Ira Math­ur

iras­room@gmail.com

When I think of my fa­ther–Colonel Ma­hen­dra Nath Math­ur (Jan­u­ary 1, 1932–March 16, 2025)–I think cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly. A skat­ing rink in Sim­la, the snowy glare of the Hi­malayas around us, his hand in mine. A dark­ened the­atre in Ban­ga­lore, his gaze not on the screen but on me, de­light­ing in my laugh­ter. In­spect­ing his bat­tal­ion in Ban, laugh­ter ring­ing out as he glid­ed ef­fort­less­ly across the ice.

Those mo­ments, framed by the crisp moun­tain air and the soft glow of win­ter sun­light, re­main etched in my mem­o­ry like scenes from a cher­ished film. Ga­lore in bright white sun­light, each step pre­cise, each salute sharp. Danc­ing with my moth­er across a pol­ished wood­en floor to an army band, wind­ing up moun­tains on a toy train built by the British.

Lat­er: Walk­ing through Scar­bor­ough, brief­case in hand, an en­gi­neer who vi­su­alised the Claude Noel High­way from a he­li­copter.

Evenings at Mount Irvine: cig­a­rette lit, whisky in hand, the sun­set flick­er­ing in his glass. And at Pi­geon Point, the tide car­ried him for­ward and back on moon­lit and sparkling Sun­days.

Ma­hen­dra Nath Math­ur was born on Jan­u­ary 1, 1932, in Ali­garh, In­dia. He grew up trac­ing bat­tle­fronts on maps, ob­sess­ing over war news­reels. Par­ti­tion came just as he reached adult­hood. A bor­der cut through his home­land; a mil­lion lives were lost in a blood­bath. He nev­er for­gave Jawa­har­lal Nehru and Mo­hammed Ali Jin­nah for split­ting In­dia. If the British had bru­talised and pil­laged In­dia, their am­bi­tion would have mu­ti­lat­ed his coun­try.

The uni­form soon called. In 1953, he was se­lect­ed by the In­di­an Army’s Corps of En­gi­neers. His ca­reer un­fold­ed in the raw, new In­dia.

The Wars

1962: Learn­ing to Fight at Al­ti­tude

Ma­hen­dra Nath Math­ur’s reg­i­ment was de­ployed in the Sino-In­di­an War. Un­pre­pared for high-al­ti­tude com­bat, they worked in the frozen Hi­malayas—lay­ing roads and re­in­forc­ing de­fences. The war end­ed in fail­ure. He re­mem­bered it al­ways: nev­er be un­pre­pared, nev­er as­sume safe­ty.

1965: Hold­ing the Bor­der

Dur­ing the sec­ond war with Pak­istan, he was de­ployed in Pun­jab. By then, he had met and mar­ried An­var Zia Sul­tana,

Con­tin­ues on page 23

a daugh­ter of the prince­ly fam­i­lies of Sa­va­nur and Bhopal. He met mum­my at the home of an al­most blind An­glo-In­di­an pi­ano teacher, and they were both tak­ing lessons. He pro­tect­ed her from a fierce dog and played a jazz song for her, and that was it. She left every­thing for him. She was to re­main his abid­ing love all his life.

In 1965, he knew the war wasn’t won in bat­tles but in lo­gis­tics—in roads, bridges, and si­lence. In Pun­jab, he un­der­stood that sup­ply lines mat­tered more than fire­pow­er in war. He saw the bat­tle not in grand strate­gies but in the nights spent lis­ten­ing for en­e­my move­ment, in sad­ness, the Ur­du let­ters found in the pock­ets of dead Pak­istani sol­diers who looked just like him, writ­ten by Mus­lim moth­ers who loved the same as his Hin­du moth­er.

In 1971, he fought his last war, as In­dia in­ter­vened to sup­port the Ben­gali strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence. His reg­i­ment moved through As­sam, se­cur­ing crit­i­cal routes and en­sur­ing In­di­an forces could ad­vance with speed and pre­ci­sion.

On De­cem­ber 16, 1971, Pak­istan sur­ren­dered. Bangladesh was born. He had fought three wars. He had seen too much, lost too much, and learnt too much.

Mov­ing to T&T

In 1975, af­ter meet­ing High Com­mis­sion­er Ho­race Brooms, he moved to T&T. Tasked with con­struct­ing the Claude Noel High­way, he rerout­ed it to save homes, re­duc­ing dis­place­ment from hun­dreds to 33. The project fin­ished ear­ly, un­der bud­get.

