Chapter 15: jurithewriter has started writing her story: puppy love

 

For some reason, either genetics or upbringing, I have had a confident and self assured persona as a child, and continually as I have aged. Paradoxically, I have many internal complexes and insecurities. Being a naturally curious person, I have observed such paradoxes in almost everyone. As a kid, people were charmed by my mischievous eyes and talkativeness, and that bypassed the lack in attractive looks. My father, a feminist who is most likely responsible for my confidence and self assurance, lost no opportunity to rub in how not good looking I was. Jumi told me a few years earlier he did the same with her although she was far ahead of me in the department of looks. That really surprised me as Jumi has always been the cute and pretty one and I was completely unaware that she suffered from the 'I am ugly' complex too. 

Little children below the age of 8 years never think of themselves as little children. Each time I had a birthday, I was convinced I was a big girl. I remember feeling that way when I was 7 and then when I turned 8 and the day I turned 12, I was totally convinced that everyone else thought I was grown up too. At 7 years of age, I was in class 3 in NDA English school. There was this cute and smart dude in our class of 7 year olds. I won't take names as he might not take it well. I mean you never know, so why risk it. I did try to reach him on facebook some years back but he didn't accept my request. I had a crush on him (in class 3!), a serious one, and sent him an anonymous note, never anticipating the big bang effect that would follow. 

While walking back from school the next day, this dude took the walk back with me. I was smug, the note was not signed, so he could never trace it to me, I was certain of that. At the turning to D2, while crossing the concrete circle with the pristine white spider lilies, he asked me if I had written it. But obviously, and very confidently I denied it. Apparently, he had sherlock homed the note, matched it with my hand writing (I had made the effort to change the writing style to make it untraceable to me, bad attempt obviously). I was caught. Embarrassed. Awkward. Like the Big Bang effect, this awkwardness spread further and further and further and from that moment onward, we didn't talk to each other forever. Despite living in the same locality and crossing paths several times. We even wrote our class 12 board exams in the same college and the same room and slid away quietly.  

Holi was THE NDA festival. The array of laddus, barfis, nimkis, sweets, bhujias, and the paraphernalia prepared in every home were displayed on tables at the entry door to the homes:

a) so that everyone who came to splash and smear the colours could have easy access to the sweets and 

b) by blocking the entry door with the table, no one could enter the homes and dirty them.

After all the adults visited their friends and all the kids were done throwing water balloons at each other on the roads which were our play territory ('Children at play, stop and see'-signboards in red warned all drivers), as per NDA traditional dictate, everyone would head for the lush green golf course on the plains between the officers mess and the D2 hills. Adults went to the golf course for the drinks, we kids would head towards a large iron water tank, which was open and full of water for whatsoever reason, outside and to the left of the bar, into which adventurous kids would be dunked. 

Suddenly, I must have been around 13 then, the dude (refer to anonymous note) appeared and smeared my face with colours and said, 

"Happy Holi."

I smeared him back and replied, 

"Happy Holi", 

very coyly, felt really awkward and did the disappearing trick, completely besotted. 

At 20 when I was in medical school in Guwahati, a cousin of my classmate Shibee came to visit her in the hostel where we resided. I was going out on a date with my to-be husband, met Shibee's cousin at the gate, so Shibee introduced me to her cousin who was on a vacation visit to Guwahati from the engineering college where he was studying. 

Later Shibee told me that this cousin was a friend of the anonymous note dude and had something to tell me, but didn't once he realized that I was already hitched. Needless to say, I slapped my forehead metaphorically several times in the last few years. 

Communication is the key, which despite all of my talkativeness, was a key I didn't have. And despite all my confidence, insecurity about my looks led me to missed opportunities on multiple occasions. 

Chapter 14: jurithewriter has started writing her story: NDA English school

 

Chapter 14: jurithewriter has started writing her story: NDA English school

The NDA kids studied in NDA English School. The school was established in the 1950s by Jesuit nuns and at some point of time given over to the NDA administration.

From the D2 circle, the road forked onward, one went uphill heading to the E3 residential area, and the other went into the flat valley where the School was nestled at another stretch of the foothill, approximately a kilometer and half from the D2 circle. The school was a pre-primary and primary school and taught up to Class 4 after which one would have to either go to the Kendriya Vidyalaya near the Gol Market or to a school inside Pune city.

The school buildings were old abandoned army barracks, there were two buildings one on either side of the road that ran through the centre going further steep uphill, meeting the E3 road and ending at the farther boundary of NDA which was the Peacock Bay. The building on the left had two classrooms, a lower kindergarten and an upper kindergarten. Beyond was a forest, a narrow track went into the forest where the villagers would enter to collect wood or pass through into NDA, perhaps to work as maids or malis- gardeners. A small tree with white flowers, I remember the tree distinctly but never learned the name, stood gloriously outside the upper kindergarten classroom.

Often times a plane would pass the skies and all the children would rush outside, clapping our hands and screaming ‘aeroplane, aeroplane’ egged on by the teachers.

