Beautiful Maya Pachhi

Sumana Pai

My earliest memory of Maya Pachhi is at her wedding. I was about 11 years old. She looked beautiful. I remember thinking she looked like the princesses from Amar Chitra Katha. My mom loved cousin Maya and we never failed to visit NandaDeep on each of our visits to Bangalore. We were always welcomed warmly, fed wonderful food and treated to beaming smiles by dear Maya Pachhi. We would then visit Ramanath Ajja and Rama mamama downstairs. I was always in awe of Ramanath Ajja. Maya Pachhi was a wonderful, dutiful daughter who took care of her parents with much devotion.

She was a pillar of strength to her extended family in Bangalore. All her uncles and aunts loved her like their own daughter. She was always there for everyone. A truly gentle, caring and capable person lending a hand to anyone in need.

My mom has special ties to Maya Pachhi. Ramanath Ajja and Rama Mamama generously took in my mom, their niece, so she could go to college in New Delhi. She has many happy memories of her college years. She can vouch for the fact that Maya was a sweet, gentle soul right from childhood through adulthood. Her public persona was her private one as well. My mom was so proud when she first saw Maya Pachhi's cartoons in the newspaper. We would religiously read her comic strip every day and marvel at her talent.

I was visiting India just a few months before Maya Pachhi passed away. I wanted to see her. When I called to ask her if we could come over, she had just returned from chemotherapy and was in considerable discomfort. I immediately wanted to postpone my visit. Yet, being true to her selfless, hospitable nature, she just wouldn't hear of it. But just in the next few minutes, we received the devastating news from Sirsi about my uncle's sudden death. My mom had to leave immediately to be with her sister and I ended up cancelling my visit to Maya Pachhi's. I still regret that till today.

On the day of Maya Pachhi's passing, my mom was watching Ram Leela on TV in the afternoon. It reminded her of her Delhi days. She had a strong urge to call Maya Pachhi and reminisce. My mom has always possessed some kind of sixth sense. She resisted the urge, thinking Maya Pachhi would be resting after lunch. How she regretted that later. It took her a long time to get over that day.

Although her loss still makes me sad, it is her sweet wide smile that I always remember. Her legacy has not only been her talent, her charitable work, but also her wonderful children Deepa and Nandan. She had once said, "children are the best part of marriage." That phrase and dear Maya Pachhi often come to mind when I gaze upon the innocent faces of my children.

Carmichael House, Bombay, mid-1950's

Ranganath: "This is the day of Ramachandra Anna's wedding. The location is the front steps of the Municipal Commissioner's residence on Carmichael Road, Bombay, where we lived from 1952 to 1957.

Front row (left to right): Jayendra, Maya, Ramachandra Anna, Babbi Akka (Subhadra), Keshav Rao (son of Sada Mam and Rohini Mai).
Behind: Not sure, Babbu Mam, Lillu (Keshav's sister, aka Chandrakala), Narayan, Ranganath, Amma (my mother), Sada Mam (Sadashiva Rao, Amma's first cousin, and a great friend of my father)."

'Maya's duck'

Awanti Seth Rabenhoej

My family has known Maya and her family for ages. Sort of like that song, my grand-dad and your grand-dad, sitting by the fire, just that they were all in Bombay and the thought of a fire in a living room in Bombay is horrible.

I got to know Maya, by myself, after having resisted the usual 'you must meet Maya and Amarnath and their children, they are your age and are lovely people' order from my parents when I moved to Bangalore in May 1999. I obviously refused to go meet Maya, Amarnath and their lovely kids, mainly because parents say this about people their children's age when they want to set an example and I was sure I would totally not get along with these wonderful kids.

Eventually I met the Kamath family, when my parents visited Tue, me and Odin, then our 5-month old son in Bangalore, and took us to visit Maya, Amarnath and the wonderful kids. We had a wonderful time, over tea and watching the 9/11 twin tower disaster on TV as we discussed why news channels had begun showing fiction film type footage! Like with most disasters it only brings one closer, so the three of us and the 4 Kamaths suddenly became quite close and began dropping by at each others houses for no real reason at all.

It was a horrible shock to get a call from my mum in Poona at 5:30 on the 27th of October, totally unbelievable for Tue and me, since we had just popped in to meet Maya 3 or 4 days ago and were planning another visit in a day or two!! Totally soaked in disbelief we turned up at the house hoping it was a 'chinese whisper' type of call my mother had got from Boston. We went for a few hours and ended up staying nearly till we left Bangalore at the end of the year.

