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I met Munchi (Muncherji) Cama when he was five and-a-half and I was six in the portals of the Bharda New High School. He was a good looking child who stepped out of an imposing black Dodge or a red Plymouth, while the rest of us came to school in a chocolate colored school bus run by a Parsi called Panthaki.
The annual prize distribution function, as it was called, was organized at the Birla Matoshree Auditorium, where a first standard teacher named Ms Daruwala, a kindly woman who made the most mouth-watering papeta per eedu (eggs on potatoes), would every year stage a Shakespearean production (most incongruous in a school where parents and students, including I, spoke Kalbadevi English). That year, she staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream starring Munchi as the fairy queen whose long gown trailed to the ground and was to be held up by a pageboy walking behind the queen. With no eye and hand coordination, a lifelong condition, yours truly mucked up the appearance. Munchi glowered at me and Daruwala made a face expressing utter contempt. I ought to have been more careful considering that Munchi’s father was my father’s boss (a few months later, Munchi had a slight tiff with me and not so politely reminded me of this hierarchy).
Both of us matriculated from the School, and, fortunately for us, he was a year junior, which avoided many complications and some hilarious situations. He resided in a bungalow called Cosy Corner at Malabar Hill, had many dogs who petrified us, a retinue of ayahs (maids) and boys (male domestics), gave return gifts to surprised invitees at his birthday parties in the ’60s, ate ham and sausages, and spoke excellent English. No wonder his classmates from the bylanes of Fort Market and Bazargate Street looked at him as if he was an extraterrestrial. Munchi ought to have been a few lanes away, at Cathedral and John Connon School, but he had to endure this, in his own words, "déclassé” environment, in deference to the wishes of his namesake grandfather, father and uncle, all Bhardaites. Many decades later both of us became trustees of the Bharda Educational Trust, the meetings of which were both palate and rib tickling affairs. The first due to the sumptuous snacks he served; the latter due to his unending wisecracks.
Munchi became proficient in written and spoken shuddha (pure) Gujarati which helped immensely when he, along with his cousin Mehli, as the third generation of the Cama family, entered the Bombay Samachar. Munchi was a highly intelligent man with a phenomenal memory and an unerring eye for detail. He loved a good fight and was a formidable opponent. As his girth grew over the years, he began to sport a French beard. His mother, a prominent educationist and vocational guidance counsellor, also a trustee of Bharda, fondly called her son "Baron.” Political correctness was alien to Munchi and he was never overawed by the high and mighty. Though he never swore or ever uttered an obscenity, his descriptions of famous personalities were delightfully shocking. An Anglophile, Munchi’s comments about certain countries, classes and communities remain unprintable. Biting sarcasm, carping wit, black humor and a contrarian approach were M. N. M. Cama’s (as he liked to call himself) tools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though a teetotaller, he was a gourmet and got on famously with old ladies from aristocratic Parsi families who were great cooks. He thought vegans were sissies. In the dining room of Bharda where sucked bones were used as missiles to land on white shirts, no ruffian (and they were never in short supply) dared to throw one at Cama, who would promptly march into the principal’s cabin and demand that the transgressor be rusticated. He often corrected the wrong English spoken by Bharda’s teachers who were embarrassed but remained quiet. He was not too fond of children creating a racket and displayed mock anger to petrify "brats,” as he termed them; once advising a group of kids running in the aisle of the Deccan Queen train to open the door and play outside!
He had narrated a not so apocryphal story about his frequent visits to the district collector in Wai near Mahabaleshwar for saving his land from acquisition by the government. There he produced a map showing how the old kingdom of Satara had not been properly ceded to the British, and therefore, the Government of India, thereby contending that the government had no jurisdiction over his family lands. Utterly confused by Munchi’s arguments, the collector had shelved the Cama file for many years.
Despite great discomfort in travel on a plane due to his size, he went to exotic places like Tashkent to judge dog shows. He was a hit with the dowagers of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), regaling them with humorous anecdotes about canine behavior, most of them fictional. Later, with some of these ladies, he had memorable disagreements about the affairs of a famous public charity trust; he rubber stamped the minute book of the trust with remarks like "Utter drivel” and "Total rubbish!” which infuriated those ladies and caused them to move the Bombay High Court against him.
In 2008, I requested him to contest the Bombay Parsi Punchayet elections, to which he sportingly agreed. During the campaign he often broke chairs due to his weight, but regained his composure with great wit and humor. Though he lost the election, he was later successful in a by-election. I think he broadly enjoyed his stint as a trustee, needling many lesser beings with sarcasm which was not understood.
I interacted with him for nearly his entire life, beginning every new year on  January 1 by wishing him on his birthday. I can write a tome on his unforgettable sayings and memorable comments. Most of them hilarious but unprintable as they would offend too many sensibilities of too many people. Barring his immobility in his final years, Munchi led a very interesting life and would have castigated us for penning such an insipid obituary. I am sure he must be already creating a stir on the Higher Planes.