On the other right side of the road, the barracks were longer and housed classes one to four. As the number of children were few, each grade had just one section. This also had the administrative office and I remember Mrs Malakar, in crisply ironed saris and bob cut hair, with black rimmed glasses sitting behind the desk and peering over the glass rims, looking at the parents when they went to meet her. At home she was Malakar aunty as my parents socialized with the Malakars. Uncle was a Professor and a colleague of my dad.

Our teachers were mostly the wives of the NDA officers, both uniformed and non-uniformed. The uniformed officers were transferred out every two to three years so there would be change in teaching staff accordingly. I have no recollection of any teacher other that Mrs Malakar.

Jumi and I would either be dropped or picked-up to and from school by my father on his scooter or we would walk back home in our beige frocks and red elastic hairbands or ribbons. Walking was a culture in NDA and back then we kids thought nothing of walking across the vast campus from our homes to the movie auditorium (Habibur Hall), or to the swimming pool or the indoor badminton and squash courts or to the café at the Officers mess. I often dream of our picturesque walk from school to home. The virgin forests that we saw on both sides of the road were covered with vast areas of swaying cosmos flowers. The flora was more desert than tropical. The trees had small leaves with thorns and spines interspersed. There were ber trees, berries that were sour and green when raw and yellow and sweet when ripe and dotted the forest floor yellow amidst a green grass carpet. Occasional striped squirrels climbed trees targeting the berries and crossed the roads.  A deer or two would be seen grazing the forest grass and looking curiously at us sometimes. On rainy days, when we would be partly protected by raincoats, a male peacock would be dancing with his feathers fully spread out, trying to woo a peahen. Since the roads were perfect, we would splash into puddles on the edges wetting our black Bata leather shoes. We walked and ran and had springs in our steps. We had puppy love and puppy crushes and those are other stories, perhaps the next one.

The location of NDA English School was shifted to near the Gol Market, I was very sorry to know that when I visited NDA more than a decade back.

 

 

 

Chapter 13: jurithewriter has started writing her story: The incident in the park

 

‘Haw Jaya, itna kyun lipstick lagaya tumne!’

O my God Jaya, why is your lipstick so dark!

That was a politically incorrect statement made by a three year old, but kids are known to state truths, say things exactly the way they perceive it, most adults would squirm- if it was their ward; or laugh it off, internally wanting to strangle the kid, as if the statement of truth didn’t really bother them.

Jaya and Rukma bai were our caretakers. They would take us to the park every evening. Kids younger than five years of age accompanied by their temporary caretakers to the park was a religion in NDA in the 70s. An unstated competition for best dressed wards was an everyday issue during these park visits.  Younger maids like Jaya would also dress up in their own styles. The lipstick comment targeted to Jaya was an observation of her style sense.

Rukma bai was older, married and her daughter Trishna who must have been about a couple of years older to me would often come to our house with their mother and play with us. I have no memories about Jaya, these are borrowed memories from Jumi and Mum. Rukma bai stayed in our lives till much later and I remember her very well. She was always dressed in a nine yard sari, the nauvari, which is draped like a dhoti and then carried over to the upper body like the sari. Rukma bai draped the pallu, covering her head and then bringing the edge forward, tucking a corner of the edge into her dhoti, so that it wouldn’t fall off. She always had a large red vermillion dot on her forehead, a mangalsutra beaded with black beads settling into a pendant of 2 tiny cups between her breasts.

The sun sets at about 7 pm on an average in Pune. The children would play until sunset, there were slides and swings in the park, and stone benches, heavy and curved so that one could rest their backs against them when one sat on the bench. The bench seat was placed on a concrete plank on which the seat would wobble a little if someone shook the bench or jumped on it.

The maids would share stories and gossip of other household saabs and memsaabs, but made sure that the corners of their eyes were perpetually on the wards. Yet accidents happen. There was a sudden scream of pain and loud yelping, Jumi was sitting besides the bench, the middle finger of her right hand was stuck between the seat of the stone bench and concrete plank on which it was placed. All the care takers rushed to help Rukma Bai and Jaya in trying to get Jumi’s finger out. They rushed Jumi to a dispensary just outside the NDA borders, in Rukma Bai’s village, but the doctor there was not available. They then took Jumi to the Military Hospital and the doctors there asked for the parents as it was a bad injury and needed expert surgery.

The parents were at the movies. There were no ways of being able to contact them. Rukma bai and Jaya were terribly scared, not just for Jumi, but also about how to tell my parents about the seriousness of the injury. Once my parents were back, they informed mum and dad about the injury without telling them how bad it was, requested the maid of the neighbouring house to tell them that Jumi needed to be treated immediately, and left.

My parents rushed Jumi to the Military Hospital, luckily a paediatric surgeon was visiting and he expertly sewed and healed back the finger to a workable condition.