Today I have 2 kids and strangely miss Maya and can't seem to be able to find a way to ask her what Amarnath and she did to bring up such wonderful people. I see so much of her in both Deepa and Nandan that I have to - like a well written thriller - work backwards to find out what she must have done then, to make them like they are today. I miss Maya, so does Tue and even Odin, the soft yellow duck she had given him is still called 'Maya's duck' or 'the duck that Deeps' mum gave me when I was a tiny baby'. Maya obviously lives on.

Maya's last cartoon, October 26th 2001.

polka-dot packages & university specials...

Tara Kini

My first memory of Maya is on my ninth birthday - she must have been twelve then. She came to my birthday party with an unusually packed gift - a little orange cloth with black polka dots that was wrapped around a red box in the shape of a butterfly - I still have the box with me! The cloth was tied to a stick and she carried the stick on her shoulder - just like tramps were supposed to! I was completely fascinated, both by the wrapping and the box! That was the starting point of my admiration for and friendship with Maya.

We met intermittently at Konkani association meetings, but very often, when we were involved in any theatrical production together. She played one of the major roles in Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man that was directed by her cousin Jayendra. Although I was not directly involved in the play, my father was acting as Major Petkoff and I often went for rehearsals and watched with great interest. Often Maya chatted with me about 'inside stories' surrounding the production!

Our next major interaction was when she acted in another play, again directed by Jayendra, called 'The Promise in Leningrad', which had only three characters and was as gloomy and dark as any Russsian play could be. I was involved backstage and enjoyed watching Maya act.

By then I was studying for a bachelor's degree in physics in Delhi university and Maya was doing her masters in literature in Indraprastha college. The university special bus that started at Moti Bagh where I lived, stopped at Race Course Road, where Maya lived and we then had a forty minute ride in which we discussed all the nuances and philosophies of life threadbare in an open forum, led mainly by Maya and her friend Sumi. The topics ranged from intellectual discussions on how biased the writing of Leon Uris was, to whether a cow got up on her hind legs or her front legs from the sitting position!

A couple of years later, Maya got married and moved to Bangalore. I remember visiting her at her flat on Nandi Durg road, when I had gone to Banglore for a holiday. I had met Amarnath earlier, as he had visited us when he was engaged to be married to Maya, and I received a warm welcome at my long-standing friend's house from both of them. A year later I got married and moved to Banglaore too. After that we met very often. I remember meeting her at a wedding - she was carrying Deepa, who was aged one, and just recently, when I visted Deepa at her house in Delhi, the sight of her face as she unlocked the gate ( I had reached Deepa's house at 2 am!!) brought back memories of the time I had seen her first so strongly that it felt no time had elapsed in between! With Nandan's birth, and then the arrival of my kids, Sankarshan and Kanyika, Maya and I used every available opportunity to meet and get the kids to play together and have a jolly good chat ourselves. Every time I went to Maya's house, there was excellent food laid out on the side board, much laughter and fun and we never ever left without having played Dumb Charades to our heart's content! Each time I was amazed by Maya's artistic talents - first her oil painting, that emerged in so many depictions of their lives, then the cartoons that never ceased to fascinate me!

The last time I visited Maya was when she orgainsed a meeting of all her college mates who were in Bangalore - I was invited too, as a "special" friend, in honour of the university special rides that we had shared. We had a superb time, gliding along nostalgia lane and exchanging stories of where we all were at present.

Maya remains a strong presence, a staunch friend and an inspiring influence in my life always!

Windblown, Maine, August 1967

Remembering Maya

Ranganath, 15 November 2001.

As you know, Maya was born on 17 March 1951. I was eight-and-a-half years old at that point. We were living in a rented apartment in a mansion named Gulshan Villa in Oomer Park on Warden Road in Bombay. However, my earliest memory of Maya is from a few days later, at her naming ceremony.

Everyone was allowed to give her a middle name, to be whispered in her ear. I was told that I could give her a name, but that it should start with a “ka” sound. I named her “cake”. Perhaps this had something to do with the excellence of her baking in later years.

