Many may not be aware of the large sums of money left behind by the philanthropist Eduljee Dinshaw with the University of Bombay to be awarded as scholarships to deserving Zoroastrian students. As a beneficiary of one of these scholarships from January 1958 to December 1961, I would like to narrate the story behind it.
I was neither a topper in the BSc or MSc, nor involved in any path-breaking research and was therefore surprised when I received a letter from Bombay University stating that I had been awarded the prestigious Eduljee Dinshaw ‘D’ scholarship for higher studies abroad for a period of four years. Why me? The reason was that the monthly emolument of Rs 400 was barely sufficient for a student to make two ends meet in a western country. That is why no one else had applied for the scholarship!
At this juncture, several incidents occurred simultaneously. I was selected as the Indian candidate to assist the French Foresters at the Indo-French Institute of Research in Pondicherry in preparing a vegetation map. I was about to reject the offer from Bombay University when the French colleagues assured me that life as a student was highly subsidized in France and as a research scholar I would live like a prince with the sum offered by the scholarship.
A world renowned French professor of ecology visiting the Pondicherry Institute accepted my application to prepare my doctorate under his guidance. But what about the language? I did not know a word of French. The newly established medical college in Pondicherry had French as the medium of instruction and as the medical students did not know any French, special rapid learning classes were organized. These enabled me to pick up enough knowledge of the language to just about manage in France.
Meanwhile, my professor in Bombay got an assignment as a United Nations expert in Damascus and invited me to spend a month in Syria before proceeding to France. To make my introduction to French easy, it was decided that from Beirut I would take the same flight as my French professor returning from Pondicherry via Bombay-Beirut-Paris flight. Unfortunately, the day destined for my journey from Damascus to Beirut recorded very heavy snowfall resulting in the road being blocked. I somehow managed to reach the Air India office in Beirut in time to receive my plane ticket. And meeting the friendly French professor was half the battle won.
Imagine my ordeal in a foreign land without family or friends! Arriving in Paris, at the airport baggage counter we found a great deal of chaos and confusion with the officers shouting at each other. But the moment they looked at my passport, it seemed that the problem was solved! "So, you are the Maharaja?” they asked me. I replied that I was not a Maharaja, and that incidentally my name was Meher-Homji.
Next, the professor invited me to a posh restaurant for dinner and after ascertaining that I was not a vegetarian, ordered a highly priced French delicacy: oysters. To please my mentor I had to gulp down an item I would not have touched otherwise, and so I became a predator, i.e. an animal that eats another living animal, as I had read somewhere that oysters are alive when they are eaten!
Thus began my sojourn of four years abroad covering Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, visiting frontline institutes in my field of science, thanks to the generosity of the humanitarian Dinshaw.
As a footnote, I might add that my doctoral thesis was printed in book form by the University of Toulouse and in 2002 I was promoted to the rank of Officer in the Order of Palmes Academiques by a decree of the Prime Minister of France for promoting Indo-French cultural and scientific ties. Dr V. M. MEHER-HOMJI