Susheila Carnevale nee Ramanand
- catepatterson9
- 3 days ago
- 21 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
When life didn't get any easier, Sheila just got stronger
Born into a time of War
Susheila Ramanand was the fourth child born to Dr Ramanand and Sumitra Devi Ramanand. Her parents lived in a house rented from an uncle in Port Blair the capital city of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a union territory of India in the Bay of Bengal. Sheila arrived on 5thJanuary, 1939 in summertime when temperatures were in the 30°s C.
Dr Ramanand was the first doctor to be appointed to Port Blair and he worked at the hospital.
At the beginning of the war the British established a garrison at Port Blair but were unable to resist the occupation by the Japanese on 23 March 1942. Sheila was just three years old when her father and mother, uncles and aunts, and her two older brothers aged just 8 and 7 years, along with many other intellectuals (mainly officials, and professionals such as engineers, lawyers and doctors) were imprisoned and tortured allegedly on suspicion of spying for the British.
At this time, the children would stay with different aunties. Sheila’s mother had four sisters, and it was the extended family that helped the Ramanand children survive. Many members of the family were never seen again. Some of the imprisoned men were forced to dig a long trench and each was asked in turn if they had provided information for the British. When each one denied participating in any such activity he was shot and would fall into the trench he had just dug as the Japanese soldier turned his rifle to the next prisoner in the line.
Sheila remembers having to flee her home at night when the Japanese raided the houses. They escaped into the depths of the nearby jungle with its dense vegetation, twisted roots, thick vines, snakes and centipedes. They would return a couple of days later to find many of their belongings had been taken.
Sheila’s older brother eight-year-old Sharda Anand was a serious boy, who had been cruelly tortured. He was released after being interrogated and returned home with deep cuts on his back from cane whippings. Her second oldest brother Vivek Anand was just a year younger than Sharda and was the mischievous one. He would steal the vegetables from the garden of the Japanese soldiers. One day he was caught and made to collect the excrement from the soldiers’ toilets and spread it by the bucket load on the garden beds. He returned home stinking and wet from the slosh buckets. Another time the Japanese soldiers interrogated Vivek asking “Where is the torch?” They were sure there was a spy who was sending messages to the British via morse code by flashing a torch. The soldiers straightened metal paper clips, heated them and forced them under Vivek’s finger nails. It was an horrific time for the island people.
The Japanese never did discover who was leaking information about the Japanese plans. In fact, it was an Andamanese local from another island, trained by the British soldiers, who inconspicuously moved about, often wearing just a lungi (a loin cloth for men), and even receiving food from the Japanese soldiers, who was the ‘spy’ sending messages to the British using his morse code machine. In this way he was able to report that the Japanese were planning to force all of the people on the island into the many boats they would line up to take them out to the ships and then throw them overboard shooting any who did not drown.
That plan was ultimately foiled, and the British bombed the boats, effectively ending the Japanese plan to gain access to India via the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and saving the people of the islands from certain death.
Visiting the Cellular jail to visit her father was traumatic for Sheila. The children could only stand on the ground and wave up to the window where their father waved back to them.
Sheila’s parents were eventually released after they too had been interrogated and tortured.
Witnessing these atrocities, and being subjected to so much terror and fear during the Japanese occupation, Sheila didn’t speak for the first five years of her life. It was only when her father heard her speaking to her brothers and sisters that he realised she could speak.
When they had the opportunity to send their children to the mainland, the family decided to stay together. They would help each other survive, they would suffer together; if they separated, they feared they would never be reunited. Sheila’s mother had a beautiful ruby and gold chain that wrapped around her neck three times, a gift from her husband in the early years of their marriage. To provide for her family while her husband was imprisoned, she sold six rubies at a time from this necklace until only one bar of six remained. That solitary bar of six rubies is one of Sheila’s treasured possessions. In the years after the invasion, Sheila’s mother had two more children, a daughter Leela Devi and a son, Swastic.
During the war years the islanders often heard the wailing sirens telling them to hide in the bunkers underground. There they waited, often through the long nights until they heard the siren again telling them it was safe.
