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In memory of Chanda Raval

On 4/27/2006

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Contributed by: Karen Delarosa on 7/20/2006

It was a late morning day in the Fall of the year 2004 when I knocked on a door of a nondescript condominium and a fragile and frail dignified woman came into my view. I did not know then that I had stepped into thousands of years of an old Indian culture of a Hindu couple of advanced age. I was their latest housekeeper because the lady was a cardiac patient of long standing. The visage that she projected was that of an aristocratic immigrant settled in the Western world. Soon emerged her husband from another room, past four scores, yet somewhat handsome even at that age. He wondered why a young white American girl did the kind of work I was venturing to undertake! But that is a long story irrelevant to the topic of the day.

Manu and Chanda, a distinguished couple from their home state of Gujarat in India, migrated here to attend the wedding of their young son and only child who came for higher studies in an American university and chose to marry a white American girl of considerable achievements in linguistics in her university career. The guests who came to dinner remained friends and admirers of the Raval family forever.

It was a mild surprise for me to learn that women in India who came from high status and economic circles whose husbands made good money do not work for gain but spend their talents toward voluntary work to help the less fortunate. Chanda came from a wealthy family in which almost all members had courted jail fighting for the independence of India under the noble leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, who in later life served as a chair of a school system from kindergarten to high school levels. But here in the U.S., she worked as a bank teller to kill the unbearable loneliness of a soul cast into the wilderness of a foreign land.

Chanda's poem Sleep!, which received an honorable mention in a national contest:

Sleep!
Thick forest of weariness
Grows into the eyes.
Crisscross branches from every pore!
Waking, drifting now and again
Play hide and seek
The self enjoys!
Trying to keep awake in vain,
Consciousness, now laden awhile
In a blissful moment alive,
Delves into colorful pools
Of heavy sleepful eyes.
Not too far is the pond of sleep
With cool refreshing waters.
Golden dreams emerge
From unconscious selfless void.
In the closing lids
And wakeful unconscious body,
Unconscious wakefulness
Wakes in sleep!

In her childhood she learnt Bengali alphabets sitting on the lap of Rabindranath Tagore, the first and the last Nobel Laureate of India in literature. She also was privileged to have sat onto the lap of Mahatma Gandhi when at the young age of eight she threw her gold bangles into the basket of volunteers who collected offerings from audiences in the daily evening prayer meetings of Gandhi to support his beloved work of the amelioration of the so-called untouchables whom he named Harijans, the Children of God. Chanda served as a volunteer in the Freedom Fight under the undaunted leadership of her own mother, a very prominent supporter of the Mahatma who brought independence to India from the British rule through his unique method of nonviolence.

In her school and college years Chanda wrote short stories, one act plays and poems which in course of time evinced a streak of Tagore's rare poetic genius which she had imbibed imperceptibly while studying in a nationalistic university, Shanti Niketan, the abode of peace in its sylvan surroundings. She published four volumes of her poems which won an award from a respected literary society of almost two hundred years standing. Her poems earned an honorable mention in a national anthology of American literature. She also received her masters degree in philosophy.

Chanda's cardiac problems persisting since her youth had to undergo the replacement of three of her four heart valves at the Mayo clinic in Rochester, Minn. in April of 2000, from which she never fully recovered. At the end of a brief acute illness she passed away in an early morning of April this year and thus a person of rare sensitivities and poetic susceptibilities passed into the eternal oblivion.

Another of Chanda's poems:

Let me laugh, let me joke
Let me disagree, let me talk

Let me ride on the winds and float
On unpainted dreams in thoughts so
Bold!

Let me love surrender, lose,
Let me disappear in fluted muse.

Let me sing aloud, so loud
That the notes may pierce bunch of
Clouds

But hush!
There is a commotion, connection,
Communication
Someone is trying to reach my
Emotion.

A moving star, a distant hue
A wetness of fear or dew

Let me say a joyous hello
In a voice so lucid and mellow

Let me fly undaunted, free
Let me explore all that is me

Chanda Raval
Nov. 25, 2002

____________________________
Karen Delarosa served as the Raval's houskeeper and is an urban and cultural anthropologist.

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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments

Submitted By: Nitin Talsania

posted on 7/28/2006 @ 9:36:13 AM

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Many thanks Karen for writing a lovely tribute to Chanda Ben. They were indeed a couple with a distinguished history of freedom fighting, self-less service, national pride and simplicity [and certainly that aristocracy you sensed!]. I was born after India's independence and was not lucky enough to serve with some of the greatest leaders India has seen. But I did have the good fortune of growing up with one - my grandfather - Chiman Bhai N. Shah, who along with so many other great freedom fighters (like Manu Bhai, Chanda Ben) served with U. N. Dhebar and Mahatma Gandhi in the Independence movement. I had the good fortune of meeting with Manu Bhai and Chanda Ben a couple of years ago when they visited New Jersey. It was nice to hear so many stories from Manu Bhai ...and step back into the freedom era after being away for a long time. I am deeply saddened to hear the news about Chanda Ben's demise. May God Almighty give peace to her soul and give strength to Manu Bhai.

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Submitted By: Bharat Parikh

posted on 7/28/2006 @ 6:37:37 AM

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Thanks Karen for sharing these details of Chanda. She indeed was a noble soul.

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Submitted By: John Temple

posted on 7/21/2006 @ 1:57:00 PM

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This is a very touching story. Thank you for sharing it.

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