My girl, that’s not the way to jive, and that too, in front of so many people. What will they think!” my nana (grandmother) scowled in her post-mortem of my two left-feet attempt at a family wedding. The riot act for the poor show, I learnt later, was read out to my mother. At most Anglo-Indian gigs, the unsaid rule is ‘Jive well, or go home [leave the party]’, a reinterpretation of ‘Go hard or go home’!

For this unsuspecting Bombaywallah, that episode wasn’t the first time, or reason to be reminded of Anglo pride. Slice-of-life anecdotes apart, over time, and with dwindling numbers, mainly due to migration, their laurels and contribution to Indian society seems to have fallen off the radar, which is why now is a good time for a quick refresher.

Education has always been a high priority. There was no excuse for compromise. I recall an aunt narrating the hour-long sermon she had to hear from her father, because she skipped ‘Hindee’ tuitions — a panic-inducing memory that most Anglos have to this date. Non-graduates were looked down upon, and judged; “That fella flunked his class thrice, and now he changes tyres in a garage,” I recall an uncle passing judgement on his friend’s ‘wayward’ son. In some homes, elders would share eulogies on the revered educationis s, the late Neil O’Brien and Frank Anthony, who established the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) and played a key role in empowering the community in pre- and post-independent India. The many schools in Anthony’s honour are testimony to his contribution to the Indian education system. Visits to Anglo-Indian strongholds like Lucknow, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai reiterated the respect that teachers earned. Most of my maternal and paternal aunts, as well as my mother, were teachers. I’d be over the moon each time I was introduced at social gatherings as so-and-so’s daughter or niece…“the famous teacher who taught a thousand-odd children”.