The Quintessential Anglo-Indian of the fairy-tale land of Naipaul’s Anglo-India

Disclaimer: I do not claim, nor do I believe that Anglo-Indians are either inferior to, or superior to us. They are the same as us. Following Independence, those that accepted they were Indians were welcomed by fellow Indians and are valuable members of society. I have three nephews and two grand-nieces who can be classified as Anglo-Indians. Several close friends are Anglo-Indians and others have children and grandchildren who are Anglo-Indians. The Mac type Anglo-Indians, generally referred to as imperial lackeys have faded away through emigration. The population of Anglo-Indians at Independence was 350000, which amounted to 1% of the total population of 350 million. Today it is barely 50000, or .003 percent of the total population of 1.4 billion.

Let me start with what Nobel Laurate Naipaul said about the Mac type Anglo-Indians in his book An Area of Darkness:

It is an undiminishing absurdity; and it is only slowly that one formulates what was sensed from the first day; this is a mimicry not of England, a real country, but of the fairy-tale land of Anglo-India, of clubs and sahibs and syces and bearers. It is as if an entire society had fallen for the casual confidence of a trickster. Casual because the trickster had gone away, losing interest in his joke, but leaving the Anglo-Indians flocking to the churches of Calcutta on a Sunday morning to assert an alien faith more or less abandoned in its country of origin….Leaving ‘civil lines’, ‘cantonments’, leaving people ‘going off to the hills’; magic words now fully possessed, now spoken as of right, in what is now at last Indian Anglo-India, where smartness can be found in the cosy proletarian trivialities of Women’s Own and the Daily Mirror, and where Mrs. Hauksbee, a Millamant of the suburbs, is still the arbiter of elegance.

These words were written in 1966, when Mac was 41, at the peak of his career and he still had time to start providing for his future.

Let me move on to what two highly respected Anglo-Indians said about their own community:

Melville De Mellow who in my opinion was the most articulate and realistic Anglo-Indian: The Anglo-Indians, Melville said, had ‘Champaign taste’ but earned beer income.

William St. J. Marley, the then MD of Indian Oxygen put matters in more perspective by saying that the Anglo-Indians always depended on somebody else and when Independence came, they were caught with their backs against the wall.

Now let me define the term Heaven Born: The term “Heaven-born” was a popular nickname for the Indian Civil Service (ICS), the elite administrative arm of British rule in India.

So how does Mac fit into all this?

In the elite, wind-swept heights of the Lawrence School, Lovedale, the man known as “Mac” moved with the unassailable confidence of the “Heaven-Born.” To his colleagues, his wards, and even a cowed Headmaster, McMahon was the polished product of an upper-crust lineage—a figure so steeped in the aura of British authority that his pedigree was never questioned. In truth, McMahon was the archetypal mimic, a man who had mastered what V.S. Naipaul, in An Area of Darkness, described as the “undiminishing absurdity” of Anglo-India: a performance of “clubs and sahibs and syces” that was less a reflection of England than a “fairy-tale land” maintained by the “casual confidence of a trickster.”

McMahon’s reality was far grittier than the “civil lines” persona he projected. He was the son of a telegraph clerk from the Railway Colony of Mhow, raised on a meager 50 rupees a month. He was the living embodiment of Melville de Mello’s biting critique of a community chasing a “champagne lifestyle on beer money.” Yet, for Mac, this was no harmless social climbing; it was a predatory deception. While he was meant to stand in loco parentis, he abdicated that sacred duty to fund his daily gambling at the Lawley Institute in Ooty. He abandoned his wards to the “proletarian trivialities” of his own greed, leaving them to the mercy of “prefects” who functioned as state-sanctioned thugs. Under the shield of his “upper-crust” façade, he allowed these boys to endure systematic, severe beatings while he played the “arbiter of elegance” seven days a week at the club.

My own experience stands as a damning indictment of this hollow prestige. My father sent me thousands of miles to Lovedale from Kenya, believing he was purchasing an elite education. The airfares alone from Nairobi to India exceeded McMahon’s annual salary, yet the “education” I received was a vacuum of authority and violence. Ironically, a vastly superior education was available in Kenya for free, but my father—like so many others—had fallen for the “magic words” and the “trickster’s joke” that McMahon personified.

The tragedy of the Anglo-Indian mimicry eventually met its brutal, factual conclusion. By the time of his death in Madurai, the “Heaven-Born” mask had slipped to reveal a penniless, broken alcoholic. Had it not been for the individual grace of an old student, Valikappen, McMahon would have been cremated as a nameless pauper by the Municipal Council.

His end mirrored a wider, systemic collapse. As Mac died in squalor, other Anglo-Indians were perishing as alcoholics on the streets of Kolkata, their cadavers retrieved by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity to be buried as Christians. From the red-light districts of Lingarajapuram in Bangalore to the gutters of Kolkata, the “fairy-tale” had ended. McMahon died as he had lived: a pretentious imitation of a vanished empire, proving in the end that he was nothing more than a ghost haunting a “civil lines” that no longer existed.

