Decoration Nun remembered

- Vincent D'Souza

Sister Isabel Mary Diaz closed her eyes on June 20 in a George Town convent, her home for decades.

A Goan, Sr. Isabel earned a name doing stuff, she was great at creating decorations for weddings and church services, making cookies and jams, designing table cloths and clothes for kids. And she did this even at 89.

From the convent of the Presentation Sisters, adjoining St. Columban’s School on Mclean Street, her nook was alive from 7 to 8. And she tugged at Peter to pay Paul.

For, Sr. Isabel had skilled lots and lots of poor women of this north Chennai neighbourhood to help them make a living. “She was a creative soul who created jobs for the poor,” a nun said in her eulogy.

Paying her a tribute that Sr. Isabel would have acknowledged, the nuns had decorated the altar with lots of freshly-cut flowers. And there in front, she lay in a coffin, at peace as the Presentation nuns from different convents in this city laid wreaths at the farewell.

Gracie (the nun’s original name) was a teacher in Goa who loved good food and wine, good clothes and good music and dance. The night before she was to leave for a convent to join the congregation, she danced through the night and then said bye, her cousin said in her tribute.

She returned to her favourite Goan home often and at her workplace in Madras, made rose cookies and jams and wine. These became a rage in north Madras.

A couple of years ago, when I was at the Mclean Street convent, researching on the Presentation nuns in Madras, I was introduced to Sr. Isabel. At 87, though restrained to a chair she got talking. And had a request. “I’m looking for Mahadevan..that Hot Breads man…” She was seeking him to help her women learn baking skills.

Her story, her life stayed with me. A nun for six decades who had fun, was hugely creative (at one time, hotels would trip to sign her up for decorating their halls) and one who used her talent to move the less privileged.

Her last resting place was at St. Roque’s Cemetery in Royapuram where a zone is carved for the Presentation nuns – buried here are the pioneer missionaries from Ireland who landed in Madras in the late 19th Century.

As the cemetery staff lowered the coffin, shoved in the mud and sealed the grave, many women began to weep, loudly. They were the ones Sr. Isabel had made.

Did the city pay a tribute to the Decoration Nun? No.

I wonder why obituaries are only reserved for the high and mighty, the awarded and the goons. Our media revels in them. But for people who make this city, unless ribbed from outside, the print and the channels have no space for the likes of Sr. Isabel.

In our small ways, may we pay Tributes. Always.

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