That led to more work: re­de­vel­op­ing Low­er Scar­bor­ough, flood pre­ven­tion for Steel and Cookes Rivers, re­con­struct­ing Cas­tara Road, and pre­serv­ing Staubles Bay Road. He helped re­build fire sta­tions, pris­ons, and po­lice posts. He served as a tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, work­ing close­ly on in­fra­struc­ture main­te­nance across mul­ti­ple gov­ern­ment min­istries. He was in­stru­men­tal in im­prov­ing riv­er sys­tems, up­grad­ing de­fence force fa­cil­i­ties, and pro­tect­ing vul­ner­a­ble coastal ar­eas.

Lat­er, he be­came the first di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency. He wrote the coun­try’s first Na­tion­al Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness Plan, de­vel­oped haz­ard and re­sponse maps, cre­at­ed chem­i­cal dis­as­ter pro­to­cols, and co­or­di­nat­ed emer­gency sim­u­la­tions. He re­tired from NE­MA in 1998 and chaired the board of Pre­mix Lim­it­ed un­til 2002.

He was an un­apolo­getic fem­i­nist. “Men are bas­tards,” he said, on­ly half in jest. “They’ll sur­vive. But you girls—you need a leg up.” He en­sured my sis­ter Rash­mi and I re­ceived stronger ed­u­ca­tions than our broth­er. He sent me to sec­re­tar­i­al school in To­ba­go at 15, and I worked in the Gov­ern­ment as a clerk every sum­mer since I was 16 at the Min­istry of Cul­ture, Health, and the Courts.

When I was con­tent to live out my days as a beach girl, he dragged me—bro­ken an­kle and all—to Lon­don for a jour­nal­ism mas­ter’s at City Uni­ver­si­ty. He rent­ed a flat, drove me to class­es, and at­tend­ed lec­tures be­side me for my law and lib­er­al arts de­grees. He ap­plied to Trent Uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don in Eng­land on my be­half. At my Ra­dio 610 job in­ter­view, he came with me and had to be asked by my soon-to-be boss—gen­tly—to let me an­swer. I write be­cause of him.

In the time it took me to write one book, he wrote 11—on phi­los­o­phy, strat­e­gy, and mil­i­tary his­to­ry. He drew from the Bha­gavad Gi­ta, Spin­oza, Schopen­hauer, Kr­ish­na Menon, Kant, and his war mem­o­ries.

He wrote a book for each grand­child—Ki­ran, Ani­ka, Arun, Anoush­ka, Priyan­ka, and San­jana—doc­u­ment­ing their ad­ven­tures to­geth­er. He took them to Del­hi, Rome, Mi­lan, and Brus­sels for the Wa­ter­loo reen­act­ment, where he nar­rat­ed each ma­noeu­vre. He led them through me­dieval cas­tles, dined like Hen­ry VI­II, slept in a ho­tel with­out win­dows in Grena­da, and stood in Oslo’s No­bel Hall. In Greece, he in­voked the spir­its of Pla­to, Socrates, and Aris­to­tle as though they had just stepped out for a walk.

He wrote short books for his sons-in-law Imshah and Neil, too, call­ing them the “ya­hoos” fun­ny, cut­ting, and loy­al—rank­ing them ac­cord­ing to how they treat­ed his daugh­ters (and how they han­dled their scotch).

When my bril­liant broth­er, Varun, with his Bol­ly­wood looks, and his fa­ther’s courage, was di­ag­nosed with can­cer, my fa­ther made it his mis­sion. He searched across con­ti­nents, con­tact­ed doc­tors, and chased mir­a­cles. But there was no war to win. When Varun died, my fa­ther took us to buy cham­pagne. Cel­e­brate, he said; be grate­ful for every sec­ond of life and love. And he con­tin­ued to talk to Varun as if death was just an af­ter­thought in his re­la­tion­ship with his son.

Even af­ter his own di­ag­no­sis, he held fast to beau­ty. Trinidad’s sun­sets, the ocean. Ear­ly morn­ing rooftop still­ness. The light on my moth­er’s face. On the on­line plat­form Quo­ra where he an­swered ques­tions on war, re­li­gion, and an­cient his­to­ry he got 2.7 mil­lion views and a mil­lion up­votes when he put up a pho­to of my moth­er an­swer­ing the ques­tion–“What’s it like to be mar­ried to the most beau­ti­ful woman in the world?”

He thought about death. About what came af­ter. About how to live a life that wast­ed noth­ing. He died like a sol­dier, sur­viv­ing a week with­out food and wa­ter, with seda­tives hav­ing lit­tle or no ef­fect on him.

He mea­sured time in roads built, bat­tles fought, and love is giv­en with­out pause. What he built still holds.

The tide comes in, the tide goes out. But some lives—like his—leave a coast­line changed for­ev­er.