Dr Ramanand was not a traditionalist, but rather a progressive and enlightened father. He was very much the patriarch of the Ramanand extended family and highly respected as well in the wider community. He was strict but encouraged his children to develop their own beliefs, although they were a Hindu family. He wrote out a schedule of jobs for the children where they rotated each month through household work, including washing, cleaning, cooking, gardening, feeding animals and so on.
Sheila enjoyed all of these jobs and especially liked learning to crochet and knit with her mother.
After the War
After the war, Dr Ramanand was called to give evidence when the British took the Japanese to court in Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma. He was one of the few survivors, so many had been executed. The trials of 1946-7 focused on the Japanese individuals accused of atrocities committed during Japanese occupation against Allied prisoners of war and civilians.
When school resumed, Sheila’s father, very much aware that his children had missed out on several years of education, accordingly put back their ages by two years in order to ensure they could attend school and then university afterwards. The Ramanand family produced not only the first doctor on the island, but also Dr Ramanand’s brother was the first lawyer; and Sharda, Sheila’s oldest brother became the first engineer and Vivek became the first ship’s captain after working his way up from being a cabin boy.
When school resumed in 1946, Sheila enjoyed her time at the elementary school which provided classes up until Year 10. Lessons were taught in English. Badminton was a sport Sheila enjoyed, she became the badminton champion while she was at school. She remembers the daily lunchtime deliveries by the tiffin boys who were paid to collect the tiffins (usually a 4-stack of metal containers with carrying handle for transporting and keeping food warm.) Sheila’s mother would make the lunches for her children and a tiffin boy would be paid to collect them and deliver them to the school. Tiffin lunches could include roti, rice, dal, vegetable curry, salad, yogurt, and even a small dessert.
The years after the war were happy ones for the Ramanand family. While the hospital was being rebuilt, there was no work there for the doctor and he could devote his time to his private practice, to fishing and hunting deer; and Sheila remembers helping repair the fishing net, scale, gut and fillet fish and hanging and skinning the deer, cutting and preparing the venison.
Dr Ramanand also set about building a home for his family. The house they had been renting from Dr Ramanand’s uncle was sold, and his Uncle gave them the land to build a house. Dr Ramanand secured a disused barracks left over from the war and soon the children were busy carting roofing iron and wall cladding to the site, removing old nails, polishing timber and their father with the help of a Burmese carpenter built them a lovely home.
1954 was a sad time for the family. Sheila was almost at the end of her schooling when her younger sister Leela became unwell – she had suffered what Sheila described as measles pox as a child and at only 13 ½ years old she died from pleurisy resulting from her weakened immune system.
Studying away from home
Sheila left the Island to complete her Years 11 and 12. It was a 3-4 day trip from Port Blair to Calcutta (now Kolkata) by boat, so Sheila only returned home at the end of each term She was able to stay with some of the extended family while she completed her high school, but when she attended the Handicraft University of Bombay for two years, she stayed in a hostel while she studied. Her workbooks are records of her study, each neat line and hand drawing illustrating the sewing patterns, and handcraft skills the class learnt. Sheila graduated from her handcrafts course, became a teacher, and returned to Port Blair. It was around this time she must have crocheted the fine tablecloths and rugs with her mother – little medallions that were then crocheted together and edged. Sheila still has these beautiful pieces; a family legacy for Shali.
Making Dolls in Bombay
In 1960 when her sister Kanta married a lawyer and went to live in Bombay, Sheila joined the couple. She lived in Bombay for the next four years making dolls with her sister to sell to the American market. Their dolls were beautiful; hand-crafted with intricately styled clothes designed by Sheila and made from traditional fabrics for saris, with intricate embroidery and jewellery. One of the surviving dolls is dressed as a Kashmiri girl carrying a lamb, a typical pose for a Kashmiri girl. The other doll is dressed as an Indian dancer wearing a purple Churidar (tight-fitting trousers with skirt overlay), a fitted lavender choli (fitted mid-length top) and lilac dupatta (scarf). The doll is posed as a traditional dancer with expressive mehndi hands in mudras and foot positions to help convey the dance’s story. Enhancements include a headpiece, intricate jewellery, embroidered juttis (shoes) and subtle makeup. While Sheila created the costumes, Kanta made the dolls. She shaped paper over wire frames, and painstakingly stitched each finger so that there was wire inside allowing it to be bent to create the many expressive mudras. Sheila and Kanta cut their own hair to create the hair for each doll – thick black plaits with bound with fine cotton tassels.
