Jai Godrej was a down-to-earth,
“nuts and bolts person”
A teacher is seldom so honored as was the late Jai Godrej on her birth centenary. Leading the tributes on March 24, 2017 at the Udayachal High School grounds in the Godrej complex at Vikhroli was her elder son Adi. "She was a great educationist. She taught me to cross the road and walk on my own. She made me go to St Xavier’s School by BEST (public transport) buses,” the chairman of the Godrej group told the gathering of family members, well-wishers, school staff and the community media. "She provided me pocket money, neither very liberal nor frugal, just right.” The young scion had to manage all his expenses, including his school fees from that amount. "She taught me to manage money very well. This has served me all my life,” recalled the industrialist who built up Godrej Industries into one of the leading industrial and real estate companies in the country.
Jai’s father Hormus Dastur was a doctor who was a pioneer in industrial medicine and her mother Serene was one of the early women graduates of Bombay University, noted the son. Jai came from "a very well educated family. The families were active in the (Indian) freedom movement.” Adi announced the Jai Godrej Scholarship of Rs 20,000 each for two students; and the Jai Godrej Award for Best Teacher of Rs 25,000 each for all the three Udayachal schools.
Paying tribute to Jai Godrej: Adi (left) and Nadir Godrej (right)
Udayachal School children remember Jai
Jai’s younger son Nadir expressed in verse how his mother influenced his life (excerpts from his poem are interspersed in this report):
My childhood now, I should mention,
Was filled with care and attention.
Quite early on she could succeed
In teaching me to love to read.
A panel comprising former teachers and students of the School, Jahina Dhun, Kanupriya Chauhan, Veronica Das, Shanti Hariharan, Wilfred Mathias and Santosh Vetticaden led by Gulserene Dastur, a niece of Jai, recalled her genial nature. Gulserene stated how Jai "personally made cards for each of us teachers.” Vetticaden who especially flew down from the US for the event recalled how Jai advised them "to be content with what you receive, never with what you achieve.” When Mathias complained to Jai that the vegetables in his residential garden plot did not have the same quality as those grown at the school, Jai guided him to a Mr Vinod who headed the garden department. Realizing that Jai had sent the teacher, the next day Vinod arranged for a truck full of manure and earth to be sent to the Mathias’ residence. Another teacher referred to Jai’s "Zoroastrian values” of good thoughts, words and deeds and "her caring and loving nature.” Realizing that different students excelled in different fields, Jai "encouraged teachers to take special classes for students good at sports but not studies.”
She was convinced that education
Is partnership and participation.
It should be egalitarian
And not at all authoritarian.
And she knew well how to train
No matter what the domain.
Papa knew well his geography
But Mummy didn’t really see
The purpose of just knowing facts.
They could be found in tomes or tracts.
Without knowing the Aral Sea
How could she teach Geography?
She would respond she needn’t know
The facts by heart for knowledge to
flow!
When a reference was made to apple pie in some textual work, Jai asked the students if they had ever tasted apple pie. When they replied in the negative, "she made and brought a delicious apple pie for the class.”
Now Mummy always loved to cook.
Somehow she always made it look
Like an easy thing to do.
Each day one dish was something new.
She kept a pile of recipes.
This novelty would never cease.
For us at home it was a thrill.
She whipped things up with the greatest skill.
At a time when most organizations paid their employees in cash, she saw to it the teachers were paid by cheque so they did not have to stand in long queues in banks to deposit the monies. "She was ahead of her times,” commented Gulserene.
She wrote personal notes of appreciation to teachers. When a teacher was unwell she sent a note inquiring about her health and added she did not phone as she was concerned the teacher’s phone may be far from the bed and she would have to get up to answer it. Jai used to unwrap gifts with great care so that she could reuse the gift wrapping. She taught not only the three ‘R’s of reading, writing and arithmetic but emphasized three more ‘R’s, reuse, reduce and recycle. She believed in an incentive system for students and teachers and the gifts comprised those "of nutritional value and utility.”
