By John B Monteiro
Mangaluru, Feb 23: On Sunday, February 15, the 148-year-old St Joseph Church at Bajpe was the venue for a unique celebration of the 70th wedding anniversary of the longest living couple in the parish. Leo and Juliana (nee Alvares) Moras were married in the Bajpe parish church on February 15, 1945.
They could well be the longest married couple among us, as Leo’s younger brother, Fr Denis Moras Prabhu, Vicar General of Mangalore Diocese, noted during the celebratory Mass.
This church celebration was a low-key affair, with the grand celebration scheduled for May to enable the widespread progeny of the record-holding couple to descend on their patriarchal home surrounded by vegetable patches and mango groves – the latter having given them their popular nick-name as Kukku Moras. Meanwhile, the couple, withdrawn from active farming about five years ago, look after their personal needs on their own, with tender care from their families. They attend the weekly Sunday Mass service, being ferried by the family car. While the 95-year-old Leo walks around the courtyard with the help of a stick, his wife smiles her way through her advancing years. Both have sharp, nostalgic memories. Leo has no medication while Juliana manages her diabetes.
Juliana’s smiles and outgoing ways are at the root of their marriage seventy years ago and it is only apt to start at the beginning. Under the old Kanara Konkani traditions, finding a groom for the blossoming girl was a priority-bound chore. There was no minimum marriageable age for girls. As the popular song goes, “ Bara soron thera laglinge mai, kazar karge maka ( I have crossed twelve years and touching thirteen, get me married mummy). The priority is recognised as a sacred duty; but getting a proper match was a problem. The father would roam around hunting for a suitable groom till up to twelve layers of his soles wore out.
Yet, he was not free to find the boy from anywhere because the girl’s parents had to adhere to some conventional dictats: “ chedu hadije poisile ani rede hadije laxile” (Girl should be brought from a distance and buffaloes should be brought from close-by) If the bride quarrels with the mother-in-law, she can’t run away to the mother if she is far away – and there were no buses in those days. This limited the temptation, and the ability, to run away to the mother from the marital home. On the other hand, if buffaloes are brought from nearby, they can be traced to the old the owner and brought back.
But, in the case of Juliana, the distance between Bajpe and Bondel was, and is, 10 Km. But there was no motorable road and Maravoor bridge across Gurpur River in 1945. Also, her parents did not have to peal the skin of their soles twelve times because Juliana smiled her way to wedlock, instead of her family having to struggle to find a groom.
Juliana’s elder sister, Severine, was married to Hilary who was running an eatery , mainly catering to those who brought headloads of vegetable to Shedigudda market ( Karangalpady, near Bunts Hostel)from villages within a radius of 15/20 km from Mangalore. Juliana was sent to help her sister to look after the kitchen, specially grinding masalas. She was ever smiling and was very generous in serving large portions to the famished vegetable sellers. Her sunny nature and blossoming beauty were eyed by the local Romeos. But, having cautioned by her mother, Juliana distanced herself from them by bolting her kitchen door from inside while grinding the masalas.
Juliana’s smiling and generous nature endeared her to eatery clients and a couple of ladies from Bajpe thought that she would be a good match for young and dashing Leo. They teasingly enticed her by saying that she would live in an exotic mango grove and she would not have to climb trees to pluck mangoes as plenty of ripe mangoes fell to the ground. Then the elders got into the act and the match was approved and sealed with a dowry of Rs 800 ( a king’s ransom in those days), of which Rs 600 was paid upfront and Rs 200 later on. So, apart from the dowry, Juliana’s family did not have to go through the laborious hunt for a suitable groom.
Suitable it was because in the 70 years since their marriage they did not have any serious quarrel or disagreement, even though Juliana had the option of taking a bus to her paternal home over the last 30 years. Asked about the largely trouble-free marital life, both said they give in to each other without much ado.
They had nine children – five boys and four girls - starting from two years after their marriage. One of them, Fr Edmund, died while around forty years, while the rest are married and settled down in Bajpe, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Muscat. They and their progeny are expected to land in Bajpe for the grand celebration in May – with Lent behind them and holiday season on.
Leo studied up to 6th standard in Bajpe church school and discontinued as the family could not afford the school fees – according to Leo himself. Also, education was at a discount then. He got into the family business of cattle rearing, vegetable gardening and coconut plantation. Juliana studied up to 5th class in Bondel church school which was started over a century ago in a Thota, near Pachanady – close to her paternal home. Contrary to general expectation today, both were not subjected to pre-marital instructions which, Leo said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, were unnecessary as things progress in the natural course. Juliana, of course, had been warned by her mother not to fall for the tricks of young boys and, as noted earlier, shut herself in bolted kitchen while preparing lunch in the eatery. However, she admits that after the wedding, when the bride is taken to the groom’s house, an elderly aunt kept her company for a few days, protecting her from possible unwelcome attention from a potentially impatient groom. Of course, in those days, and mostly even now, there were no exclusive bedrooms for the couples - new or old - but nature took over and things went on and procreation proliferated!
Eldest of four children of Francis and Juvana, Leo was born on April 11, 1921 and Juliana on January 1, 1928. Asked about the future, Leo said that he is five years short of 100 years, thereby sending a positive signal that he plays for a minimum of a century. We can all wish both a healthy century and some more. They had grand functions to celebrate their wedding golden and diamond jubilees, with 400/500 guests. May they have a grander celebration and the joy of bonding with the extended family come May.
Meanwhile, it is apt to conclude with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, US poet (1807-1882):
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
This is doubly true in the case of couples, enjoying each other’s company, and the loving, tender care by their family members – as in the case of Leo and Juliana Moras.
The photos alongside show the couple in their younger days, during the earlier landmark celebrations and post their 70th birthday.
John B Monteiro, author and journalist, had his latest book, Corruption – India’s Painful Crawl to Lokpal, published in USA. Priced at $21.5, it can be had online from Amazon and other leading online distributors.