Sheila was working in Bombay when her father became unwell. He was taken to the hospital, and an operation performed. In the following days the operating doctor told Sheila’s mother that her husband was slipping away and there was nothing more that could be done. However, after the final funeral rites and the Antyeshti (cremation), the family made the horrific discovery that Dr Ramanand’s ashes also contained a pair of forceps. It was terrible to think that the doctor’s death was caused by malpractice and not because of an incurable illness.
Marriage line is finishing
When walking home from the market one day with her friend Sheila saw a man walking in the opposite direction approaching them. He stopped and hastened to assure them that he didn’t want any money, but would appreciate some nashta (breakfast). “I can tell you something about yourself,” he told Sheila. The women, being only two houses from home invited him to come back for some breakfast. Without touching Sheila, or even looking at her hand, he told her that she should get married within three months or that if she didn’t her marriage line was finishing. He picked up a mourning stone and added, “If you get married, you will go far.” Sheila and her friend gave the beggar an old shirt and a lungi (sarong) and he went on his way. Sheila thought his words about ‘going far away’ must refer to her going three days by boat to live on the mainland if she married.
Life continued on much as usual for Sheila until the mother of her friend (who Sheila always called Aunty) undid an old paper cone that she had carried home from the market filled with sugar or something similar and read a little ad in the very corner of the paper square. The ad read that an Australian man was looking for an Indian girl to marry. The address to write to was in Bombay, so mother and daughter together wrote a reply on behalf of Sheila who knew nothing of the letter.
Seven or eight days later, there was a telephone call at about 9.00pm from the landlord. “You are going to get a visitor from Australia about 9.00am tomorrow.” It was then that her friend and Aunty had to confess what they had done. Afterall, Sheila was 33 years old and her father was not alive to arrange a marriage for her, so they had taken it into their own hands.
The next day there was a mad flurry as food preparations were made for the big occasion. Sheila stayed home from work and nervously waited. She waited for hours thinking that the prospective Australian must have changed his mind. Eventually, the Landlord sent the houseboy to explain that the visitor could not come today. Disappointed, the women ate the treats.
While getting ready to shower and go to work Sheila’s friend yelled, “He’s here!”. Of course there was mad panic – no special food was made; so the Aunty pushed the houseboy out of the window, there being no back door to secretly exit, so that he could buy some treats from the market. Aunty offered tea or coffee while Sheila didn’t even have time to shower – she rushed to dress and come down the stairs making a gracious entrance.
The first thing Sheila remembers about the meeting is that the visitor winked at her. She was introduced to John Carnevale, a man aged 51 with dark hair and olive skin – he didn’t look so very different from the men she knew, and she didn’t mind his appearance. Later she learned he had been in a terrible car accident at Mt Isa, hit by a drunken doctor, putting him in a coma for three months and leaving his left side shattered. His broken left leg had been pinned but he was also diabetic which slowed the healing. John had been married and had an adult son and daughter. Following this catastrophe, he had left his job as Work Study Officer at Mt Isa and divorced his unfaithful wife. He had become an adherent of Meyer Baba and visited the Avatar’s Abode at Kiel Mountain Road, Woombye. Perhaps it was his admiration for Meyer Baba’s practices emphasising love and service to others that guided him to visit India to find a wife.
John said he would let them know his decision about Sheila’s suitability. He had received 13 letters from applicants and had been advised that there would only be one Hindu girl who applied and that John should choose this girl. That girl was Sheila.
John rang to ask Sheila to have dinner with him that night and he would then be able to determine if she was the best choice for him. He was staying with a friend and his wife Gerty. Suddenly it was Gerty who was in a flurry to make a fine dinner for the prospective bride.