The next year, we moved into the Municipal Commissioner’s Bungalow on Carmichael Road, a huge, sprawling house with a large garden, and with malis, dhobi, watchmen, and a driver. While we lived there, Maya grew from being one year old to being six. I can remember, early in our stay there, watching her getting an oil bath from my mother, and from my grandmother Lakshmi, who also stayed with us much of the time, and told us bedtime stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Maya was exceedingly pretty, and I was very proud of her. This is when the photo was taken of her in which she is sitting on a sofa, with a sweet smile playing on her face. She loved playing make-believe games with all the servants’ kids, organizing dances, and so forth. She became fluent in Marathi. I remember, years later, asking her whether she still remembered her Marathi, and being disappointed when she sad no, she had forgotten it, because she didn’t have a chance to use it after she, with my parents, moved to New Delhi in 1957.

While we were living in this fabulous place, Maya started going to school, at the Villa Theresa Convent on Peddar Road. When she was five years old, she came back and sang a song for us that she had learned in school that day. It went as follows: Swallowed a peana, swallowed a peana, swallowed a peana chasno (repeat). Got a pain here, got a pain here, got a pain here chasno (repeat). Cut it open, cut it open, cut it open chasno (repeat). Found the peana, found the peana, found the peana chasno (repeat). We all sang it endlessly together.

She lived in New Delhi from 1957 until the middle of 1973, first going to school at Presentation Convent, and then to college at Indraprastha College. My connection to her become episodic rather than continuous, because I stayed back in Bombay and, later, moved to the USA. However, through 1963, I would go to Delhi for the summer holidays each year, and play hide and seek with Maya and with our dog, Buster, a wonderful golden retriever. One of Maya’s favourite games was after dark for me to hide somewhere in the house, and for her and her friends to come and find me. The fun part was that I would try to frighten the daylights out of them by standing in some dark corner with a flashlight under my chin, hopefully making my face look monstrous while I emitted a low moan. Their shrieks of fright and laughter were delicious.

I also remember going for a walk with Maya and Amma in a park in New Delhi in the winter. Maya must have been seven or eight years old. The day was sunny, the air was cool, and a mist hung on the air. The park was beautiful. As we were strolling, Maya asked us to slow down. When I teased her by asking her whether she was too small to walk with us, she said, “No, but I have to walk faster than you.” I was nonplused by this response until my mother, always wise, said Maya meant she had to take a lot more steps in the same time than we did, which, of course, is “walking faster”. On another occasion, there was a Konkani Association festival in which Maya and a whole bunch of other girls, dressed up in the costumes of different parts of India. She looked very cute. Somewhere, there is a photograph of the whole lot of them standing in a long line and smiling prettily for the photographer.

These are the years in which she developed an interest in drawing. I can remember her endlessly sketching and doodling in notebooks. Some of her interest was in designing women’s clothes in her sketches.

During these years, Maya and my parents and their dogs, first Buster, the Ringo and Rollo, lived first at Alipore Road, then on Willingdon Crescent, and eventually at 5 Race Course Road, which later became Indira Gandhi’s residence and, after her assassination, a museum. Ringo was a cocker spaniel, named by Maya for Ringo Starr of the Beatles, and Rollo was a sweet golden retriever, also named by Maya. Rollo was very sick as a puppy, and had to be looked after by Maya and Mamama, that is, my mother’s mother, Lakshmi. Maya and her grandmother and Rollo shared a bedroom.

In 1967, Maya went on an American Field Service exchange program to South Portland, Maine, where she lived for a year with the Coffin family, and went to high school. The Coffin family consisted of Judge Frank Coffin, who was Chief Justice of the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, his wife Ruth, and their children, Doug, Nancy, Meredith (Merrie), and Susan.

The Coffins lived, and continue to live, in a wonderful, large but cosy house that has multiple staircases and innumerable nooks and crannies, and wonderful bedrooms upstairs that look out over the ocean. Maya’s favorite room was one into which the sunlight came flooding in in the morning. Maya was completely at home there, and the Coffins developed a lifelong friendship with, and a deep affection for her. Maya brought our family and theirs together, and they have stayed together ever since. I know that Frank and Ruth regarded Maya as one of their daughters, so much so that, years later, they made a trip to India to see Maya and her family and her world.

My brother and I were both students at MIT when Maya was with the Coffins and, against AFS rules, which said family should stay away, so that the exchange student would have a fully “American” experience, we visited Maya and the Coffins several times. Maya and Merrie became great friends. Frank had a puckish sense of humour, and I can remember Maya and Merrie putting women’s’ wigs on him to see how he would look. He also had a workshop where he did wood carving, and Maya and Merrie decided to “decorate” it; they plastered the whole ceiling with photographs from magazines and newspapers, creating a giant collage that stayed there for many, many years. Years later, Merrie visited Maya and my parents in Delhi.

