Unusual by most standards, the friendship bridging 36 years of age between architect Clement DeSylva and homemaker Aylma Curry maps a heartwarming journey
The friends with Curry’s son Christopher. Pics/Scott Tellis
Aylma Curry, 96, homemaker, mother figure, friend
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Clement DeSylva, 60, architect, entrepreneur, author
Theirs is a friendship of exceptional charm. Aylma Curry has been Clement DeSylva’s safe harbour for long years. In turn, he keeps her young and adventurous,
she chuckles.
Having witnessed some epochal city history, “Aunty Aylma” as well remembers wartime Bombay experiences. Hers involved knitting stockings, gloves and balaclava caps for shell-shocked soldiers marching down neighbourhoods and the sad sight of Polish orphans in prams sheltered near Clergy Home at Band Stand.
Clement DeSylva and Aylma Curry in her Bandra home
Describing himself as “a Bandrabugger to the core”, DeSylva believes he has given the term legitimacy with the title of his book, Bandrabuggers. An architect of leading city restaurants, and homes in Alibaug, Pawna and Goa, he is also a pioneer of the camping industry in Maharashtra. The Goan feni brand, Aani Ek, is a brainchild he hopes to bring to Mumbai soon.
We meet the day after Curry has become a great-grandmother for the first time. Beaming on being congratulated, she settles to a conversation exuding warmth and grace between the generations.
• • •
Clement DeSylva: I was enveloped within the Curry fold from the early 1980s. Aunty Aylma and Uncle Carlisle’s home in Meher Villa was wonderful. You got to it if you came out of St Andrew’s Church, crossed the St Paul’s Road-Hill Road intersection without getting seduced by the kheema at Yacht beer bar, passed Carmel Convent and turned left into the walkway leading to the little house behind the big house. A breadfruit tree grew outside. Walk up wooden stairs and keeping guard over the always open front door was a dove.
Aylma Curry: It wasn’t far from where I grew up on St Francis Road, with pretty cottages in fields. I’m East Indian. The children are Anglo-Indian; my husband was part British-part Irish. Among other interesting things, his stamp collection was famous and his songbooks were part of everybody’s picnic bus rides.
Before marriage, I worked at Bombay Telephones in the Emergency section. At first we mistook the 1944 docks explosion for bombing. Vital communication was routed via our office, so we realised why Bombay was on fire. It was scary, yet we had to be in control–our job was
emergency services.
CD: She was the oil in the gearbox of that home magically fitting seven kids–Cheryl, Charmaine, Conrad, Colin, Christopher, Cordelia, Clyde–into as many bunk beds, Uncle Carlisle and Chico the African Grey who whistled and shrieked more than a Redemptorist. The logistics of keeping them in food, drink and clothes could be nightmarish. Aunty Aylma’s attitude? If nine people were sitting to dinner, one or two more made no difference. Her equanimity guided situations.
AC: My Ecmic took care of it all–a cylindrical copper steam cooker preparing four dishes in cans on a small charcoal sigri stove. I managed the day’s meals with it. I’m proud the children run their own homes now.
CD: Aunty Aylma’s roast beef was amazing, with Dijon mustard brought by her son Colin, who flew for Air India. There was delicious chicken and stews. Piles of chutney or cheese sandwiches fed cast and crew gathered for play practices. Cheryl and Charmaine stitched costumes for every production put up in Bandra during the ’80s and ’90s.
Often, you couldn’t eat because of laughing hard. At impersonations, jokes, stories. You’d be caught up in the intensity of a discussion. Or be entertained by Uncle Carlisle’s accounts of his trips around the world once he lit a post-dinner cheroot in his red leather Kennedy rocking chair.
Her kids have inherited Aunty Aylma’s aesthetic sense, the manner of draping a simple but beautiful bed, or laying the lovely kitchen table.
AC: Around that table they loved hearing stories we told–about circus animals drinking water from old Bandra talaos, about “dagri school” as the St Andrew’s stone building was called. They were amused by rhymes I taught our parrot, like “Chico’s sick, Chico’s sick/Call the doctor quick-quick-quick!”
CD: I’m grateful for her ready smile and quiet efficiency in the midst of anchoring such a large brood. She knew when to push or pull. Not a bit preachy or dogmatic, she never gives advice. You learn by example, listen for the unspoken. I wish her qualities, especially of gentleness, rubbed off on me. Thankfully, none of me has rubbed off on her. It’s quite one-sided: I’ve received much while having nothing to give.
AC: No, no. Clement’s personality is endearing. He is respectful, a good boy. A boisterous boy when excited. “Hi Aunty Aylma!” he’ll shout from across a road. And so adventurous, going biking and windsurfing and sailing–which he introduced me to late in my life.
CD: First sail at age 80, on a Hobie 15 catamaran designed to race. Sporting and game for anything, Aunty Aylma wears her greatness and generosity the best way. Lightly. Start counting the people she has nurtured and the list won’t end. For years she volunteered teaching boys from Waroda and Chimbai math and French.
AC: I used to do very well in French exams. Arithmetic was another strong subject. Later, I taught myself the New Math these
kids needed.
CD: She’s been the wind beneath our wings. Ruling her domain, the kitchen, with openhearted largeness of spirit, came easily to her. I think homes in new buildings are destroyed by the kitchen separate from the dining table. Out
goes communication.
AC: So much communication in our home, visitors all the time. Priests too dropped by to consult Carlisle on matters pertaining to the well-being of the parish. Zonal (talent contest) committees came asking for advice.
CD: Today that old door is closed. The house replaced by a building. The landscape has changed, so have people walking the streets. But Aunty Aylma is the same. We chat about everything—plants, her grandkids, my daughters, Bandra, church, mass on TV…
It feels invaluable that I can still spend time talking and laughing with her. Rather, I guffaw and she chuckles. How blessed am I to have her as a dear friend.
Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes monthly on city friendships. You can reach her at meher.marfatia@mid-day.com/www.meher marfatia.com
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