The 'Sister' of Percy Mistry

Percy Mistry

For ten years, Percy Mistry was the man with whom I worked most closely within FONDAD. A friend of mine who worked at the World Bank said to me at the end of the eighties: maybe he will soon leave the World Bank and if I were you I would immediately contact him. A large number of books that I have published as director and editor-in-chief of FONDAD have been written by Percy (see Fondad publications by Percy Mistry).

But here I want to talk about his 'sister' or the lady he introduced to me as his sister when we saw each other again after 20 years, but who is actually his cousin: her mother is his father's sister, but the two families have lived in the same family building in Bombay and they grew up like sister and brother. Percy lives in Bombay for the winter part of the year, his permanent home is in Oxfordshire in the UK.

Percy and I saw each other back at CCI, or the Cricket Club of India. Just like at the Willingdon Sports Club we sat at a table on the lawn, a kind of outdoor terrace, and because there was a lot of noise and I was sitting next to Percy's sister, I had a conversation with her, while Aafke on the other side of the table had a conversation with Percy and his protégé who worked at the OECD. Percy has a serious illness and after half past eight in the evening is only capable of falling asleep or watching TV.

His sister told me about her mother who gambled money at horse racing, but she also told me about another cousin of hers who is committed to teaching children from slums. That cousin has already made thousands of slum (and disabled) children happy with education that was not only focused on learning but also on drawing and sports. And so for me, and later also for Aafke, the first-class lady became a lively, sweet woman with whom Aafke had a conversation about her youth at Catholic boarding schools in India and in Switzerland.

I still found a warm bond with Percy.