Lily Tharoor – a woman of substance who inspired her family and friends through ‘her life and living’

 

I have just finished reading Good Innings: The Extraordinary, Ordinary Life of Lily Tharoor – quite an enjoyable read. The author is Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan, Lily Tharoor’s elder daughter and sister of Shashi Tharoor. Shobha has put it all down so well, what she calls “an individual reflection on moments… a collection of stories from the life of an independent woman who has been a daughter and wife, and is now still a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother”.  It is a recollection, she says, of personal memories, a narrative of a strong matriarch.

I had my own reasons in getting hooked to the book, a slim volume of less than 120 pages. My father, Tharoor Damodar, and Tharoor Parameshwar and his younger brothers Chandran, Bhaskaran and Krishnan were cousins. Parameshwar and my father were about the same age. Parameshwar began his career in Bombay in the early 1950s and soon left for London where he not only made a mark but also made opportunities for his brothers to come along. In 1955, he became Reader’s Digest’s permanent representative in India and later the first managing director. In 1977, I remember visiting with my parents his home on Napean Sea Road in Bombay. My mother was close to his wife – her name was also Lily and she, like Lily Tharoor and my mother, was from Kollengode (one of the most beautiful villages in India). I do not have memories of meeting Chandran Tharoor but I do remember Smita, the author’s younger sister, coming to our Calcutta home once. Father and Chandran were in touch off and on during our days in Calcutta.

Coming to the subject of the book, K.T. Menon who named his daughter Lily (Sulekha was her name in school, as it was in her birth certificate); their home in Kollengode was called Lily’s Cottage. Menon, a teacher of History and Geography at Rajah’s High School, was a respected figure in the village who was also the “resident scribe”. (Rajah’s High School was where my mother and her sisters studied.) Lily’s mother, Jayashankini, came from the Mundarath tharavad (ancestral home), a progressive woman who had a reformer’s outlook of the world, the author of the book points out. Jayashankini was generous – loaning money liberally and sharing food and clothing with the poor – and she clearly influenced the young Lily, the first of nine siblings, the first granddaughter for her paternal grandparents.

The early part of the book dwells on Lily’s childhood, how she was allowed to walk without a chaperone by the time she was in high school and how there was no “fooling around” with the boys. In any case, Jayashankini wanted Lily to get married quickly and Tharoor Parameshwar’s wedding set the stage. The families felt Lily would be an ideal match for Parameshwar’s younger brother Chandran and once ‘studio portraits’ were exchanged, the two agreed to get married. So, after some years in London, Chandran returned to India, his first stop being Kollengode to meet Lily. They were soon husband and wife – the ceremony conducted in the front courtyard of Lily’s Cottage.

And soon began a peripatetic life. Chandran Tharoor joined Amrita Bazaar Patrika in Calcutta as advertising executive. Within a week or so of arriving in the City of Joy, he received a letter from the same employer offering him a better position in London. In London, Chandran, according to Lily in the book, “would cook all the meals in the earlier days since I had never cooked before… he would also wash our clothes by hand and take care of most of the domestic duties before taking the bus to work”. Not only that, he would telephone Lily after his early engagements. As a newspaper employee, Shobha writes, her father had invitations to important events, and Lily was once seated at the same table as Lord Mountbatten.

When Shashi was two months old (May 1956), Chandran was offered a job by The Statesman, a better position, with more autonomy and responsibility. However, as the author mentions in the book, those were difficult post-war days. Chandran washed the baby’s diapers by hand and did much of the cooking before he left for work. Not surprisingly, Lily wanted to get back to India. As luck would have it, Chandran applied for a manager’s position at The Statesman in Bombay and he got the job. Lily was driven by hope and excitement rather than by anxiety or anger, says Shobha, and her years in London built the foundation for her self-reliance. The passage back to India was by ship, in 1957.

Lily took to Bombay like she took to every new experience, says Shobha… she enjoyed social gatherings and she entertained easily. She found herself dubbing in Malayalam for the Films Division and soon she was on All India Radio, interviewing dignitaries from Kerala who visited Bombay. Her mantra: time was not to be squandered; every minute in the day had to count for something. Lily’s transformation from a ‘simple village girl’ to a ‘chic city girl’ happened in Bombay. And Bombay was where Shobha and Smita were born.