John made his choice and Sheila accepted the offer when Aunty acted as intermediary. To complicate matters though, John added they would have to marry within three days as his visa would expire. In fact, he had a three-month visa, he just wanted arrangements to be made quickly.
So again, there was much flurry and the wedding took place at Mangalore on 17th November, 1972 with a priest hired and Sheila’s youngest brother Swastic the only witness from her family able to attend the wedding. John and Sheila stayed for another two days at the coastal tourist spot before returning to a hotel in Bombay. Swastic had been able to organise Sheila’s passport in just two days.
But Sheila also needed a visa. John went in and spoke to an official at the Australian High Commission first and Sheila, waiting outside thought how long John was. When she was finally ushered into meet the ambassador, she learned that, being a cane farmer from Bundaberg, he had been happily chatting with John about the Montville macadamia farm he had bought. When he asked where John’s wife was, and learning she was just outside, he said, “Well bring her in then.” The official told his girl to organise tea and biscuits There was a “Yes Sir,” from his assistant and while Sheila drank her tea, the Australian Government official filled in the paperwork, stamped and signed it. On handing it to Sheila she saw that she had not a one-year – or even a three-year visa, but had been granted permanent residency.
The story of how John came to purchase the macadamia farm might have been just the thing to entertain the official.
On an exploratory expedition to just see what was around, John drove along Western Road. He encountered a woman who stopped him on the road yelling a diatribe in Polish and berated him for being late to inspect the house and farmland. With a part-Czechoslovakian heritage John could speak seven languages and well understood the Polish expletives. Nevertheless, he assumed the role of the ‘tardy prospective buyer’ and gained a tour of the 23-acre property. He then went back to town after farewelling the ‘crazy Polish lady’ as she came to be called in the family, and learnt that the farm was on the market for $15000 and included a farmhouse, 300 macadamia trees, equipment and tractors. The property was part of the earliest selection along Western Road – Portion 71v by George John Butt and extended from Gunnaroo Lane to where Lakeview Terrace is now situated. (It took in what is now 208 – 226 Western Ave) John offered $12000 cash and the deal was done.
Settling in Australia
Now, in January 1973, John was bringing his Indian wife home to the farm. A telegram to the neighbour, Graham Butt, ensured they were met at the airport and driven to the farm. Sheila’s first impressions of Montville and the farm were favourable, even though the little farmhouse was rundown, she would be happy to make her new life here. Over time she met the neighbours – Graham’s wife Heather, a teacher at the school, Barbara and Philip Stevens (builder) right next door, and Vince and Betty Sinclair, dairy farmers just across the road, but there was little time to develop friendships as Sheila was needed to work the farm right from the beginning.
John would tell Sheila what work needed to be done each day and she was the sole labourer; although for a time, John could drive the tractor around as she weeded, mulched and fertilised the trees and harvested the nuts.
However, one person Sheila did become friends with was Lorna Power. John had known John (Toodie) and Lorna from his time in Mt Isa, and took Sheila with him to visit at their brick home along Balmoral Road. Lorna became a second Mum to Sheila. Sheila’s mother arrived from India on the 16th September 1974, and John drove Sumitra and Sheila to visit Lorna a few days later. After a pleasant visit, they arrived home, and getting out of the car Sheila’s waters broke, so John was sent into the house to fetch the little suitcase Sheila had packed for hospital and they made their way directly to the Nambour Hospital.
Sheila remembers the maternity ward was busy, and when she arrived in the early evening around 6.30pm old Mrs Polley from further along Western Road was the midwife. She asked Sheila, “Can you hang on for a bit?” But there was no holding back the baby, and little six-pound Shalini Carnevale was born around 7.30 that Thursday night, the 19th September. Sheila told her husband, “Sorry, you don’t have a tractor driver.”
When John went around to tell Lorna that Sheila had a baby girl, Lorna was shocked, because she, like all the other neighbours, had no idea that Sheila was even pregnant. Sheila had seen no doctor and had told no one of her pregnancy. It just never came up in conversation.
On returning home from hospital with her tiny daughter, it was the usual routine of work for Sheila. At this time John was getting about using two walking sticks. She was grateful for her mother’s company, and Sumitra stayed for six months. Sheila was caring as much for John now as she was for Shalini – along with doing all the work on the farm.