1. Adi; 2. Nadir; 3. Panelists with Gulserene Dastur, 3rd from left; 4. Tanya Dubash; 5. Dr Rati Godrej;
6. Smita Godrej Crishna; 7. Jamshyd Godrej; 8. Dr Pheroza Godrej; 9. Dr Bipin Alreja; 10. Manek Ranji;
11. Elinor Mirza; 12. Pirojsha Godrej
Now looking back I clearly see
She was a master of efficiency.
Recycling one could always see
As well as 5S and GMP!
(5S: name of workplace organization method, GMP: Good Manufacturing Practice)
Once when Jai was ill in hospital, some students and teachers went to visit her. The invalid inquired if the students had been fed as they came straight from the school. Food was then arranged. "God can’t be everywhere, therefore he made mothers,” noted a panel member, adding "and teachers.”
In an audiovisual show that followed, Jai’s granddaughter Tanya Dubash who was close to her grandmother recalled how she encouraged her to become "the first woman (from my family) in my generation to work.”
It happens that a girl is told
Her pretty head shouldn’t hold
Elaborate thoughts beyond her ken
Perhaps a conspiracy of men.
Dr Pheroza Godrej, who is married to Jai’s nephew Jamshyd, who featured in the audiovisual termed Jai "a nuts and bolts person.” She related how in most households the domestic help would awaken early morning to receive the milk from the milkman. Not Jai. She awoke and took the milk herself. She washed her own clothes. "With storytelling she would convince” students and help them understand her point of view, stated Pheroza.
She always believed in "reasoning with children,” confirmed Nadir who referred to his mother having studied philosophy in college. Aristotle being her favorite philosopher, she kept referring to his "golden mean.”
For postgraduate school she had been set
Alas! That dream was never met.
But yet she rarely showed regret
For she was not the kind to fret.
She plunged right in to her new life
Of teacher, mother and loving wife…
In ’63 away she went
She was selected to be sent
To study child psychology.
I wonder what was the necessity
Of sending her with her natural touch.
She didn’t need to learn that much.
She enjoyed her Oregon stay
And learnt about the American way…
The end of Mummy’s studies
Coincided with those of Adi’s.
They then met up and travelled far
All the way to the USSR.
Jai and her late husband Burjor, former managing director of Godrej Soaps, were a loving and caring couple, recalled Nadir’s wife Dr Rati, in her vote of thanks. When they went out, Burjor was careful to hold on to Jai allowing for the state of Bombay’s pavements. He would faithfully prick her finger every hour for testing her sugar level after she took her insulin shot! The senior couple appreciated that they could turn to Rati, their inhouse doctor, for medical advice.
Although Mummy was wheelchair bound
With us she could move around.
One year we went to Nepal.
Mummy, us, kids and all.
And we were waiting for a plane.
No aero-bridge.
I racked my brain.
One Sherpa, very short but tough,
Did not seem to me enough.
He then took Mummy piggyback!
But Mummy wasn’t thrown off track.
I was aghast, she was unfazed.
And all of us were amazed.
For Mummy was always down to earth.
Probably right from her birth.
Much of her life had been spent
At Udayachal School where she went
Along with Papa thrice a week.
That is how she chose to seek
A perfectly balanced life
As teacher, mother and wife.
According to Rati, Jai "hired people even if they were without experience” on the rationale, "Who is going to hire and train them?” She "never judged people” and "status meant nothing” to her, added Rati.
Tanya, "the eldest grandchild had a special bond with Jai,” and played an instrumental part "in creating this evening get-together,” observed Rati, adding that the good work that Jai did at the Godrej school now continues under Jai’s niece Smita Godrej Crishna and the school management. Rati further referred to Jai’s adages: "Less is more… Old is gold… Sharing and giving is as important as achieving…”