Chapter 12: jurithewriter has started writing her story: D2

 

The wives dressed in traditional bridal wear in one of the innumerable NDA parties. Location, my memories say it is the Officer's mess 

The house allocated to my father after the teachers quarters was located in the same sector, called D2. NDA had an enormous campus where it housed all the permanent civilian teaching officers, the uniformed officers from the defence services who stayed for brief periods, all the staff along with their families who handled the non-teaching departmental functions of the Science Block and the Sudan block, the junior commissioned and non-commissioned officers, jawans, and the 300 odd cadets. The precisely set up houses were bracketed into convenient sectors and each sector was identified with an alphabet along with a number. So there was D3, D2, E2, E3 and so on. These were our postal addresses as well.

NDA is a protected wild life sanctuary. All the houses and bungalows were spaced in a way that between the rows of houses would be a wide strip of uncut forest where deer, peafowls, hyenas, foxes freely move around along with snakes, mongoose and a variety of birds.

The D2 area was midway on a hill, flattened naturally for a distance before sloping up further onto E1. One approached D2 from the Officer’s mess at the foot of the hill and drove or walked or cycled over the steep road, crossing a haunted massive imli (tamarind) tree on the left and a beautiful golf course on the right. D2 started where the hill was flattened midway. On the left the road diverged into a circle lined by bungalows, then there were two more roads, one after another on the right, which led to a few more bungalows and all these roads finally converged into the road where D2 would end and D3 would begin. At the farther end of the flat land, the road sloped uphill again leading to E1. At this end of the flat land was the D2 circle, a concrete circle of the height of a bench with pristine white spider lilies on manicured lawn grass on a bed of fertile soil inside the concrete circle. At the centre was a pole with a flag, I think, I don’t exactly remember if there was flag or it was just a solitary pole.

The circle saw three trifurcations, one uphill to E1, one towards the flats (our initial residence) and one towards the approach road from the Officer’s mess. On the right, was a bright red clean unchipped bus stand, next to a bright red post box next to a large cartoon shaped dustbin which said ‘Use me’.

Behind the bus stand was a playground with see-saws and swings, I see dreams of this often, vivid and haunting dreams.

A couple of steps ahead of the bus stop if one turned right one would reach the flats. Just a few feet before reaching the flats, on the left was the centralized pump house from where water to all NDA households was pumped after being run through a filtration process which ensured all of us had access to a twenty four hour supply of crystal clear water. The pump house had several guava trees with plump fleshy guavas. Between the pump house and the flats was a small uphill kutcha dirt track which led to a row of houses in E1, in the next lane, and went through the intervening forest track.

The flats were two storied blocks with four apartments each. They were spacious and the ground level flats had enormous front and backyards. My father’s allocated house was on the first floor. Our immediate neighbour was the Bhutias, from the foreign language department, the Guptas were below us and diagonally opposite were the Georges. In the day time my dad went to office, mum did her MA studies in Pune University, and evenings were spent partying with friends or attending official dinners or going to the movies. Jumi and I were taken care of by Rukma Bai and Rosy in their absences.  As a protocol, kids never accompanied parents to these parties or dinners or movies. The haunting park dreams that I see intermittently are probably from the innumerable evenings spent with Rukma Bai and Jaya in the park.  

Chapter 11: jurithewriter started writing her story: the train journey for Pehi's marriage

 

My father had two sisters. Rohini pehi, was older and was married off about nine years before dad entered matrimony which was just a few months prior to the loss of their home  to the floods the second time. The youngest sister and the baby of the family Baroda, got married about three years after my dad. There was no way that dad would miss this wedding. It was the first wedding in his closest family after they had moved to Pune. Baroda, being the youngest was the favourite in the family. Both my pehis were extremely caring, kind hearted and empathetic. They were far from being the stereotypical ‘nanad’, the bad girls who traditionally created rifts between the brother and his wife.

My mother actually shared a wonderful bond with her sisters in law, perhaps better than what she shared with her husband. She often told me how supportive both her sisters in law were during her brief post marriage stay in Mirza and there was nothing she could fault about their behaviour with her throughout her entire marriage. The pleasure with which she hosted them whenever they visited  and vice versa was palpable to everyone.

Since Jumi was not even a year old, my father decided to attend the wedding taking me along, and leaving Jumi and mum behind in NDA. The long train journey would have been difficult to manage with an infant who was still crawling.

In the first class compartment of the train my father, with his amazing inborn public relation skills, was soon laughing and equipped with the information of his co passengers’ whereabouts. There were just four seats in a first-class compartment, so the seats were quite spacious and comfortably cushioned. Those days there was no air-conditioning and one had to raise or lower the two sets of window panes to open them, which would enter into slots designed into the walls of the trains. On the outside was a sturdy shutter, made of slanting strips of aluminium, somewhat like the blinds that we use these days, and on the inside was a thick strong glass pane, both had to be raised up to shut the windows. 

