After Dad (born in Indore; brought up in Bombay) got married to my mother (a Damanense) in January 1954, he took Mum on long-stay forays into the Indian Union—his safe haven in the event of an invasion, which everyone knew was going to happen ‘sooner or later’.
Meanwhile, as the leading couple of Damão, they’d been nominated by the Portuguese government to represent Damão in Portugal. 🇵🇹
They chose not to go as they didn’t want to be away from their aged parents for even a couple of months. ❤️
Because despite those being good days, those were uncertain times: Bright tomorrows—if tomorrow came.
So, people told themselves that ‘today’ is, after all, yesterday’s tomorrow—and lived life one happy day after another.
Until that fateful day on 18th December 1961, when tomorrow did turn up at the crack of dawn, but it wasn’t the bright tomorrow of yesterday.
Only decades later, I realised how ‘tomorrow’ never came for four-year-old me, as I sat watching Yanni Live At The Acropolis on Doordarshan with my parents. 🎹
And I wept silently, my tear-streaked face camouflaged in the flickering blue light from our Weston TV set.