Clan Tales from Lalkaka Baug: The Lalkaka Family Fund
Bachi Karkaria/TNN, The Times of India, February 2, 2006
How many families hold an AGM, have a private fund and discover their history in a second-hand book on the Flora Fountain pavement? Only the Lalkakas, who got their name from an ancestor's “redrosy complexion”.
“Your illustrious family is lying tattered on the footpath near the Bhika-Behram well." This casual information made Cawas Lalkaka rush to retrieve his lineage. He bought the forgotten document off the hawker and found his goosebumps rising as he turned the brittle pages of this edition dated July 31, 1910. His tremulous fingers traced one of the family trees in the book and came to rest on the last entry, the birth of his own late father, Nariman in 1903. The chance discovery of this pavement heirloom some three years ago triggered an amazing endeavor, the painstaking revival of an ancient genealogical grove.
There can't be too many families left who can boast of a precisely documented family tree. Rarer still would be one which has its own charity, the Lalkaka Family Fund, and holds formal annual general meetings. The 87’th AGM held recently was attended by over 50 members, including NRIs on the annual visit home, and ranging in age from 11 to 90-and-still-feisty. Minutes were read, accounts passed. Then, business concluded, it was time for those universal social adhesives, gossip and food; everyone brought a bit of both. And, most satisfying, everyone exchanged notes on how far they had proceeded in updating their branch of the re-discovered family tree.
Ratan Lalkaka, head of the Bombay Local History Society, is justly chuffed: "I know of no present-day parallel." He concedes that the young don't have the time or inclination to attend the AGMs but, as they grow older, they start returning to the "comforting embrace of the fold."
The foreword to the footpath treasure had noted that the first edition was compiled by Seth Eduljee Pallonjee Lalkaka of China, with the help of his brother Bapuji in India and their mother Jaiji. It acknowledged how the long dead had assisted the living to record their past for future pride; a trove of information was mined from the dog-eared, handwritten naam-garans, notebooks kept by family priests listing the names of ancestors to be recited in the annual of Muktad prayers.
Several family trees lay tangled in the Eduljee document, all tracing their roots to Shapoor, father of Boman "born circa 1690" of the "Palan Patel Khandan of Suvali Gam." Kuverji ("born circa 1715"), the first of Boman's four sons, is the ancestor of the multi-branched present clan. The entry records that he came to be "called Lalkaka because of his redrosy complexion".
What most excited the present-day clan were its 300-year-old roots, and the surfacing of links long lost. Operation Update swung into action. Relevant portions were translated from Gujerati into English, a core group sorted out the tangle, and extricated eight trees descending form Kuverji Lalkaka's only son Dorab, and two of his seven daughters, Meherbai and Ashibai. The gender equality has continued. Journalist Shireen Vakil is one of the fund's five trustees; her mother-in-law was a Lalkaka.
All the clan members were given their relevant branch, and told to link the present with the past as best they could. Cawas, present president of the Lalkaka Family Fund, proudly numbers himself as among those who have completed the task, down to his grandchildren. Dinaz Wadia, related to him by marriage but a born Lalkaka herself, told me about the tree as we walked among the less ancient ones of the Dadar Five Gardens, mentioning with the same pride: "I'm in the 'L' Branch" They've all begun identifying themselves as 'B', 'C', 'D', etc.
Mumbai may now be the headquarters but the oldest roots are in Surat to which the original Lalkakas moved from Suvali village. Then, when three of the family married the daughters of Ahmedabad's merchant prince, Sir Nowrojee Vakil, the 'capital' shifted there. It had twice the claim because the other major tributary of the present clan is that of the Camas, another illustrious Ahmedabad family.
Clan-bonding is enriched by the charitable works of the Lalkaka Family Fund. Each unit pays an annual subscription of Rs 100, plus ad hoc donations; the last AGM trumpet up Rs. 80,000. The fund supports counseling at the Alexandra Girl's School, a balwadi for slum and street children in Colaba, a quarterly grant to senior citizens of different religious denominations; and a similar disbursement to other general applicants. Extra generosity has topped up the shortfall resulting from the cut in interest rates. The portion of the corpus originally reserved for \'needy Lalkakas\' pas passed into the general fund.
In the modest corpus of the Rs 8 lakh lie family pride, ties and, truly, the basic building blocks of great institutions. Fabled families were the cornerstone of community contributions to city-building. But few have survived as a physical group, let alone their wealth and influence. The Lalkakas may have lost the latter but they remain among the miniscule band of puffed-chest clans who still reinforce their brand.'