Towards the end of Maya’s stay in the USA, on 9 June 1968, Sandy and I got married in North White Plains, just north of New York City. Maya came, along with her American family. She was then just over seventeen years old. She wore a crimson sari, and looked beautiful. Photos from that time show a striking resemblance between her and my daughter Maya at about the same age. The resemblance is not so much of features as “look”, “bearing”, and “vivaciousness”. As you know, my daughter Maya was named after my sister Maya, because my sister was a favorite of mine and of my wife Sandy.

In early 1973, my parents moved from New Delhi to Poona with Rollo (Ringo having died earlier), as did Sandy and Lakshmi and I. We lived in a rented house in Sind Colony, my parents living downstairs, Sandy and Lakshmi and me, upstairs. Maya stayed on at 5 Race Course Road, which my father’s younger brother, Manjappa, had moved into when my parents moved out. When she had finished college in New Delhi, she moved to Poona in May 1973. She also decided, probably with some prodding from my parents, to get married. A program of arranged meetings was set up for her. I was deeply offended, believing that she was being forced into this horrible “parade of the flesh”, and said to her, “You just let me know if you are being forced to do something you don’t want to do, and I will protect you.” She didn’t need my protection. One of the very first people she met was a young guy with whom she said she had immediately developed a rapport, and they had talked for hours on end. She eventually married him. It was clearly love at first sight. If I remember right, they met in July or August, and got married in November of that year, 1973, in Bangalore, on the 15th of November. Maya was “given away” from Meera Pachi’s house. Maya and Amarnath made a wonderful wedding couple, impossibly young and slim and charming; but I suppose all of us are that way at least once in our lives. Or, at least, that is something to be hope for.


Maya and Amarnath lived in a flat in Nandidurg, and started planning and then building their house in Jayamahal. In between, Deepa was born, on their wedding anniversary, something that must have required exceedingly careful planning or a lot of luck. A few days earlier, Anand had been born to Sandy and me, in Poona. When Nandadeep was completed, in 1976, a lot of things happened. Sandy and Lakshmi and Anand and I moved back to the USA from Poona; Maya and Amarnath and Deepa moved into the new house; and my parents and Rollo move from Poona into the downstairs flat at Nanda Deep. The arrangement remained intact as long as my parents were alive, with Maya and her family, but Maya above all, looking after my parents in a devoted and affectionate manner, difficult though that may have been at times.

At this time, the memories begin to be both more recent and more crowded together, as the interaction between my family and Maya’s began to be more frequent, even though we live far apart. I remember an “unbirthday party” arranged by Maya downstairs in what was called the “sand pit”, I think, complete with a cake made of mud, with candles on it. There were birthday parties with all kinds of games. One that I remember was “pin the tail on the donkey”. Except that we didn’t have a donkey; we had a fantastic creature that Maya designed and drew on a large sheet of paper that was stuck to the drawing room door. Since it was Lakshmi’s birthday (she must have been seven or eight), she was allowed to name the creature. She called it an “Upix Dokma”, so we played “pin the tail on the Upix Dokma”. We played treasure hunt games. I remember one in which the last-but-one clue was to lead to me, because I had the final clue on me. The last-but-one was “run with a gun and say ‘aath’”. Bambu, who must have been thirteen or fourteen, made a gun out of his fist, and started running around the house saying, “aath, aath, aath,” until it finally dawned on someone what the clue meant. We split our sides laughing at Bambu. And we played delightful games of “dumb charades”; so simple and so much fun.

Every time we visited, Maya would invite the whole Bangalore clan for dinner and make all my favourite dishes. We have clan photos from these dinners going back over the last two decades, taken on the steps outside the drawing room. On one of our visits, we all went to Amarnath’s parents’ farm at Ripponpet. One afternoon, it was raining, and the four kids were bored. Amarnath’s father devised a game: looking under the innumerable “god calendars” on the walls to see if there was a “tinku”—a house lizard—hiding behind it. Every time we found one, the children would shriek with delight, while the tinku fled to cover behind the next calendar. That, of course, would be the next calendar to be lifted, again to shrieks of delight. It is possible that one grandfather and one tinku kept those four children entranced all afternoon long.