Food was catered in these trains through good quality on-board caterers. One had to pre order, the volume of food was prepared accordingly. A lucky passenger might get food in a last moment ordering, an unlucky one would have to go hungry till a station was reached. The long distance fast trains like the Howrah express would halt in very few stations, so the wait for a station would sometimes be really lengthy.

Liveried porters would come to collect the preorders well ahead of time. On the first day of boarding, my father had ordered a single lunch meal for himself, which he would share with me. His co passengers started having their home cooked meals and as a courtesy asked my dad what I would eat. My dad informed that we would be sharing the plate. I instantly put my arms around the plate and announced that I wasn’t going to share my plate with anyone. Of course my dad laughed it off, but he was acutely embarrassed.

Naturally, I couldn’t finish off the food, Jumi confirmed this years later when this anecdote was being narrated.

Pehi was in her bridal finery when I started asking for something which no one could figure out. Dad was elsewhere, busy helping with the wedding arrangements. Everyone chipped in, in desperation, trying to get every possible thing a child might want. I was bawling by this time. Finally someone called my dad. I was thirsty and told him ‘mujhe pyaas laga hai’ - Hindi for 'I am thirsty.' Thirst quenched I was back cuddled into my aunt’s comfortable arms.

After the one month or so that we came back to NDA from Mirza post the wedding, Jumi, who was crawling when we had departed, walked into my delighted dad’s arms. Mum and dad must have looked at each other with longing. They were quite the passionate love birds. 

 

Chapter 10: jurithewriter has started writing her story

 

*some names have been changed as I haven’t been able to contact them for their permission

Parmeswar Das, was senior to my father in age yet they were very close, almost like brothers; and he was also dad's mentor in many ways. He was well-read, large, taller than my father, very fair and had a healthy pink glow to his cherubic face. A wealthy timber merchant once, the affluence shrank away with time. I feel the arrogance associated with affluence of the timber merchants brought about a complacency; and the need to keep up with the Joneses made sure there was no use of foresight to save up for the rainy day.

His wife, petite, wheatish, barely five foot tall, as fatless as Parmeswar Das was large, ahead of her times with a wisdom to match, gave my father a hundred rupees when he announced that he was leaving for Pune for his new job. She had three sons. She stated to my dad that her eldest, Gautam, would marry me. It was a verbal betrothal, but I had chosen a different partner before I was marriageable. I had met Gautam when he was studying in the USA in one of our summer vacations to Mirza, found him good looking, intelligent and enjoyed interacting with him. I had developed a teen crush and casually fantasised that our parents had engaged us secretly; and then shrugged off the possibility. At this point of time I was unaware of the verbal promise that had undergone between my father and Mrs Das. I sometimes get annoyed that my parents had not told me about this pact. Things could have been so much different had I known.

One could do a lot with hundred rupees in 1970. It was an enormous amount of money. I think my father’s salary was about four hundred rupees when he joined NDA. My parents had academic and intellectual brilliance, which has its advantages, but this was counterbalanced by their almost complete lack of foresight and management skills. Therefore Mami, Dhiren Mama’s wife was surprised to see them come to spend a lifetime packed with just a trunkful of stuff. Material possessions took a back seat because they got all their “sansarik” satisfaction from their academic verbal spars with each other and with their friends. My father’s History and mother's Political Science educations, were potent subjects for lively debates.

In all the bags that my mother owned, there would be some coins. I would sometimes clean the bags and remove the coins, but they would be back again the subsequent times. In their initial months in NDA, because of their poor money management skills and the hangover from the Mohajan days (live today, the money supply is endless), they would have spent the salary before the month ended. So sometimes, they would require a rupee or two for grocery or something and the two of them would scourge every nook and corner to see if any stray coins could be found. Most times one would be found in my mother’s purse, sometimes it would be in one of the built-in almirahs where the coin might have slipped out from my father’s pockets. Yes they were that bad.

After my mother’s death in 2018 when I scourged through all her possessions, there were coins in each of her purses, and at least three small hand purses full of coins, one each in three different almirahs.  

Chapter 9: jurithewriter has started writing her story

 

Srijut Sarat Chandra Sinha was the Chief Minister of Assam from 1972 to 1978. His son was studying as a cadet in the National Defence Academy and graduated in the year 1973 I think, looking at the black and white photos of our family with the CM. NDA was an institute of prestige and glamour, and in those days, where career options were much fewer, a career in the defence services was much sought after. The 300 odd seats in the country’s premier defence institute were difficult to get into. The entrance exams comprised a clever mix of academic knowledge, intelligence and strategy; and of course physical fitness. The aptitude of anyone who would lead the defence services of a nation needed to be inborn. One either has it or doesn’t have it, so the selection process needs to be designed that way. The Academy ensures that the right person is correctly groomed.

The passing out parades of NDA are held every 6 months. At each POP, the main salute is taken by an invited Head of State, Indian or non-Indian. Various kings and queens of European countries, presidents, prime ministers of several countries have graced the function as state guests. The CM of Assam Sarat Sinha had however come as a parent to a cadet who would be passing out that semester. A very humble person, the Dhoti Kurta, his regular attire, doubly dignified his persona.  It was moment of great pride for my parents to host, as the only Assamese expats in NDA, a serving CM of their state.

