Page 19 - Seniors Today October 2020

First Person the treacherous trek which our family families in Bhuleshwar.

undertook through the toughest jungles of He found employment with a textile
Burma, entering into India via the dense trading firm on a monthly salary of Rs 150,
jungles of Assam. speculating in cotton futures on behalf of the
At a river crossing the ferry was overloaded firm.
with refugees who were all seeking safe In 1945 the Japanese left Burma and once
passage. The whole night was spent by the again it was under the control of the British.
family on the deck of the very small and In the same year Ramgopalji’s mother
cramped ferry, all huddled together and passed away in a small town in UP where
very wet. Only in the morning did the family Ramgopalji’s parents had shifted to after
realise that one of my father’s sisters was returning from Burma during World War II.
missing. Shock and tragedy soon set in as Ramgopalji took his entire family there for
they realised that she had fallen overboard the mourning.
in her sleep during the night... After the 12 days’ mourning period was
The journey of over he waited at the Delhi Railway Station

Burmese Khowsuey Tough times platform for two nights for the connecting
train which would take them back – to the
Life in Mumbai (then Bombay) was not easy
for my father, his three brothers and one hard life in Bombay where he could barely
sister. As luck would have it my grandfather support his family on his meagre salary. On
Food and culture are inseparable – and this family’s history is forever linked Ramgopalji had already separated from his an impulse he tore up the tickets to Bombay
with an iconic dish. By Ashok Jatia brothers in Burma itself, so he was virtually and instead booked new tickets for Calcutta,

fending for himself and his family all alone. from where they would travel back to
The reason why the Jatia family migrated Jatia and all his siblings were born. The Home was in the form of a commune-style Rangoon since the Japanese occupation was
to Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) from entrepreneurial spirit, hard work and accommodation shared by almost 100 other over!
a tiny village called Bissau, Rajasthan is street-smart qualities coupled with
applicable to almost all the very successful multiple working hands became a sure
Marwari business houses of today whose shot formula for the larger Jatia family to
elders also hailed from a radius of around grow rapidly and prosper in various trades S Kumar
300km. In the 1930s the whole of Rajasthan such as commodities like rice and rubber,
(then known as Jaipur State) was extremely textiles and more so the development of
under-developed and the harsh North- international trade by establishing offices
Western desert region where Bissau is in Japan Burma, India and Singapore in the
located offered no opportunity whatsoever early years.
for families to prosper; rather, it was
the opposite. Even to survive in such an War and upheaval
environment posed extreme challenges. However the first tragedy struck in 1942
Under these circumstances my grandfather during the 2nd World War when Japan
Ramgopal ji Jatia, along with a few of his wrested control of Burma from the British.
brothers and a few unmarried sisters shifted At that time it was not safe for Indians to stay
to Rangoon to join their father who had there any more and hence my grandfather
gone there a bit earlier to scout for business decided to seek a safer haven in India.
opportunities. My father was hardly 12 years at that
It was in Rangoon that my father Ganesh time but he clearly recalls to this day The Thingyan Water Festival, which is similar to Holi, is a major attraction in Myanmar

18 SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #16 | OCTOBER 2020 19