Some time around the middle 1980s, Maya started to do cartooning seriously. I will not tell that story, because you know it well, but I will say that she worked at her profession very hard and very seriously. It shows in the immense development she went through, in terms of content, style, wit, and timelessness. She went from being a “nice” cartoonist to a genius.

Maya and her family made many trips to the United States to visit us and other relatives. Two of my favourite memories are of two trips to Disney World and another to Cape Cod. On the First trip to Disney World, we stayed in a hotel outside the park, and ate immense breakfasts at an International House of Pancakes. On the second trip, we had a whale of a time, staying in a wonderful hotel right in the park, so that the older children could go wandering off by themselves, without an adult, which meant that the adults could snatch a well-needed nap in the afternoon. Maya loved the merry-go-round and the Ferris Wheel and the international pavilions, while the kids loved the roller coaster, known as Space Mountain. We went to a water world amusement park where Amarnath was the only one in our party brave enough to go down an incredibly steep and high water slide. At Cape Cod, we had a more quiet and relaxed time. Maya wrote in our guest book that being there brought back fond memories of her childhood.

There were difficult times, too. Maya was there at my father’s bedside when he died in September 1988 of cancer, in Sandy’s and my bedroom in Belmont. Immediately after the cremation, she and my mother flew back to India, because my mother wanted to be tested for cancer. She tested positive. Deepa told me that she learned from Maya that my mother had suspected that she had cancer, but did not want to say anything about it because she thought my father would not be able to cope with the news. Maya was there, again, at my mother’s bedside as my mother was dying from cancer in 1991. Maya looked after her tirelessly for several months, with help from Sunila and Sumana.

In the late eighties and early nineties, I started coming to India frequently on business, and made a point of visiting Maya and her family each time, even if only for a weekend. Maya was incredibly kind and hospitable, meeting me at the airport if Amarnath could not, asking me what special things I wanted for dinner or breakfast, taking me shopping for Caftans or other gifts, taking me on visits to uncles and aunts, and, best of all, staying up until two or three in the morning to talk philosophy or to gossip about our family. Much of my later (some say late) philosophical development occurred during the course of these late-night conversations with Maya.

You can see, can’t you, that Maya was not just my sister? She was also my friend and philosopher.

Her life’s work was immense, and will live on. What does it consist of?

First, a life lived according to principles and, in later years, founded in deep religious belief. Among these principles was other-centredness, resulting in a constant stream of energy helping others. Another was being self-effacing rather than self-promoting. I think of her favourite song, with the line, “You are the wind beneath my wings” being sung not by her but to her by Amarnath and Deepa and Nandan.

Second, the effort she put into family, both nuclear and extended, and into community, resulting in a very successful husband and two children to be proud of, but also in Maya and Amarnath being viewed as pillars of the community, people you could depend on in times of need. There were countless acts of random kindness and senseless beauty performed by Maya. To give one example, Jaya told me that Maya decided that Vasanth deserved a 60th birthday party, and arranged it, cake, guests, and all. Without Maya, he wouldn’t have had one.

Third, the immense body of her professional work as a cartoonist, amounting to perhaps 4000 cartoons, each one requiring four to five hours of work. She worked with dedication, getting her work done each day but, even or important, improving her technique and biting but never vicious wit year after year until she became, in my opinion, the best cartoonist in India.

And last, what I call “the concept of Maya”—the conceptualization of a person that could be accomplished, kind and generous, gentle and smiling, and never, ever giving up on her principles. I would be in happy indeed if someone were to say that about me at the end of my life.

Cartoon for CUPA, 1994.

Compassionate Maya

Jayashree Janardhan

Maya as we all know was a complete person and a very compassionate one too. As a neighbour I had the opportunity to watch her several times a week. Just a few anecdotes from her examplary life for us to emulate:

Once a wounded horse strayed into our lane and was in a very pathetic condition. All of us who saw the animal were very sorry for the once agile animal, but it was Maya who took the initiative to reduce its agony. She at once called CUPA and supervised personally so that they transported the horse without causing more injury. She followed up the treatment till he was on his feet once again. Such was her concern for the innocent animal.

Maya was very concerned about the ladies who were working for her housekeeping. Maya asked Ponnamma to retire since she was too old to work. And Maya paid her pension till her death. Maya is the only person who paid pension for domestic servants.

Let us all learn a lesson or two from the great person whose memories we will cherish always.