I had asked my mum if the CM had any meals at our house. They apparently had only tea and some snacks, but spent a considerable amount of time interacting with my parents. The NDA POP is a grand ceremonial event. The fastidiousness and tenaciousness which is associated to my character by folks-who-know-me-well, is probably a subconscious learning from the perfectness with which all NDA functions and especially all the POP ceremonies are held. The perfectly synced parade steps by the impeccably uniformed cadets, the music band of spotlessly uniformed army personnel- in red linen shirts and black trousers, each of perfectly coordinated length, width and colour; crisply ironed, starched turbans-moving along with the parade in perfectly coordinated steps.

The spotlessly clean parade ground, all officers and their families seated well before time and in a perfectly disciplined pattern. Snacks that were served after the parade in the stadium grounds overlooking the Officers’ mess in symmetrically pulled up khaki tarpaulin tents- each rope with every thread intact and symmetrical in length- all knotted identically,  the spotless white porcelain plates, cups and saucers, the sparkling clean stainless steel cutlery, the perfectly spaced food bowls, which were replenished discreetly so there was never shortage of food, like a five star restaurant inside tarpaulin tents. 

All this was maintained for a count of at the least minimum of a thousand persons, eating simultaneously. The families of the cadets who were passing out were invited to witness the event and everything from their accommodation to food was taken care of by the Academy.

The Chief Minister had come to witness his son’s passing out parade and since he was a serving CM, he was hosted as per the VVIP protocols. Which was why, in the brief period of the two days he was in NDA, my parents did not get the opportunity to serve him a meal. 

 

 

Chapter 8: jurithewriter has started writing her story

My little sister Jumi

I recently realized I live in a time warp, figuratively. Being naturally curious about how the mind functions (as a hobby!), it got me wondering why. 

I concluded it is probably because I am so alone, with nothing but myself to care for and worry about (there’s a whole lot on my plate because I'm alone, in case anyone is thinking otherwise), memories of the past- the good ones, the ones where ‘why me’ questions pop in, the ‘if I had not met someone the mess would not have occurred’ ones, the memories of unexpected angels and wholesome gratefulness.

The feeling of being in a time warp is because at age fifty-one I often go back to when I’m twelve or eighteen or sometimes twenty-five years of age; and it feels like I'm actually there. Some memories are mine, some probably of others, but they all seem real to me.  

Like me, mum was twenty-one years old when she got married. Also like me, she completed her final year degree studies after marriage, living in the college hostel. Unlike me her first child was born a year after her marriage and her second child was born three years post marriage. The spacing between Jumi, my sister and me was likely because mum was breast feeding me. Breast feeding is a good, but not foolproof, way of contraception.

When mum was pregnant with Jumi, she was really pampered. The NDA cosmopolitan culture had predominantly North Indian and South Indian officers back then. There were a few Bengali, Bihari, Marathi, a smattering of Oriya and just one Assamese officer, representing the entire North East India. This demography had changed subsequently to some extent later.

The Assamese don’t really pamper the pregnant. The pregnant continue to do household work as long as possible, food is also the same as our daily meals comprise of vegetables, fish and meat balancing out the protein, vitamins and mineral requirements.  

The Sethis, Saxenas and Hariharans made sure Ma got to eat cream and ghee, clarified butter in plenty; mandatory pregnancy food in their cultures. Ma had joined Pune University for her MA in Political Science, perhaps during her early pregnancy, the result of a lot of encouragement by my father.  She got to take a lot of rest during her second pregnancy. There were two maids and Dad’s office hours ended at 2 pm, so post lunch was siesta time and evenings were spent either visiting colleagues, watching movies in the beautiful NDA auditorium or inviting friends over. There was no television those days so mum would do a lot of knitting, hand embroidery, and brush up her culinary skills with plenty of helpful inputs from my father’s colleagues’ wives and the NDA ladies’ club meetings.  

My mum went for her pregnancy checkups to KEM hospital, Pune. King Edward Memorial Hospital was owned by a Parsee gentleman. At the final check-up a couple of days before mum’s delivery was due, the gynaecologist found out that the baby was breech. Breech babies have difficult deliveries as the baby bums point to the birth passage instead of the head (which is how it is mostly). 

Ma was told that they would have to do a caesarian surgery to get the baby out. Those days caesarian sections were infrequently done. My father worried how he would manage without any family support. The incredibly determined Ma convinced herself that all would be well and a beautiful, chubby, ronga-boga (glowing pink) girl, Jumi was born on the 23^rd of February. My dad was with my mum and the Sethis took the onus of my care during the time mum was in the hospital.

Many of my time warp moments include several such incidents where gratitude overwhelms other emotions, incidents where close family abandoned or were not physically available and survival was enabled by humans who can only be called angels.