John modified the trailer, creating a little wooden playpen that Sheila padded and covered with a mosquito net, filling it with rugs and toys for Shalini.
Sheila made a cake for Shalini’s first birthday, and set it up on the table. In an offhand remark her father said to Shali, “If you want some get up and get it.”
So she did! It was Shali’s first steps and a fitting first to mark the occasion of her first birthday.
Despite the long hours managing the farm and caring for Shali and John, Sheila gained her citizenship in 1978. Sheila had a meeting with Councillor Fred Murray, Chairman of the Maroochy Shire Council, and John gained his citizenship at the same time.
With John’s deteriorating health, Sheila knew she couldn’t continue to manage 23 acres on her own, and when the couple discovered the property was on two deeds it was a relatively simple affair to organise to sell 13 acres with the old farmhouse. But of course, selling their farmhouse meant building a new home. They decided on a modular unit style home called Logan Unit Homes which could be built using a system of light gauge metal frames clad with fibre cement sheeting. These homes were marketed as quick and cost-effective and well-suited to storm and cyclone-prone areas. The modular design allowed for relatively easy and quick construction, often completed within weeks by a "handyman". So, in 1979 Sheila and John sold the farmhouse block to Tony and Shirley Carmichael and their four children, and built a long driveway to their new house site further back from the road. They lived here, in their modular home for the next 27 years.
Sheila attained her driver’s licence in 1980, the year Shali started school. Their car was a brand new automatic white VW Kombi in 1974 when John bought it, now it was Sheila’s means of getting around. John was too unwell to drive and Sheila wanted to be part of the pick-up and drop-off Mums that did the school run. Her neighbour and friend from up the road, Sue Delaney, took her son Patrick (and later his brother Ryan) and picked Shali up in the mornings. Sheila always made sure she was there to meet the children after school. John’s son (another John) lived close by with his wife Helen. Their son John, eighteen months younger than Shali, started school in 1982. So occasionally there were lifts with Helen as well.
Sheila’s farm routine was to get up around 5.00 in the morning and jump on the ranger tractor, mow around the trees and do other jobs before returning to the house to make breakfast at about 7.00 and have Shali ready to be picked up for school. Back out on the farm, Sheila had 300 macadamia trees to manage, so there was always a rotation of mowing, weeding, spraying, harvesting, drying nuts and then boxing them ready for market. In addition to the macadamia trees, there were avocados, custard apple, guava, pear, apple and coffee trees in the ‘fruit salad’ corner of the farm.
It was about this time that John met a fellow called Kingsley (King) Hancock, a plant operator in Nambour who needed help reconditioning, and repairing diesel engines for machinery and equipment, especially water pumps. He brought the first engine to John, who was unable to work with the small pieces of the engine, and it was not long before Sheila, and later Shali, were covered in grease as they dismantled, cleaned, degreased and reassembled first one, and then many engines, until Sheila knew every part of an engine from top to bottom and could take them apart and put them together as if it was second nature. For years Sheila worked on engines, and because John couldn’t lift his arm Sheila did the spray painting and the cranking of each engine to ensure it turned over before loading it into the Kombi to return to King Hancock in Nambour. No wonder her friends thought she was remarkable!
The year that Shali started high school as a foundation student of the Maleny High School in 1987, was the year that Sheila had an operation for a bowel obstruction at Nambour and it was discovered that she had non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. There were trips to Brisbane, the ordeal of a spinal tap, and then seven doctors made a determination they would treat Sheila using oral therapy – and so she began a course of tablets. There were side effects including fatigue, but Sheila pushed through it all and continued working on the farm. It was what Sheila did, but really, she must have felt there was no option. John was unsupportive and showed little compassion at this difficult time; his attitude was “Just get on with it.”
And Sheila did! Shali did all she could to help her Mum and with her support Sheila was declared free of the disease. Shali began working at the old Montville Village General Store when she was fourteen. She loved that it was a one-stop shop with a grocery, newsagency, takeaway and fuel bowsers as well. The year Shali completed her Year 12 she met Matt Carroll and a friendship developed. For a time, Matt worked as a baker and chief pastry chef at the Montville Patisserie and Bakery.