Maya, 1951-2001

i carry your heart with me

ee cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Maya Aunty

Divya Janardhan

Growing up in the neighbourhood with Maya Aunty (as we endearingly called her) was an unforgettable experience all together. She knew me and my family since my childhood days. I can clearly remember her on her daily walk with her dear pet Bruno. She would smile warmly and wish everybody as Bruno would give an affectionate bark and wag his golden tail. Every Diwali, armed with a box of doodh pedas and a beaming smile, Maya Aunty would come to my home - an arrival much looked forward to by children and elders alike. It was she who encouraged me to write for the Rotary Club's newsletter – an experience that was very valuable during my days as a media student.

Maya Aunty always had a kind word for everyone and a demeanour that inspired goodwill. She stood up for pressing social causes but was humility personified…who could ever guess that she was the famous cartoonist who livened up the hard-news filled dailies!
For me, she will always be remembered as…Maya Aunty.

The full moon is out

Paul, Paris.

Bathed with images of mystical India, I embarked on an Air India flight to Bombay, filled with mixed feelings of excitement and anxiousness. Almost everyone I had come across in France prior to my departure warned me about the dangers I would come across: Most gave me little more than a week before my fate would come across a deadly illness or a fatal snake bite!

I didn’t know Maya when we shared, without knowing at the time, the same flight between Bombay (or should I say Mumbai) and Bangalore that early morning of March 2001. She was returning from a visit to Nandan in Oxford, where he had sustained injuries from a cricket match. Maya had flown all the way to England to bring him her support. If I had known Maya’s cartoons, I would have known that the flight to my final destination on “Indian Scarelines” was my first real threat!

I did experience striking stomach ache after ordering number 76 on the menu - “The Spicy Rice Special” on my arrival at Airlines Hotel in Bangalore. Yet again, if had known Maya’s cartoons at the time, I would have known that eating at Airlines was nothing as dangerous as sleeping in a lodge near Veerapan’s headquarters in Bandipur a few months later. I can still picture one of her cartoons in which the now deceased bandit is wearing a necklace of human skulls and holds a sign which mentioned “Demands: Treat People Nicely”!

On March 31, my birthday, Maya was diagnosed with cancer. I had only just met Deepa and her family and I hardly knew them at that point. Gradually, I got closer to the Kamath family. In what I believe was a very short time, I came to see them as my Indian family. I guess I got a little too close: In a few months, I was living full-time at Nandadeep and started to feel quite at ease… In fact, I can recall Maya being a little upset when I started moving furniture to my convenience in the lower ground where I had settled in!

I got to know Maya more intimately through Deepa. She dedicated all her time to her Mum during the months that followed. Through her love – tremendous, remarkable love – for Maya, I discovered a very special human being, who, without knowing, has opened some paths for which I am forever grateful. For one of them, it is thanks to Maya - and Deepa - that I attended a course on self-development at Parivarthan training centre.

The sudden death of Maya on 26 October 2001 devastated me to a point that, as I write these lines, I still have difficulties understanding why it affected me so much. I have tried to answer this question many, many times. Yet, the more I search, the more I have come to terms with leaving this question unanswered.

Five years later, Maya’s work still echoes in many aspects of my every day life. Every day comes with its package of news - domestic, international, political – through the papers, TV, Internet… how many times have I wished to enforce my “Right to Informationlessness!” she pictured this so well in one of her cartoons…

The storm is over and the Parisian sky is clear. The full moon is out. I see Maya. I feel protection from Above.

Puppy Heaven

Ringo, Rollo, Bruno, Tuffy and Penny we are,
Each one of us born under a lucky star,
Fateful days many years apart,
We each waddled up to Maya on our fat little paws.

She held us close on the first trip "home",
She petted our furs and scratched our tummies,
She seemed to know full well,
That we missed the warmth of our siblings,
And the love of our mommies.

A gentler soul one would be hard-pressed to find,
She even recognised angst of the puppy kind.

We learnt from Maya to love and care,
And she accepted us just as we were.

We've lived full lives and from where we've been sitting,
When the times came/come for our last lines to be written,
We really couldn't imagine anything funner,
Than playing with Maya in puppy nirvana.

Our Maya Memories

Ruth and Frank Coffin

In the hearts and minds of the Coffins of Maine, their Indian daughter and sister Maya still lives. They recall the sixteen year old, handsome, eager young lady joining their household in the autumn of 1967 and their year of living together. Her bedroom, despite almost forty years of use by others, is still known to one and all as "Maya's room."

