18 Feb 2025 / Mind & Memoir

My Friend Vincent

I first met him, very briefly on a late November evening in 1999 as he came to drop off his daughter for an overseas official trip. I last met him in June 2024 as he lay dying in hospital. I wrote his epitaph and incidentally am wearing his shirt.

Vincent Charles Carroll aka Vinu, was born to Edwin Charles Carroll, an Irishman stationed in British India with the Indian Army, who married a girl (daughter of a village chieftain) from the what was then the United Provinces. Vidyawati, during the early 1930s. The Carrolls are related to Lewis Carroll, reluctant Anglican deacon {actual name Charles Ludwidge Dodgson} and very celebrated writer {Alice in Wonderland} besides being an Oxford don. There was also a hazy family connection to the Chubb safe company. I gleaned these from him. I too came from an old family with liberal admixture of blood. Edwin and Vidyawati were forty years apart in age with nothing in common except shared destiny. The marriage produced three children – first a boy, then two girls. The eldest, grey-green eyed Vincent, was the predictable apple of his mother’s eye. Edwin died when the children were in their early years. I shall skip the interregnum because I don’t know it, it is prosaic and it no longer matters. And it has nothing to do with this piece.

I took to Vincent Charles Carroll instantly. Beyond indefinable reasons, I retained the connection because there were threads in common. The Vincent I knew was a man of many parts. An aficionado of several things from waltz and foxtrot, to country and pop music to singing to playing the mouth organ (most beautifully), to English literature and Urdu poetry. Vincent was a DIY (do it yourself) man: practical disciplines of carpentry, electronics, painting, two-wheeler mechanics and tailoring {he often took to tailoring jackets for himself}. Eclectic in taste (literal sense) Vincent would patronize a wide range of cuisine from the fluffiest pastries and perfect scones to artery clogging street ‘Mughlai’ food. In habit, he was fastidious to the point of suffering from OCD {I am like that}. He had a sense of sartorial style {I used to have it to a greater degree}, he swore by a full English breakfast {I did too and till the day, lean towards Continental repasts}. He was bad with names but pretended to remember {roger that}, he was a newspaper nazi, and would be exceptionally brusque if interrupted {I am one too and like my space}. His response (without looking up) to anyone interrupting him at the deigned newspaper hour was: “come tomorrow at the same time.” The list is long, rather boring…Vincent Carroll was an individualist. He was also a great charmer. He had friends of all ages from everywhere. All stations in life, all denominations. Letter writing was one of Vincent’s strong points. Longish, cursive hand-written letters with advice, gossip, anecdote, enquiry; each letter signed off with a God Bless You. We both shared an independent spirit. And cocked a snook at stiff society. Anything pedantic, straitjacketed, officious, galled him as it galls me ---- though we both pretended to be snobs depending on mood. A quirky sense of humour defined this man who could charm birds off the trees and warm up complete strangers, including the forbidding kind, until they were eating out of his hands. In his chequered life, Vincent had an interesting career: corporate executive, school administrator, warehouse manager, and consultant. What was immediately striking about him was his catholicity of belief and action. He would light a lamp to Ganesha, attend Sunday service (for the eats and in younger days his beaus). I was impressed with his knowledge of Bareilly as the abode of the four Naths – Alakha Nath, Trivati Nath, Madhi Nath and Dhopeshwar Nath.  The city as Bans Bareilly after the founder’s two sons Bansaldev and Bareldev…For him everything pleasant to the ears was good; anything transportive was great. Vincent could hold a conversation on most tings under the sun. On the ones he couldn’t, he would listen attentively and then offer his take. I have never known him to hold a grudge or speak ill of anyone, even when slighted. Our pass-time was old graveyards, ones the English left behind. I recall a visit to one such in the cantonment town of Bareilly where I met one of his contenders. The chap had competed for the affections of Maya, Vincent’s eventual wife, and was still heartbroken after decades. His expression and his soulful, mournful eyes said it. We had bumped into Archrival Bantu, who had vied for the affections and lost. Bantu ignored Vincent and slunk past. Bantu was a sour loser. As he grew older, Vincent’s hearing fell and in a spoof to the musical group, he was duly christened Deaf Leopard (without priest, wafer or communion). I had stood in the strange friend-foster son zone in Vincent’s life. Our sense of humour, vagabond traits, sense of repartee, and refusal to let anything quell us were the bond. As was our love for animals and Nature. And yes, our love for reading ---- his was Reader’s Digest and the dead Soviet News ---- mine, anything readable.

I learnt much from him, this practitioner-professor of multiple takes ---- on situation, circumstance, people, belief, life ------ stitched with an inexplicable sense of wonder at the world. His teachings were demonstrative, chatty, suggestive, anecdotal, experiential, explanatory. Never judgmental, never patronizing.  Imparted without formality, repetition, patronage, chide, ridicule or arrogance, he distributed wisdom with flair and signature style. The style lay in nonchalance, matter-of-fact and light humour, anecdotal. Never acerbic, although he had a habit of saying it like it is. A breezy sort of way. You could take it or leave it, he’d never drive it home. Conclusions typically ran like this: “Be good. If you can’t be good, be careful. If you can be neither good nor careful, God help you.” And then, we’d both say Ave Ceaser, Vincent would wave goodbye and I’d be on my way, trundling down to the city I lived in. 

That’s how he sits in my mind’s scrapbook. And that’s how I remember him: chirpy, charming, cheerful, a dandy, style all his own. Never wealthy, always rich. Never frazzled, always self-assured. Never dour nor too cocky about anything. Always curious, sometimes astonished. My take from time with Vincent is an echo of Dag Hammarskjold: “For all that has been, Thanks. To all that will be, Yes.”

The picture you see of us, circa 2007, is from a graveyard trip in the cantonment town he lived in. Bantu had just slunk past.