“Cheering for the chancellor”

I was pleasantly surprised to see the photo of Lord Karan Bilimoria on the cover as the new Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, my alma mater ("Cheering for the chancellor,” Parsiana, August 21, 2014). Seeing photographs of the unique red brick buildings brought back a flood of memories of my stay in Birmingham during 1974-1975 and then again in 1982-1983 for my Master of Science (MSc) and Doctorate (PhD), respectively.

It was my first trip out of South Asia and my first visit to Europe. I arrived in Birmingham in September 1974 and stayed for the first week at the iconic University House, a hall of residence for undergraduate students. Through well-known Bombay solicitor Jamshed F. Motafram I had corresponded with another Parsi student, Gev Homi Eduljee, who was already at Birmingham and who had kindly booked accommodation for me in his own rented apartment. Both of us shared the first floor of the terraced Victorian house but had our own bedrooms with a shared kitchen and bathroom. The landlord resided on the ground floor with his wife and daughter.
The flat was located very near the University so I just walked to the Plant Biology building where my department was located. On the way back in the evening I would pick up a packet of fish and chips and Eduljee would be kind enough to share a can of lager with me (there was no Cobra beer at that time!). Eduljee had got hold of a small pocket book of "Parsi recipes” and on weekends we would experiment in our tiny kitchen with dishes like chora ma gosh (meat in lentils) and dhansak on Sundays. We had to pay the rent every week and it was a constant struggle to fork out the cash from the meager allowance that the Reserve Bank of India had permitted to be remitted from our parents. Sometimes we invited our British friends who loved our hot "curry!”
We joined up with a group of Parsis living in the Birmingham area and attended several dhansak parties at the home of Kali and Amy Suratia. We would rent a suburban church hall in which to conduct our Navroz jashan. The winter was the most trying time of the year with very short and cold days — I left for classes in freezing darkness plodding through the overnight snow, and returned in darkness. During holidays I would go to London to meet my friends and relatives and Eduljee would go for apprenticeship in another city. The year passed quickly and when I got my degree in Plant Biology and Eduljee his in Chemical Engineering, we parted ways. I joined the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, Italy and Eduljee found work in a company in London and rose to become a director. He continues to live in Oxfordshire.
The University of Birmingham, located in the manufacturing heart of England, was at that time a fairly left-leaning institution. I remember how Sir Peter Scott, the chancellor at that time, was greeted with howls and boos by a certain group of students at the beginning of his address. But then they settled down and listened to him without any further interruption. I met the previous chancellor, Sir Dominic Cadbury, when he had hosted a reception on top of the Bank of America building in San Francisco in 2005. And now we have Bilimoria as the seventh chancellor.
The University of Birmingham has had seven chancellors since gaining its royal charter in 1900. Joseph Chamberlain was the first commoner in 240 years to hold the post of chancellor of a major British university, and the first such chancellor ever not to have been a member of the established church. Bilimoria continues that tradition. The University was declared the top-most in Great Britain in 2013-2014 and we look forward to many progressive happenings under Bilimoria’s leadership. Isn’t it a long way from Bilimora to Birmingham?
Dr ARDESHIR B. DAMANIA
Davis, California, USA
abdamania@yahoo.com