After her year with us, she kept in touch and, after marrying Amarnath, and ushering into the world Deepa and Nandan, would always make our home a stop on her visits to this hemisphere. We also got to know and visit with her Mom and Dad both in Maine and at Sandy's and Ranganath's home in the Boston area. One of the highlights was our visit to India in 1990 was being royally entertained by Maya and Amarnath. We were honored to join Sandy and Ranganath as we memorialized PR's passing.

Although Maya informed us of her illness, we had no concept of how serious it was, but can now appreciate her agonies of spirit as she faced her future. Now we are the beneficiaries of the future she helped create, leaving all of us Deepa and Nandan, whom we proudly claim as our surrogate gandchildren.

Thanks for all this and much, much more, Maya.

With love, Ruth and Frank Coffin

Maya on a ski trip in Maine.
(photo contribution Susan Babb)

With me

I want you all to know that Maya continues to live with me - for a spirit so free, so pure, so full of truth, so full of light, so full of love, so full of fun just lives on - just believe her light shines on....and experience the joy...Phyllis

Maya's 1999 birthday card to Phyllis...

India in View

Maya's entry to a 1992 exhibition in Germany,
Indien im Blick – Karikaturen aus Indien
or India in View - Caricatures from India.

Pin the tail on the donkey

Anu Madgavkar, cousin

Have fond memories of her, going back more than 25 years, when I used to visit Bangalore every summer - one of the high points of the vacation would be going over to Nandadeep for a family get-together hosted by Maya - I still remember the bhel-puri she always made, and the "pin the tail on the donkey" and other assorted kids games she'd organise to keep us busy...thereafter, we weren't much in touch, but I do have another vivid memory - at our mutual cousin Kanaka's wedding in Chandigarh, when I was a gauche 18(?) year old, and Deepa must have been about 10(?) - Maya hovered anxiously over us as I, at her request, adjusted Deepa's dupatta so that it looked "just right" for the wedding celebrations! As always, Maya was warm, affectionate and always mindful of doing the right thing by her family...

The favoured one - Penny, a.k.a. "Long snout"

Gendered laugh lines

By Aditi De
The Hindu, May 8th, 2005.

click on image for larger view. or click here to read the article online.


















Links to more stories on Maya, by Aditi...

The real Maya, The Hindu, April 16th, 2005.
Lines of laughter on the wall, The Hindu, April 18th, 2002.

Remembering Maya...one year later

October 26th, 2002, Sangam.

Project Maya

C.S. Lakshmi, director of SPARROW, on why she started Project Maya.

"I found Maya's cartoons extremely refreshing with an unusual sense of humour. I had thought that I would interview her one day for SPARROW. The news of her death came as a great shock and for a while I gave up hope of archiving all her works. But since I don't give up so easily, I contacted her daughter and continued to correspond with her to get the project going. SPARROW's exhibition on Maya's cartoons, we felt, was a fitting tribute to Maya for we felt that her cartoons needed to be seen and appreciated by many. The book SPARROW has brought out with more than a thousand cartoons of Maya, I hope, will place her among the top most cartoonists of India for that is what she was."

The World of Maya

The World of Maya, published by SPARROW, is a wonderful collection of Maya's best cartoons.

For information on how to order a copy of the book, please e-mail SPARROW at:
sparrow1988 [at] gmail [dot] com
[e-mail address spam-proofed for display here; please insert @ and . symbols]

Maya, self-caricature for family Diwali card

Being me.

A moment of panic.
I try to remember her.
I cannot.
I close my eyes. Try harder. Focus.
She's slipping away...
Stare at a picture. Read old mails. Think.
She's gone.

And then I see, clearly and deeply,
That I will never find her in boxes and frames and structures and thoughts.
She doesn't live there.
She lives, fully, warm as breath,
In my heart.
Where she belongs.

Just being me, is remembering her.
Just effortless, being me.

Maya & Amarnath in Sri Lanka

January 2001

I Know Someone

I know someone who's 'misplaced' her spectacles on her own nose (and searched unsuccessfully for them for 15 excrutiating minutes); who'd get genuinely upset if I made fun of her favourite doggy's long snout... "she understands, you know!"...; whose eyes lit up at the mention of a visit to Corner House for her "regular" icecream..."extra lychees and no dates again, madam?"...; who's secretly enjoyed every last one of my worst puns and put on an extremely pained expression just for effect (that's what they mean by "motherly effects-on"!).

