A Sacrifice of Apoline Remembered for life-long
New Delhi, March 18: It was 18th July 1969, when Stella D’Silva, my mother gave double good news: Peter and Paul, my twin brothers were born. There was a mood of celebration in my family headed by Lt. Mr. Marian D’Silva. However, there was one among us who was downcast- Apoline, our eldest sister. She was asked to discontinue her studies to help mom in taking care of the twin siblings.
As a young girl and the eldest of all: she had to combine the role of a sister and an ‘acting-mother’. And she did it admirably well: drawing water from the well, grinding the spices for the curry, preparing various rice-cakes and cookies, washing, cleaning, sweeping, mopping and even sometimes chastising us when we were wrong.
It was a sunny day in April 1979 and in the scorching heat we were all busy collecting the charcoal from the ash-heap. The sound and the horn of a taxi excited us all. To our house, which many city folks termed as ‘jungle resort’, arrival of a taxi was indeed a rare sight! Our aunty Piyad (mom’s sister) along with two gentlemen alighted and walked towards the house. One of them became our beloved brother-in-law, Mr. Stany Noronha, who saw ‘Cinderella’, the princess behind the rugged, darkened figure of Apoline and proposed to be her emperor. Stany took her along to Mumbai where he runs a tailoring business under- ‘Emperor Tailors’. She was the first among us to land up in Mumbai. It’s a small but happy family at Vikroli with two sons: the ‘eligible bachelors’. We are looking forward to the wedding of our first nephew/s: Brayan & Basil Noronha.
Hats-off to our simple, dedicated and self-sacrificing sister- Apoli ‘bai’ (didi). We pray and wish that God rewards her sacrifice as Isaac was rewarded in Old Testament.
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