Tribute/ K N Prabhu
It is hard to believe that Behram Contractor, Busybee to Bombay, is no more. Like the perfect newsman that he was he had intimations of impending mortality and this showed in some of his recent columns. However, those who were his regular readers dismissed it as typical of the sardonic nature of the man. Besides, it was also his habit to explore all topics, even something as sombre and sad as death.
When I met him about a week ago at Afternoon House, Behram was as alert as ever and if he looked frail to the casual observer that was how nature had made him, But what was disconcerting to the observer was the oxygen contraption which fed his weak lungs, which was proof of the gravity of his illness.
But Behram was as cheerful as ever and it showed in one of his last columns, a dinner for Clinton by the neighbour who stayed at the top of his apartment. Now it is difficult to accept the cruel fact that Round and About (Behram's daily column) has ceased to exist. As a critic said when he was told of the passing of a reputed writer: "You don't have to believe it, if you don't want to."
And in Behram's case this is all the more so. For he exuded life in all his writings, full of cheer and optimism, of travelling to strange places and living with the best, as well as with the down and outs, just for the experience of it, or for old time's sake. For Behram had known how to accept the rough and enjoy the bright side of life.
I first noticed Behram in the sixties. A Bombayman's Diary item, written under the anonymous byline of a reporter won my attention. It was of the Indian Asian Games football team, with such stars as Chuni Goswami, having to live it rough in the halls of the Anjuman Islam high school. After some discreet inquiries I was introduced to the slim youth who had written it.
I had to get him to spell out his name as I reproduced the story in the city edition of the Times of India. I suspect it was Behram's first byline.
I then kept an eye open for anything by Behram that was worth re-printing. And I think his next effort was the Carathon, the great motor cavalcade across the subcontinent which ended with the entire fleet sailing from Bombay by a P&O liner. He wrote about the rally drivers dancing on the decks under the light of the silvery moon -- a phrase which struck my eye the next morning.
Behram was a splendid writer. Not being a gourmet I could not quite appreciate his food columns. But last week when I met him I was moved to write my appreciation to him of his description of a luncheon meeting with the former governor of Maharashtra Air Chief Marshal (retd) Idris Latif in Hyderabad. It was so vivid that I felt I could hear the conversation, smell the flavour of the food. And I conveyed my heartiest congratulations to him on having made Upper Crust a magazine for epicures.
But to me his best was reserved for his little sketches of travelling by bus in the hills beyond the Tigris or in the upper reaches of the Boab canals. They were heady stuff. He had his views on other subjects like cricket, which I felt were meant to spark off a dialogue, though I never got to meet him as often as I should have, or would have, liked to.
He was well-known among the movers and shakers of the city and by the sporting fraternity as well, which is some measure of popularity of the man -- and the journalist and what he meant to the life of this city.
This was the time when we used to get together to run a sweepstake on Test matches in England. They are waiting for you in heaven Cecil Hendricks and Leyland de Souza to start a sweepstake for the coming season. Sleep well Behram, the race has yet to finish.
RELATED LINKS:
'Bombay will not be the same without him'
Behram 'Busybee' Contractor
EXTERNAL LINKS:
Afternoon House's heartbeat has stopped
Goodbye, Behram
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