It was five years ago that we last met in person. Since then, I've visited five continents and lived in six cities. In each of these places, I've been welcomed and pampered by family and friends with a warmth I cannot describe. She is there in each tight hug, in the specially cooked chicken curries, in the visits to shopping malls to set up my apartment, in lectures from aunts about unwashed socks, in the slurpy kisses from friendly dogs and in all the other unadulterated affection I've received wherever I've gone.

She is no longer here.

But she is everywhere.

Wild Life Training Centre

Here's the text of my mother's speech at my graduation from high school in 1993 (my parents were the chief guests). I continue to maintain that comparisons to wild animals contained therein have no basis in reality.

Reverend Father Rector, Father Principal, Teachers and staff of St. Joseph's, guests, fellow parents and students.....

I have always thought of a boys' school as a sort of Wild Life Training Centre. We bring our wild, untrained young cubs here and enrol them in the fourth standard. And it is nothing short of a miracle that they turn out into the fine young men we see before us today. They have learned the three R's, they have learned about the world and they have learned to wash behind their ears.

This is a joyous occasion which marks an important passage in the lives of our sons. They will now leave behind the world of school children and enter the world of college men. Yet, I feel a tinge of sadness that this may be one of the last such gatherings we will attend at this school.

When I think back on our association with St. Joseph's, I remember the congenial atmosphere of the school. There is a feeling of openness and freedom here which I think the students have always valued. For this our gratitude goes to Father Coelho, who administers the school with tolerance and kindness.

We owe a debt of gratitude to all the teachers and staff of the school.

When I think of what it's like to manage one boisterous ten-year-old at home, my heart goes out to the teachers who have to manage fifty of them in the classroom. Over the years, you teachers have imparted knowledge, skills and values to our sons. They will carry these gifts with them throughout their lives.

One of the outstanding features of St. Joseph's is the encouragement it gives for boys to excel in sports. Our thanks go out to the sports coaches who trained the boys and spurred them on and taught them to accept defeat as well as victory. You gave them all the thrilling experiences that can only be had on the playing field.

St. Joseph's is a prestigious institution and our boys will carry its name with them wherever they go. I think they will recall their years in this school with pride and affection. And when I look into the future I see these boys as grown men who will then have little cubs of their own. I hope they will be as fortunate as we parents have been and find as fine a school as St. Joseph's to send their youngsters to.

May I thank you, Father Principal, for giving me this opportunity to speak.

On behalf of all the parents, I wish all of our sons an exciting journey into the future. And I extend the deepest gratitude, once again, to you all at St. Joseph's.

Thank you.

Maya Kamath

So Few Women...

Here's an excerpt from our friend, Alo Sengupta's blog, 'Gladly Beyond Any Distance'...

"Maya was India’s best known woman political cartoonist, and as Manjula Padmanabhan (cartoonist, artist and writer) said about her in tribute:

Maya’s political opinions were expressed with a cool yet distinct humour — a sense of irony combined with an understanding of the political forces of the day. It’s a quality that cartoonists must have deep within them… She wasn’t pointlessly vicious and she often cut to the heart of the issue, just by the way she used symbols.

The World of Maya is her collection of work, spanning 15 years and over 5000 cartoons. Why is it that there are so few women political cartoonists? Or women cartoonists in general? And why should their gender identity preclude recognition of their political astuteness and artistic skills?"

MayPachi

Shirley, Niece

MayPachi as we affectionately called her was 10 years older than me to the day. Her unpretentious, unassuming, down to earth ways was always a breath of fresh air. She was always the same sweet gracious self, whether you met her at the store, visiting, at a function or off the business class after a long flight to Florida. As a child and she a young lady , I still remember a card she sent us in Bombay, the word "greetings" and then these little funny mice, with just their faces and long tails peeping from every which way, it was the cutest, simplest card and truth be told I have tried in vain to capture the sentiments. On one of my visits to India I remember being invited by MayPachi for lunch and it was most enjoyable for a few reasons, great company, watched Mr Bean one of my favorite comedians and I got to pet the dogs because I missed mine in Florida terribly by the 3rd day in India. Talking of which her compassion for animals was well known just by the way she treated her own pets like we believe they should be treated, like members of the family. Though being out of the country I missed seeing more of MayPachi and enjoying her witty cartoons, I feel a deep fondness for her, for one who with all her achievements was still our Maypachi and with every memory is still a breath of fresh air.

Maya, 1951-2001