Recollections of a conversation with Antoine Mariadassou

It was soon after the tsunami in January 2005 when Marie Ange Harris (née Lernie) came to visit my mother (Antoinette Selvanadin) in our Candappa street, Pondicherry, house at around 10:00 in the morning. Presently, Antoine arrived. He was meeting Marie Ange after more than fifty years. Antoine required no prodding to recount the details of the last time they had met. It was in Lernie’s house and Marie Ange was less than ten.

(Note: The conversation was in French and Tamil. An English translation is necessarily bland if I need to remain close to the original meaning of the words uttered. Besides a conversation like that is hard to reproduce on paper. The tone, the body language and the reaction is difficult to capture)

Antoine was running a newsletter that was staunchly pro-independence and for unification of Pondicherry with the rest of India. Both Teta and Lernie were former French government functionaries who were clandestinely helping Antoine. Mrs Teta (Loluima) had no clue that her husband was involved in any way. She once pointed to an article and asked Antoine who wrote it. “I don’t know” Antoine replied, “it’s an anonymous document dropped off.” Her husband had written the article and she wasn’t told about it until unionization with India (de jure transfer) was complete. By that time, of course Antoine was well settled in Germany.

Lernie on the other hand was more cautious. He did not give Antoine any paper with his handwriting on it. So Antoine went to meet Lernie in person and took a dictation. It was during one of those meetings that Antoine met Marie Ange. “You used to sit on my lap. You can’t do that now” he told Marie Ange. Admittedly Antoine is prone to exaggeration. Perhaps Marie Ange didn’t want to spoil a nice story with facts. I am not sure. She laughed as did I.

I am not sure how much Mrs Lernie, my aunt, knew. I am pretty sure she would not have approved. She did not believe that Indians could run a country on their own.

All three of the others in the living room that day have passed away. I am writing this now when my my memory is still fresh in the hope somebody in the future may be interested.