When things were going well, in 1968, Chandran Tharoor had a massive heart attack and he was in the ICU for six weeks. The author says that despite the gloom, her mother’s natural resilience and daily prayers (to Lord Guruvayoorappan/ Krishna) gave her an inner strength while he was in hospital. The following year, the family moved to Calcutta, a city where “it felt like time stood still”. Shobha says Calcutta soon became her mother’s favourite city, “a wonderful, colourful life, it was a life of opportunity and visibility”. While Shashi entered the portals of St Xavier’s College, his sisters became students of Loreto House. Their flat at Minto Park “saw many Durga Pujo, Diwali and Onam celebrations and their living room was often a launch pad for singers like Usha Uthup and K.J. Yesudas”.

By the end of the following year, Chandran and Lily moved once again to Bombay; he was now advertising director of Reader’s Digest. This stint in Bombay lasted only seven years, the fast-paced life in the city did not suit Chandran. He accepted an offer from the Patriot newspaper and, in 1987, Delhi became their next home. In 1992, he suffered a mild heart attack while in London with Smita. And so, plans for a long stay in Delhi were shelved. It was now time for him to retire. In 1993, in a rented flat in Coimbatore, Chandran Tharoor passed away, a cardiac arrest ended his life at 63. Lily had been preparing for this for some time. She was a strong woman and the author says her mother chose not to run away from the challenges by surrendering them to someone else to solve. In Lily’s own words: “I made a list of all the things I needed to do to settle my life as a widow. I committed to myself that I would harvest my inner strength to put my life in order. I had always encouraged young women who came to me by reassuring them that there was nothing they couldn’t do if they set their minds to it.”

Lily had a troublesome tenant at their Delhi (Patparganj) flat evicted and sold the property. She sold her husband’s Fiat car and bought a Maruti for herself (she got her driving licence renewed when she was 80!).  She opened bank accounts, took Mediclaim insurance and engaged a financial advisor. Her proudest moment was building her own independent home in Kovaipudur, a Coimbatore suburb, and naming it after her home in Kollengode – Lily’s Cottage. As Shobha writes, her mother enjoyed her years in Coimbatore… it was a place she had found on her own and it was a city where she had the opportunity to live independently. Some years passed this way. The breaking up of Shashi and Smita’s marriages, which made Lily feel “helpless and useless from afar”, are mentioned in the book.

When Shashi Tharoor returned to India in 2009 and joined politics, he wanted his mother to live with him and Lily then made the move to Thiruvananthapuram “with some reluctance”. In Shobha’s words: “She wished to be his strength and stability as he navigated the rocky path of a political life in India without a partner by his side.” Later, Lily moved to Kochi. In 2015, her mother, Jayashankini, passed away.

Lily and Chandran Tharoor had a wonderful life together, backed by the perks and social support his newspaper jobs provided him, enabling them to travel the world. They were a great source of inspiration to their children, especially Lily, who, as an ambitious and independent woman, set the bar high and goaded her children onto greater heights. As Shashi mentions in the prologue: “Growing up, I often felt that nothing I did was good enough for my mother. She had the highest expectations of me, which meant she never allowed me the luxury of self-satisfaction. She rarely congratulated me on any of my prizes or distinctions; they were expected, nothing more.” Again, thanks to Lily’s enterprise, the author in 1979 was crowned Miss Calcutta and her sister Smita won the first runner-up title. Smita would go on to become the first runner-up of Miss India in Bombay, the year Swaroop Sampat bagged the title.

Here are some words from Lily in the book that are pertinent and carry a message: “Now that I am in my bonus years, there are many things I’ve learned that I feel like sharing with others. I want to tell my friends and family that they shouldn’t worry about the loss of material things. If someone takes something that was yours, it’s okay; perhaps they needed it more than you did. I also want to say: don’t wait to do things you want to do. If the opportunity you seek presents itself, embrace it right away and make it work for you. If there are people you have not seen in a while and you miss them, make the effort to see them now instead of waiting for tomorrow… so many of life’s lessons come to us late.”

The author has dedicated the book to her mother and all the women who toil, teach and live each day with fullness. The afterword is by Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, the author’s daughter and Lily’s only granddaughter.

Note: The book was released in 2022. It is available on Amazon. During the COVID years, Lily was living with Shashi in Delhi. As he mentions in the prologue, “she is a tireless emailer and browser of articles and an addict ofYouTube videos… she is active on WhatsApp and unremitting when it comes to passing on morning greetings, trending videos and, occasionally, ‘fake news’.” In November last year, Lily Tharoor, accompanied by her children, spent her 90th birthday in her ancestral home in Palakkad and visited two family temples.

Picture: The book cover.