Life for Sheila revolved more around caring for John who had suffered another fall when the Post Office was still at the corner of Western Road and Main Street which further aggravated his left leg with the pin. It was at an annual check-up that the doctor ordered an x-ray. That x-ray showed that the pin had snapped and the two bones had slipped beside each other resulting in a 2 ½ inch difference between the two legs. They were told that an orthopaedic surgeon was flying out from England and would arrive the next day. The operation necessitated the amputation of John’s left leg. Doctors told Sheila she wouldn’t be able to continue to care for John at home, and his diabetes was another complication that needed constant monitoring.
Shali worked for about 10 years at the Store, but the redevelopment of the town square brought changes that Shali was not enthusiastic about and she looked for a way to fill the gap after the store went upmarket and stopped offering the popular fast food.
Shali was 24 when she married Matt Carroll in 1998 and worked in the bakery until she took up an offer to purchase the café business beside the bakery from Max and Ion Ranson. It became the iconic Shali’s Café and opened on 10thDecember 2001. Sheila had told Shali that whatever she chose to do, Sheila would support her. Shali had completed an accountancy course, and was very familiar with ordering, dealing with suppliers and managing staff and she was delighted at the positive reception her burgers, fish and chips and sandwiches received. In fact, she hadn’t really taken into account the heavy demand for takeaways during the popular holiday season. On hindsight, it had been a crazy time to open, not just a gentle launch, but a full ‘thrown in the deep-end’. Although unwell, John was also able to be driven past Shali’s café, and take pride in his daughter’s accomplishments before his death in March 2002.
Sheila and John had created a business name in order to sell their macadamias to Nutworks at Yandina. After his death, Sheila was happy to close the business and sell the farm. Craig Farmiloe, a local businessman and Vet purchased the farm. Matt and Shali had built a shouse (a converted shed) on the property, but when the farm sold, they moved to Cynthia Hunt Drive at Flaxton.
Shali even took on a second shop at Maroochydore at a tourist park, but when it was redeveloped as an over 50s resort and the clientele changed, Shali decided the café was no longer viable. With the end of her marriage, the Flaxton home was sold and Shali and Sheila bought a block of land at Nambour and built a four-bedroom brick home.
These years for Sheila were busy as she worked alongside Shali making a wonderful range of curries and samosas.
In 2019, after Sheila was involved in a car accident while driving up the Range from Nambour, Shali decided to sell everything and they rented a place closer to Shali’s Café along Balmoral Road for 12 months before moving into a tiny flatette behind The Bower Bird (now Ben Messina Landscapes Gallery) owned by Craig Farmiloe where they stayed for another 12 months.
Sheila’s eyes had been gradually deteriorating and she gave up driving and was grateful to live close by the shop, helping Shali when needed, but having more time for herself. When Craig Farmiloe decided he didn’t want to continue offering his three-bedroom unit behind the one room studio as an Airbnb, Shali and Sheila moved in, along with a friend, Mary.
Shali had expanded her business into the bakery shop, and then took over the lease of another café, Mountain Bean, in the Village Square. She planned to sell similar takeaway foods, but encountered staffing problems like every other business. But following the Covid years, Montville businesses were hit hard with tourism significantly reduced. So, reluctantly, after almost 23 years, Shali’s Café, the longest running business venture in Montville in recent history closed on 30th June 2024.
Just days later on 4th July, Shali began work at the IGA Express. Shali quickly became a much-valued addition to IGA owner, Ann Wells’ team and brought fresh ideas to provide more ready-made meals and soon Shali’s curries were in the shop deli section, and of course Sheila helped. Customers too, were delighted to see Shali’s cheerful smile and enjoyed her business-like efficiency and helpfulness.
Now twelve months since Shali began at the IGA, she has enjoyed her annual holidays and she and Sheila are looking forward to continuing to work with Ann’s team in a one-stop shop that is at the heart of Montville, a community they claimed, and that in turn, has claimed them, and can now celebrate Sheila’s remarkable life.
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