Ma was God loving. She had a dedicated prayer space in each of her homes. She adored Lord Krishna and prayed vigorously for a male child during her second pregnancy. The night before her caesarian section a Goddess, attired in radiating white clothes, told her she’s going to have a girl child again and entered her womb in her dreams.

Chapter 7: jurithewriter has started writing her story

 In photos: 

Top: Dhiren mama, mummy, deepak, jumi, me, Mumbai, around 1976

Bottom: the hariharans and the kalitas. 1971, NDA teachers quarters. Radha on the horse, sridhar with his dad and me with mine, left most guy-identity unknown

Dhiren mama would sometimes drop in to my Kumarpara marital home, (post my marriage on the fateful day of 21 January 1992). He had retired a long time back and had built a house in Bharalumukh, near the Bharalu river, which was a small stream like river and joined the Brahmaputra that flowed besides the Bharalumukh-Santipur road. Kumarpara neighboured Bharalumukh and the distance could easily be covered on foot or on a cycle rickshaw. Mama, was quite tall, stooped a little with age, quite fit and always had a beautiful smile adorning his glass rimmed face. I always felt extremely warm and close to Mama, perhaps because of the fondness with which my parents always discussed their stories with Mama and Mami.

Unfortunately, it is only the fondness that got embedded in my memory, I don’t have memories of my mum telling me how she spent the 2-3 month time in their Mumbai home in 1970. Dipika baideo also does not remember too much. As I was writing the previous chapter, I started wondering about how mum must have taken care of me without my dad in a home that was borrowed from someone? What were the feelings and thoughts that might have gone through her mind? How kind must Mama and Mami have been to shelter someone in their home for so many months? How did my Mum feel when she finally left Mumbai to join my father in Pune?

In NDA my father had only been able to manage temporary accommodation in what was called as the Teacher’s quarters. There was a waiting period for the residential quarters which they could move into only once some of the officers had retired and moved out.

The teacher’s quarters were quaint barracks on a small hillock in the D2 area of the NDA officers residential area. NDA is a protected wildlife sanctuary. The construction was made into the natural forest taking all care to maintain the original forest architecture. The roads were paved, all the public areas were aesthetically landscaped predominantly with healthy white lilies, the unconstructed areas had the preserved forest with the local trees, swaying uncut long blades of grass and endless clusters of orange coloured cosmos flowers. The only traffic one came across were the vehicles of the residents going to work or school or attending parties in the evenings. And the occasional spaced out red Pune Municipality buses that would transport residents of the village beyond NDA and the occasional NDA resident who needed to visit Pune city for any reason. As one entered the route to the teachers quarters, one would pass the blood red coloured post box, next to the spotlessly clean bus stop shelter for the PMT bus travellers.

 The Hariharans, lecturer physics department, the Saxenas, lecturer English Department and the Sethis, English again I think, were the families waiting their turn to get a proper quarter. As an infant I was a hyperactive child. My mum would go for walks with the Mrs Hariharan in the evenings, taking her children Radha and Sridhar and me along. I would constantly be running and my Ma shuffling after me shouting

Juri poribi, poribi

Juri wait you’ll fall

Subsequently, Hariharan aunty, who was a Tambrahm, would rush after me whenever she saw me running around and call out

Juri poribi, poribi.

My mum’s written English was impeccable. She had studied in Handique college, Guwahati which imparted education only in the English medium back then in the 1960s. The Hariharan’s spoke English and Tamil only. The Saxena’s and Sethi’s were North Indians and communicated mainly in Hindi. My mother was an intelligent and determined woman. She decided the only way to master spoken English and Hindi was to communicate in these two languages. The mastery was essential to be accepted as a part of the NDA social culture. She therefore started all her communications even with me and my sister (later, of course, after her birth!) in these two languages. Her accent and pronunciations were quite flawless as compared to my father’s distinct Assamese accent that never went away.

 

Chapter 6: jurithewriter has started writing her story

 

In 1997, Vinayakji had come to my Kumarpara home, the house into which I had married. His lush black hair had few strands of white and he was in his regular attire, straight-cut loose white cotton pajama pants; and beige khadi kurta, ending just above the knees. Both were clean-washed but un-ironed. As he sat in the Sora Ghar, the main drawing room of the twenty-five member joint family, making small talk with my husband, he picked up my baby son and sat him on his lap, teasing him playfully. He had come unannounced at around 7 pm on a Sunday evening.

As he played with my son, he told me,

“26 years back tumak loisilu kulat, etia tumar lorak loi asu”, his intonation was conspicuously Marathi even though the language was Assamese.

Twenty six years back I had played with you on my lap and now I’m playing with your son.

His eyes twinkled and he laughed as he said this. I quickly prepared wheatflour puris and fried some pre-boiled potatoes, tempering them with mustard seeds, onions and chillies, for him. Vinayakji was a member of the RSS. He belonged to the ilk that lived in a hostel, ate only vegetarian food, were bachelors (sworn never to marry) and did public service without looking for recognition. 

