Friends of Grace

Grace and I have had a lot of loving people and old friends around us from the KMU Library, Margaret Sekran, Roy and Rita, Shanti and K. C., John Basteen, Fred and Roma, Dave and Raymond, Maureen and Joe and the Chatterjees and and Anju and Rakesh Mittal, so many other people who used to remark on her and see her as a bit of a legend, as Alan Whitehouse said after her passing.

Old friends like Dien, who knew and loved Grace in the seventies will surely miss her as will new friends like Padmini and Ram Mani.—Grace loved them both a lot and the amazing free school for the disadvantaged, (please see their site and do contribute something in Grace’s memory, it is the most amazing school in India, Satya Surabhi), and Dave and Dixie who are in UK now, as well as “Ponytail” Gopi from The Kodai Club who always liked to give Grace a great big smooch when he saw her arriving, Abbas and Nubia who are in Ooty now, and author Ramesh Menon who certainly understood the depths of Grace and her uniqueness of soul, and her other bridge partners the late Krishnamurti and his wife Shanta who were close to Grace, and Adam Khan who was a Grace pal from the eighties when she lived in Kodaikanal. Nalini Chittoor from Giggles in Chennai would send Grace books for her birthday …

Viren Fernandes with whom I worked with on the Ether Model, Pramod and Sheila Menon and Tara and Unni, Kumar and Bhuvana and Ammu, and our new friends Ellen “Dash” Walter and many others from Kodai International School, like Bob and Pippa, Grace lovers, along with Chris and Katya, to laugh and share stories, and not to forget the inimitable and impossible Amaresh, who Grace both sparred with and encouraged, and his folks, Sudhakar, Kumud and auntie Nalini.

My cousins in England from Grace’s elder brother Eric (of whom she spoke a lot in the last year) will surely miss the presence of this grand aunty off in India with her mad son!—Family members John Russ, Barbara Russ, Jo, Vicky, Deana, Della and Hayley who were able to visit us in Kodai, and have always kept in touch and new friends and “family” from abroad Miranda, Alison, Sharon, Fran, David, Toni, and Kirsty … so many lives intersected with hers. Very old friends like Susie, Norvie and Anja have recently been in touch, just too late to see her again, and the Mudpeople in Denver, my old partners Stephen and Gary—and Arlys—“I found quite courageous”—to many friends I cannot name without someone who might be left out, sorry! … please write and I’ll go on including … it’s a blog, Charlie and Kristin, Michael and Valerie, and Priya, from Auroville, my sister Kate Antrobus (from my dad’s second marriage) and her family who visited in 2008, of course, Sally, Kate Savage (who visited Grace in India in the seventies), her grandkids, Pete and Will, great grand daughter Lucy, and now great great grandson little J. J., of whom Grace was particularly proud, his father being from Cape Verde, “land of Caesaria Evora!” … Frank Costanzo loved her, and she loved Frank Costanzo … Grace referring to Frank as “my husband”, and most of all the people of the street around here, our friend Kamakshi, the guys whose name she never knew with their legs all on the ground, they always asked about her and sent good vibes whatever their faith might be, not just benefactor but loving mentor; that is, Grace gave and helped, but, “No groans please! They do not work!”—and the several people in the old days when she lived in Kodai from the seventies and eighties for whom she was able to come to the rescue.

Grace wholeheartedly supported our work with medical interventions, saving arms and legs, and the school support we organize for children of widows. I hope all of us in this extended family she has left behind can carry on her spirit of dispassion and not seeing differences in people when it comes to life at-large.

By the way, I just heard that the classical Greeks did not write obituaries, instead, they asked, did the person have passion? Well, Grace had passion, and everybody around knew it, passion and a beautiful smile, as Ramesh Menon says, “Outshining any Bollywood star!”