’ and ally for the British to protect themselves from losing hold over India’s governance. Anglo-Indians came to be known as India’s micro-minority community, and is even defined as such in the Constitution (Article 366 of the Indian Constitution). In 1830, the British Parliament described the Anglo-Indian as those who have been English educated, are entirely European in their habits and feelings, dress and language. They were considered to be more ‘Anglo’ than ‘Indian’, and even though they lived in India with all its flourishing diversity in language, the Anglo-Indian community communicated primarily in English, and their customs and traditions sticking to their English descent, and most of them marrying within their own circle.

With the fall of the British Empire over India in 1947, the majority of the Anglo-Indians decided to set sail and settled in countries such Australia, Canada and the ‘motherland’, England. This was the case with Mister D’Brass’ grandfather as well. Mister D’Brass’ grandfather, finding more solace and protection within the British circle, decided to part with India and move to England. However, one of his sons found the Indian soil to much of an identity of ‘belonglingness’ and home that he decided to stay back. Thus, Mister D’Brass found himself in India, one of the few Anglo-Indians remaining.

When Mister D’Brass’ grandfather moved to England, he sold all of his property, which included a handful of bungalows in the East Coast and a decent number of vehicles, and leaving not a penny for his son who decided to move in opposition to his plan. This is one of the few reasons why Mister D’Brass’ father had to start from scratch in an attempt to raise nine children.  As of the tradition then, Anglo-Indian children went to boarding school, despite the poverty that they were living in.

Mister D’Brass’ father worked in the Railways, one of the professions that was reserved for the diminishing micro-minority. After peace was resolved with the end of the Second World War, where Mister D’Brass’ father was a soldier, and a prisoner-of-war for two years, he found himself in the Indian railways, where years later, on long summer breaks, Mister D’Brass would sit on the right hand of his father as they travelled the nation rail track after rail track. The stories of Mister D’Brass’ childhood revolved around the Railways and his life in boarding school.

Mister D’Brass narrated one such story in which there had been a derailment of a train on which his father was controlling the train. As soon as the siren called out, Mister D’Brass and his family suddenly felt a dark cloud over their heads. Mister D’Brass who was probably ten or eleven rode his cycle down the road, a little past midnight, to the railway station, prepared to hear the worst. Fortunately, there were no casualties that night, and his family, perhaps escaped intense poverty, as Mister D’Brass’ father was the only breadwinner of the family. He found his father coming out of the emergency room covered in scars and bandages, but grateful to be alive. Mister D’Brass reminisced that that was one of his most terrifying experiences.

Life in the boarding school was hard, but he believes that’s what built his character. He was sent to boarding school when he was very little, just a tiny four year old man, who made ends meet with his faith in God, and cleverness. He encountered the hot summers of Jamshedpur, where temperatures soar to forty to forty-five degrees, and it would be on these drowsy afternoons that they would make a run for the ponds nearby and cool themselves off.

Mister D’Brass mentioned a saddening scene of his life in which he had lost his only pair of pants, and had none to wear for the day. So, in a tragic demeanour, and with only torn and haggard looking pajamas, he set forth to behind the school building, to hide in shame. The school he attended to was a Jesuit school, and hardly any funds to support the hostel, and thus he could not even seek for the help of the authorities. Well, anyway, he stood at a pile of bricks, and began to pray. He said this with all earnestly that I almost began picturing the entire scene right before my eyes. He said he prayed to the Lord above and asked for a pair of pants. One might think that that was probably unlikely, but as it turned out, lo and behold! A pair of pants, of perfect fitting, came flying with the wind and unto the dusty ground. Mister D’Brass could hardly believe it, but it was such an elating moment that he quickly tried it on, and according to him, all the boys were envious of his lovely pair of pants!

Another fascinating story he narrated involved his expulsion from the hostel, as he was falsely accused by the hostel superintendent for wrongful doing. In this incident, the hostel superintendent, was a Jesuit priest, who involved himself in harassing the young boys of the hostel. There have been several testimonies against Catholic priests molesting children all over the world, and this is similar to the event of Mister D’Brass’ life.

The hostel superintendent ‘preyed’ on the young boys of the hostel, and since Mister D’Brass was a hostelite as well, he too was a victim. Well, almost. According to him, the hostel superintendent was a ‘cheeky little rat’ who tried taking advantage of Mister D’Brass. When Mister D’Brass alarmed the authorities of his behaviour, the authorities instead of siding with the student, sided with the child predator. So with that, Mister D’Brass was expelled from the hostel, with his board exams just a few months from commencement. However, life had other plans, and one of his teachers believed that Mister D’Brass was telling the truth and decided to give him a teacher’s quarter has a place to live in. Mister D’Brass recounted as those moments of his life as paradise. He said from sharing a dormitory with over thirty boys to living on his own with hot water flowing through the pipes in the winter was paradise indeed.

In this way, Mister D’Brass relived his childhood through the ups and downs of his life.

There was so much more which Mister D’Brass revisited through his story-telling of his life, and perhaps only so much can be disclosed for now. The parts where he leaves home to earn enough to pay for his siblings’ education and find the purpose of his life will, perhaps, be explored another time, as the cups of coffee soon ran dry, and it was time for us to end the conversation.