I quote Edgar Thurston below. What he had to say summed up Eurasian Mac to a T!

‘Eurasians were poor and in debt not because they were low paid but because ‘they were stupid, irresponsible, and unable to subordinate animal appetite to reason, forethought and prudence.‘  Edgar Thurston CIE (CIE stood for Companion of the Indian Empire, a Royal Honour given by the British Monarch) was a superintendent at the Madras Government Museum who contributed to studies in the zoology, ethnology and botany of India and published works related to his work at the museum. (In this context, the definition of animal appetite, according to Christianity, encompasses basic physical desires and instinctive urges that require control for moral integrity).

In my opinion Mac was stupid, irresponsible and unable to subordinate animal appetite to reason, forethought and prudence. The evidence is overwhelming: When Mac left Lovedale, he was the Senior Master and as such the 2nd highest paid academic staff member., the Headmaster, at that time Mr Vyas was the highest paid. The Bursar was higher paid than Mac but he cannot be described as academic. Throughout his period in Lovedale, Mac used the free accommodation EVEN WHEN THE SCHOOL WAS SHUT FOR HOLIDAYS. Despite this, he had no savings and having reached 50, had made no provision for his pension and post retirement accommodation! He had nothing to inherit as his father barely scraped a living as a telegraph operator who, at his peak was on a salary of 50 bucks a month. Mac’s mother was a housewife and Mac had two brothers, Keith and Len. His family accommodation belonged to the Railways so there was no ancestral house to inherit. I personally travelled to Mhow and interviewed the few remaining members of the Anglo-Indian community there. Mac, his girlfriend Audrey and Mac’s parents had a reputation for gambling and drinking! Mac was a pupil at Sacred Heart School where he also took his first job as a junior teacher. I visited this school, now called Rajeshwar Vidyalaya. As a junior teacher Mac couldn’t have been earning much in this Church school. Whatever little he earned was gambled away!

After 19 years in Lovedale, Mac went on to a job that was uncertain in terms of income, which was profit related. No profit was made therefore Mac left with nothing. His next ‘permanent’ job was in a town called Virudhunagar where his salary was lower than Lovedale which he had left years earlier, but he did have job related accommodation. From the Virudhunagar school, which I also visited, he was obliged to leave as his residence in Virudhunagar had become a boozer’s paradise! Again though, he had no money as he had ‘drunk’ his money away! His final ‘permanent’ job was at Tata Primary school in Munnar. A primary school for the children of Tea Estate workers paid even less than Lovedale which Mac had left 15 years previously! I met people who also worked in the Tata Tea Estate and was informed that Mac would be the first to arrive at the bar and the last to leave. So, once again, no money! In between the ‘permanent’ jobs he had stints at a couple of schools in Madurai but as an ordinary teacher. The schools he taught in were poor themselves so Mac wouldn’t have earned much. Further, the schools where Mac taught after Lovedale had not yet obtained specifications to be classified as Secondary Schools authorized to conduct board examinations like the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) or Indian School Certificate (ISC). They have only recently obtained classification, long after Mac’s demise.

At this stage one has to ask why on Earth Mac, who had a Master’s degree from Agra University and a Bachelor of Teaching diploma from Ajmer Teachers Training College (all paid for by the Church, of course), with 19 years experience in Lovedale and before that in Sacred Heart Mhow, did not go from the relatively prestigious Lawrence School to an equivalent or better school? There were any number in India to chose from! For example Raina the Sanskrit teacher went to Doon School, Mac could have gone to Doon, Lawrence Sanawar, Mayo, Scindia, Panchgani, Delhi Public School, Hyderabad Public School, Cathedral and John Cannon in Mumbai, Campion School also Mumbai, Bishop Cotton School, La Martiniere in Kolkata and these are just some of the schools that come to mind! At about the time Mac was leaving Lovedale, Denzil Prince and his wife Phyllis Prince (nee Holland and formerly Phyllis Parker) went to the prestigious St Paul’s in Darjeeling. St Paul’s is a particularly apt school to mention: it was set up by Anglo-Indians for Anglo-Indians in 1823 long before Lawrence School Lovedale! Compare those schools to schools where Mac taught: Horsley Hills (shut down within 2 years of opening), KVS in Virudhunagar and Tata in Munnar. All of them completely outside his comfort zone! The answer as to why didn’t go on to teach at any of the schools mentioned is glaringly simple; he would soon have been found out as a gambling addict and a dipsomaniac! Perhaps that is why Headmaster Vyas got rid of Mac from Lovedale!

