In her article "Fighting the plague” (Parsiana, May 7-20, 2023) Gool Ardeshir has written about some old correspondence she found in her maternal great-grandfather Dinsha Manekjee Kalapesi’s desk. She refers to a letter "from a gentleman by the name of N. M. Kharegat” addressed to Dr Rustom Kalapesi in August 1901. That gentleman would have been Nusserwanji Manekji Kharegat, the grandfather of my grandfather Erach Nanabhai Kharegat.
Dr Rustom Kalapesi
Nusserwanji’s son, Nanabhai Nusserwanji Kharegat, died of the plague in 1899, leaving behind nine young children, of whom my grandfather was the eldest. Nanabhai had heard that a colleague of hi s at work had contracted the plague and insisted on visiting this colleague, even though his family and doctor were against it. He became infected and died of the plague less than a week later.
Perhaps Nusserwanji had consulted Dr Kalapesi about Nanabhai’s brief but tragic illness and a friendship had grown between them. When Nusserwanji heard that his young friend was himself very seriously ill with tuberculosis, he wrote the emotional letter that has been reproduced in Ardeshir’s article.
I was touched to read the letter across four generations and thought that since the plague had impacted both their lives it could be a possible connection between the two gentlemen.
ERACH TARAPORE
Lafayette, California, USA
etarapore@gmail.com