Grandfather Mohsin Tyabji perishes saving drowning children - Kihim, Colaba District, Bombay, 26 May 1917

Robert Tyabji, Shah Alam, 2003

My grandfather, grandmother and father were regular visitors to the beaches at Kihim, across the harbor from Bombay. They and other family members gathered there on summer weekends and school holidays to feast on Alphonso mangoes, play beach cricket, race bullock carts, swim, and hike in the hilly hinterland. Many Tyabjis, Futehallys, Alis, Fyzis, Lukmanis and other related families from the Bombay area and beyond owned breezy bungalows set back from the beach in mango and lychee groves.

They came by ferry, bus, in cars, on motorcycles and even in private boats. This was where cherished values and traditions were reinforced, contentious issues resolved, new alliances forged, and marriages were made.

Swimming in June could be dangerous as the south west monsoon would often drive huge waves onto the beach and the rocks. Of course, the families did their best to ensure that children swam only in designated 'safe' areas of the beach, away from the rocks, and that an adult would be present. But, in spite of this, on that disastrous day in May, two children were floundering in the current and my grandfather, who was a strong swimmer, dived in after them. He managed to pull one child out before his head struck a rock and he passed out.

My grandfather met his end young, when my father was just fourteen. My father seldom returned to Kihim, but my mother occasionally took Ursula and me there to meet the extended family, and I\'ve always had a soft spot for the place. Hootoksi and I spent a few days there just after we got married, during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, but that\'s another story......

My grandfather's brother officers erected a fountain in his memory, on which the following inscription is engraved:

To the memory of Mohsin Badruddin Tyabji I.C.S.

District Judge of Surat who lost his life in gallantly

saving a young Kinsman from drowning on 26'th of May

1917