First
of all, on behalf of my sister Pam and myself, we would like to thank
everyone for coming here today to remember our mother Renuka Ray. I
just wanted to say a few words as a memorial to her. Our mother was
born in Calcutta in India in 1925. She was one of 4 sisters and 2
brothers. Her father Narendranath Sen was a physicist at Calcutta
University. Our mother was brought up in the hustle and bustle of a
big extended family with lots of cousins spending time together –
and it’s nice that mum’s cousin Arun and his brother’s wife
Sujata are able to be here today. She went to school in Calcutta and
then went on to study Modern History at Calcutta University. She then
became a teacher at the Loretto Girls school in Calcutta. At the age
of 31 she was married to our father, Prabhat Ray, a research chemist.
In 1960 he came to London to start a PhD, and my mum and Pam and
myself followed him to the UK in 1962. In England, Mum at first took
a job as a primary school teacher. But she soon found that teaching
in a British school is a world apart from teaching at a private girls
school in Calcutta. She gave up teaching and eventually worked for a
number of years as a clerical assistant in the Department of Trade
and Industry.
Mum’s
interest in history stayed with her throughout her life. She was a
great reader and in her fifties, she became very interested in
everything to do with the last Tsar of Russia. She read every book
she could find on the subject including some very obscure and old
books which she ordered through the local public library. She also
visited Russia and saw all the palaces and sites that she had become
so familiar with through her reading. Eventually she started putting
her researches down on paper and this resulted in a book entitled The
Last Tsar and the Downfall of the Russian Monarchy
which was privately printed for her seventieth birthday. This book
has now been uploaded onto the internet and if anyone is interested
the web address is given on the back of the order of service.
She
also enjoyed reading novels – David Copperfield, Jane Eyre and
Vanity Fair were probably her favourites. Later in life she greatly
enjoyed reading the books written by the Christian author Corrie Ten
Boom. She was fascinated by Corrie Ten Boom’s story of how she and
her family saved many Jews in occupied Holland from being taken to
the concentration camp and then were eventually sent to the camp
themselves yet discovered God’s love and grace even there. She read
the books by Corrie Ten Boom over and over and learned much about the
power of forgiveness which she was able to apply in her own life.
Mum
was also very interested in the British Royal Family and especially
in the details of the abdication crisis. She must hold the record for
the number of times that anyone has watched the Thames Television
drama, Edward and Mrs Simpson. I’m not exaggerating when I say that
she must have watched it right through at least a hundred times.
Watching videos that she enjoyed over and over again was something
that she did a lot of – Anne of Green Gables, documentaries about
Princess Diana, and comedies such as Keeping Up Appearances, Rising
Damp and Open All Hours, and even the film, Forest Gump, were her
particular favourites. She had a great sense of humour and I think we
all remember times when she would become hysterical with laughter.
She was a great raconteur with an amazing memory and had an endless
collection of stories about different relatives. She was very
interested in politics, generally holding quite radical views, though
her favourite British politician was Edward Heath. Her great hero was
the Bengali Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose. The day
India became independent must have been one of the happiest of her
life, though it was tempered by the fact that Bose himself did not
live to see it. She loved travelling, especially visiting historical
places; she loved having days out and spending time with people; she
loved McDonalds.
She
had a great interest in music all her life. She had a fine singing
voice, and at the age of 15, she auditioned for the Calcutta Radio.
Unfortunately due to nervousness this didn’t go too well but the
Radio station encouraged her to come back in 6 months. Unfortunately
she then suffered a bout of bronchitis which sadly put an end to this
ambition. She appreciated much British pop music especially from the
60s and 70s – Val Doonican, Roger Whittaker, The Carpenters, Abba,
Elton John amongst others. I remember her once telling me that she
had come across a great new singer called Arthur Brownlow. I had no
idea who it was until I eventually worked out that she meant Barry
Manilow. In recent years she greatly enjoyed singing Christian
worship songs at church – the two songs we are singing at this
service today were her particular favourites and I have many memories
of her wandering around the house singing these songs. She also loved
to listen to a CD of worship songs which Pam herself had written and
performed. Throughout her life she loved the music associated with
the great Bengali writer and composer, Rabindranath Tagore. She knew
huge amounts of Tagore’s poetry by heart, and she loved the songs,
several of which she could play on the piano. She also greatly
enjoyed the film adaptations Of some of Tagore’s stories by the
director Satyajit Ray. We have already heard one of Tagore’s songs
which became the Indian national anthem. And in a few minutes we’re
going to listen to mum’s favourite song “Diner Sheshe” which
means the Day’s Ending, performed many years ago by her favourite
singer, Hemanta Mukherjee.
We
will never forget Mum – her beautiful smile, her infectious sense
of humour, her interesting stories, her love of people and good
company, her warmth, kindness generosity and love.
