Dom Moraes
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Dominic Francis Moraes (19 July 1938 – 2 June 2004), popularly known as Dom Moraes was a Goan writer, poet and columnist. He published nearly 30 books.
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[edit] Early life
Dom Moraes was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) to Beryl and Frank Moraes, former editor of the Times of India. He attended St. Mary's High School (ISC), Mazagoan, Bombay.
Moraes spent eight years in Britain, living in London and Oxford (where he studied at the university and was a member of Jesus College), but spent most of his life in Mumbai (formerly Bombay).
[edit] Career
He edited magazines in London, Hong Kong and New York. He became the editor of The Asia Magazine in 1971. He scripted and partially directed over 20 television documentaries for the BBC and ITV. He was a war correspondent in Algeria, Israel and Vietnam. In 1976 he joined the United Nations.
Moraes conducted one of the first interviews of the Dalai Lama after the Tibetan spiritual leader fled to India in 1959. The Dalai Lama was then 23 and Moraes was 20. Moraes ended his writing career writing books in collaboration with Sarayu Srivatsa.
[edit] Later life
He had a lifelong battle with alcoholism. He met Sarayu Srivatsa in 1990 and she was able, to a large degree, to curtail his drinking. She was his muse and he her mentor. They wrote books together as well as worked on film scripts. She looked after him for 15 years until his death. Moraes suffered from cancer, but refused treatment and died from a heart attack in Bandra, Mumbai.
Sarayu Srivatsa buried him in the Sewri Cemetery in Mumbai and as per Dom's last wishes buried the soil from his grave in Odcombe, Somerset, on 19 July 2002 (his birthdate). Many of Dom's old friends and publishers attended the memorial service in Odcombe. A head stone in yellow Jaisalmer stone lies embedded in the front lawn of the church to mark the service.[citation needed]
When the Gujarat riots erupted in 2002, with their heavy toll of Muslim dead, Moraes left for Ahmedabad the minute the news came through, claiming that since he was a Catholic, Muslims would not see him as an enemy. Even though he was physically in considerable pain by then, he was one of the first on the scene - a move that his upright father would have applauded.
[edit] Personal life
In 1956, aged 18, he was courted by Henrietta Moraes. They married in 1961. He left her but, according to his close friends in London, did not divorce her. He met another woman, one Judith, by whom he had a son, Heff Moraes. He later married Indian actress Leela Naidu but later separated from her.[citation needed]
[edit] Bibliography
- 1958: A Beginning, his first book of poems (winner of the Hawthornden Prize)
- 1960: Poems, his second book of poems
- 1960: Gone Away: An Indian Journey, memoir
- 1965: John Nobody, his third book of poems
- 1967: Beldam & Others, a pamphlet of verse
- 1983: Absences, book of poems
- 1987: Collected Poems: 1957-1987 (Penguin)
- 1992: Out of God's Oven: Travels in a Fractured Land, co-author Sarayu Srivatsa
- 2003: The Long Strider, co-author Sarayu Srivatsa
- Heiress to Destiny, biography of Indira Gandhi
- Never at Home, memoir
- My Son's Father, memoir
[edit] Awards and recognitions
- Hawthornden Prize for the best work of the imagination, 1958, for the book of poems A Beginning
- Autumn Choice of the Poetry Book Society for Poems (1960)