After a few months of joining NDA as lecturer of Social Sciences, my father returned to Mirza to take me and Ma back with him to Pune. He was missing his family. That will be sometime in the late 1970 or early 1971. The train journey was long, one had to make three changes. During the journey, my father observed a couple of young boys in Khadi pajama kurtas moving among the passengers and putting drops in their eyes. The passengers had red eyes, conjunctivitis or ‘joy bangla’ as it is called colloquially in Assam. Impressed, he started talking to these enthusiastic boys.  One of them was Vinayak Kanetkar, a Maharashtrian Brahmin from Pune, I never asked the name of the other person. He appreciated the RSS culture imbibed by these two boys for the selfless way in which they gave their services and lives, without taking any material gain in return.

The final train change to Pune was from Mumbai. My father stationed my Mum and me in Mumbai in his Mama, maternal uncle’s house, a cousin of my grandmother, Aita from Paragusi. Paragusi was my Aita’s maternal home a few kilometers beyond Mirza. Dhiren Choudhury Mama was a central government officer in the Center of Fisheries Education, then located at Haji Ali and was posted in Mumbai. They lived on the fourth floor of one of the six storied government officers’ living quarters, facing the sea. Mama was just a few years older than my father so we called him Mama instead of Kokadewta. In Assamese there is no separate term for granduncle, all third generation ancestors are called Kokadewta and Aita, whether maternal or paternal.

My father had left for NDA a couple of days after putting us up at Dhiren Mama’s house. It took a couple of months for him to ready the NDA residential quarter, much longer than he anticipated, so Ma and I spent those couple or three months in Mumbai. Mami was surprised at the single small trunk full of things that my parents had brought with them considering they would be spending a lifetime in Pune. I have no recollections of this period, obvious because I was barely a year old then.

Dipika, Mama’s daughter, she is a gynaecologist now, told me she used to love playing with me, I was a little younger than her little brother, and that my mum used to take me down to the sea every evening, and buy six Jahaji bananas for 50 paise daily. Assam has a wide variety of species of bananas. The Malbhog bananas are the most expensive and the healthiest, considered to be almost medicinal. They were smaller than the Jahaji bananas that were the only species found all over Mumbai and Pune. Later when visiting Kerala I did see multiple varieties of bananas, multicoloured ones, but that’s another story.

I remember seeing photos of this Mumbai sojourn, but was unable to retrieve them. I asked Dipika baideo if she had any but their photos were damaged by the 1988 flood waters that entered their Bharalumukh home in Guwahati. 

I suppose Mum didn’t find the sea too different from the massive Brahmaputra river that had taken away her home too. And when I analyze bananas I mean bananas literally.

Chapter 5: jurithewriter has started writing her story

 

Writing Chapter 4 made me wonder many things. I didn’t know the dates of the floods. Dad’s narratives were like fiction, a third party story of someone called Kokadeota, Grandfather, someone who was fiction for us as we had never met him. Being raised in the NDA culture and environment and never having experienced the Palasbari lifestyle made the stories even more fictional, ‘all this happens to someone else, never to us’ kind of fictional.

When I went to Mirza from work last evening, I saw my father’s only surviving brother Arun Khura sitting on the verandah with Khuri, his wife and watching the people and traffic pass by. He is 81 years old, 4-5 years younger than my dad. He told me he didn’t have much recollections of the first time their house was engulfed by the floods, it must have been around the 50’s, but the second time was in 1960 after grandfather had died. They had been put up in a student’s hostel for 2 months, which had been vacated for the flood affected people.

The government then gave them the Mirza plot (a bigha I think) for a premium of Rs 500/- which was a princely amount in 1960. I asked Khura who paid the amount? He told me it was my dad who paid it, he was the oldest in the family and he had somehow managed the funds.

They then constructed a couple of rooms on their newly bought plot with their own hands. The original rooms were of ‘kher,’ straw. What we saw in our visits to Mirza from Pune during vacations was picturesque. A lovely central courtyard with Assam type chambers lining the courtyard. The entrance had a garden with a flowering korobi (oleander) tree, a couple of tamul (betel nut) trees with paan (pipre betel) vines creeping around it, a pomegranate tree and a mango tree too. The hedges surrounding the garden were made of interlocking bamboo sticks. The sticks were cut into half vertically and then weaved. The hedges were to prevent cows and goats from entering into the garden and destroying it.

Aita’s, grandmother’s room was opposite the entrance gate, next to the kitchen and the strongest memories of Aita, were in her hand loom woven white xuta Mekhela Sador, sitting regally on a ‘murha’, a cane stool; and sipping tea in a glass made of ‘kaanh’, bell metal while biting into a piece of jaggery; or pounding the tamul (betel nut which was not dried, special to the north-east part of India, other parts use supari, where the nut is completely sundried) and paan with little bit of ‘chuna’, lime in a ‘khundoni,’ mortal and pestle made of teak wood I think, which was hand crafted and sold by the artisans. There would always be a couple of guests who would be sitting with Aita and catching up on the latest neighbourhood news.