Contrast Mac’s downward spiral with E. John’s glittering career after he left Lovedale. E. John taught the same courses as Mac, had the same qualifications, was of the same age and produced equally good if not better results. I have posted a page on E. John. Unlike Mac the pretentious ‘Heaven Born’, E. John, physically a tough man was unabashedly a Malayalee and proud of it! When E. John was the Housemaster of Sumeru House, his wards knew that he was in charge and bullying as well as theft would not be tolerated!

Mac’s origins

Mac had Irish blood on his father’s side and Portuguese blood on his mother’s side (she was a Braganza).

This is how Charles Raikes, a Senior Official of East India company described Portuguese-Eurasians (known as Mestizos) :

• They are vegetating rather than living
• Madras was lost to France because the British force, led by an ignorant Swede ‘was half composed of a black, degenerate, wretched race of half-caste Portuguese, utterly destitute of fighting qualities.

Whilst I would not agree with Raikes’ description as applying to ALL Portuguese-Eurasians, in the case of Mac, I would! Towards the end of his life, Mac was certainly vegetating with bottle in hand and throughout his life, he was utterly destitute of fighting qualities!!

I was criticised for ‘disrespecting a loved teacher’ because of what I wrote about this fraud. Those criticising me did not witness, as I did the abrogation of his responsibilities by Mac. He may have been good as a teacher of English and English Literature but as a Housemaster (for which he was paid handsomely and got superior accommodation) he was utter rubbish. Here is what I witnessed not in the dead of the night but in broad daylight when Mac should have been supervising his wards but was instead away gambling at the Lawley Institute in Ooty. This was not occasionally but on a daily basis, 7 days a week. There was no other master, not just housemaster, absent in that manner!

• Two of Mac’s prefects, Venugopal and C. Rajan had acquired the sobriquets ‘bison’ for their inclination to make tiny little juniors bend and then charge like bison and kick the hapless boys such that both, their testicles and anuses were severely injured. Both these bison characters are dead and it gives me no end of pleasure!
• In July 1966, Mac’s Vice Head boy, Kali Jacob broke into every junior’s trunk and helped himself to whatever he wanted. This was at 6.30 p.m. when Mac was at the Lawley Institute; the only Housemaster who was away at that time every single day of the week! This is the same Vice Head boy who helped himself to a Parker 51 pen from my pocket into his!
• I personally witnessed a tiny little boy, a classmate of mine, punched so hard by C. Rajan that he was knocked out. The friend never returned to Lovedale to complete his schooling and was all the happier for it.
• One of my best friends had both front teeth knocked out. They remain knocked out 60 years later!
• Another friend of mine in class 10, Velu Lingappa was beaten so badly on a daily basis by John Koshy that he ran away from school. Fortunately, his family lived in Ooty where his grandfather was manager of the racecourse. The next day, he was brought back by his grandfather but Mac had poor Velu leave the school. Not a word was said to Koshy! Velu’s family had invested in his education for many years but all that was rendered worthless. Velu never recovered and the last I heard he was begging on the streets of Mysore and is rumoured to have died!
• Two friends and I were made to ‘pass round raps’ (slapping each other at the back of the head) by a tiny little ‘House Captain’ called Vishwanath. This was because he discovered some dust on top of another pupil’s cupboard! It should have been that pupil’s duty to clear the dust from his own cupboard! But Vishwanath decided that it was our duty (he picked us at random) to keep the house tidy. We were forced to hit each other so hard that my two friends were reduced to tears. One of these friends Mukesh Gidwani, the top performer in the final ISC examinations (securing 5 ‘agg’) has never been part of any old boy network and refuses to have anything to do with LSL.

As for Mac’s Champaign taste on beer money:

• I happened to be accompanying Mac when he asked to borrow money from Art teacher Henry Daniel. It is most inappropriate for one staff member to borrow money from another and certainly Daniel should have reported the matter to the Headmaster. The two Anglo-Indians, Mac and Daniel were not known to be friends. It was obvious that Mac was borrowing from his own ilk so that the matter would not go any further.
• During June Holidays I stayed back as the period was too short to go all the way to Kenya and back. As such I would be hanging around and witnessed a gathering of various male staff in Mac’s Nilgiri House apartment. A gambling session ensued. I know because a Mr Sharma, then a Geography teacher asked to me go to his staff quarters and get his wife to hand a ward of cash, which I did and handed the cash to Mr Sharma. The gambling session lasted into the early night.

What sort of example was that setting to pupils other than it is O.K. for a Housemaster to behave as he desired?

Let me end with my thoughts of how Mac should have been dealt with. I speak as somebody with 30 years experience as a school governor and as a Senior Bank Manager with many staff reporting to me:

Professional Standards: Teachers must “uphold public trust in the profession” and maintain high standards of ethics and personal conduct. Borrowing to fund a gambling habit can be viewed as serious dishonesty or “conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute,” both of which are grounds for disciplinary action.