On the right of the kitchen was a gohali (cowshed), where there were 2 or 3 cows and a dheki (a rice grinding equipment), which was used to pound rice to make pithas, pancakes. Neighbouring village women would also use it to pound their rice.  On the left of Aita’s room was the naad, well (deep cylindrical waterhole) which was source of all the water and the water was pulled up with a pulley attached to an aluminium bucket. Behind the well were some kothal, jackfruit trees with huge luscious fruit hanging, but quite smelly, and mango trees.  

These are my memories post 1974 and beyond, when I was old enough to retain some memories. You can imagine why this was like fiction to me if you understand my NDA upbringing. The house in NDA was an apartment with all the amenities in-built. There were taps in the kitchen and bathrooms which had 24 hour water supply of the purest water as NDA had a very sophisticated filtration and water transportation system even back them.  The roads were paved, each public area was landscaped and maintained by expert gardeners. We moved around on scooters, bicycles and our feet.

NDA also was like a village but with houses that were built into the existing forest, preserving the forest architecture, albeit with amenities which were far more ahead compared to the rest of the country. 

For those of you who haven’t seen the other picture ever, it will still seem like fiction, someone else’s story.

 

Chapter 4: jurithewriter has started writing her story.

The floods took away our Palasbari houses twice. I remember my dad telling us this fact. The first time it was before my paternal grandfather Rajat Chandra Kalita (Sotal Mohajan) died. The second must have been after his death because none of my father’s Mirza anecdotes included my grandfather.

When the floods were wolfing away the homes, entire families watched from a safe distance and wailed at the loss of their safe haven. A home is where we all feel safe, secure and protected. I understand this emotion better now as I am at a similar crossroad. Before this it was just another wondrous story. That safe place was gone. I never thought to ask my father about what they did to cope and how did they manage as evacuees till their next home was built or how did they even build new homes.

The home on the one bigha Mirza plot was a design archetypal of the fifties’. There was a central rectangular courtyard with single level Assam type chambers lining the rectangle. When I started having glitches in my life, the frustration of being stuck in an Abhimanyu’s Chakravyu led me to the study of the alternative sciences of astrology, numerology, Vaastu and Fengshui. As I started spending more and more time with my father after he had advanced dementia in his Mirza home, I found out that the originally erected Assam type house was as per Vaastu norms. I was amazed.

The old structure is no longer there. It has been replaced by four concrete houses by the 4 sons of my grandmother Soneswari Kalita. My memories and what I was told by my parents is muddled, don’t know which is a memory and which is an anecdote. Being the first child of the oldest male sibling made me special. The disappointment of begetting a girl child was soon forgotten. My four Khuras, paternal uncles and one Pehi, father’s sister adored the first and only baby in the family after many years.

Tori khura was my dad’s youngest brother. Aita, my grandmother, had told me that she had tried to use hing, asafetida as an abortifacient as she didn’t want another child so late in her life. She already had 7 children. Tori khura was mentally disabled, Aita regretted that the hing made him so. Dad told me that he had typhoid meningitis. That could also be a reason.

Tori khura loved drumsticks (Moringa pods, sojona in Assamese). He was very popular in the village community. Any visitor to our home would be guided instantly without confusion if the person was asked directions to Tori’s house.  He had a lot of friends and was welcome wherever he went. The ladies would give him drumsticks from their sojona trees and he would take the entire bunch to my mother and tell her ‘de de randhi de’, ‘hurry up and cook these’. He adored my mother and my mother loved him like a child.

Tori khura once got a Bajaj scooter in a lottery, he was lucky that way. He sold the scooter and bought a cycle. He then sold the cycle and bought a live chicken. And then got it cooked and ate it. My mum told me this story in 2012 when she predicted that my driver Jatin would do a similar thing when he sold his Nano car to buy a motorbike. I scoffed at her. Of course, I was wrong.

Tori khura died of TB in 1988 or 89 when I was in the 2^nd or 3^rd year of my MBBS course. My father rushed from Pune for his death ceremony and wept like a baby. It surprised me. The surprise at strong bonds was because as a child one is unable to fathom that parents too had their individual families once.

Reference for Abhimanyus Chakravyuh (for those who don't know about it:  http://mahabharata-research.com/military%20academy/the%20mysterious%20chakravyuha.html

Chapter 3: jurithewriter has started writing her story

Everyday I drive home to Mirza this is the route I pass through. I love this journey not just for its beauty but also as it reminisces the cycle tours of the periphery road of NDA, Pune. 

I started walking and talking at the age of nine months. No, that didn’t give me any edge in life. But it did make me tug on the tails of stray dogs and follow them around. The point that’s being underscored here is that the dogs didn’t object to their tails being pulled and never harmed the little baby Juri.

I could see the awe and wonder in my father’s eyes whenever he told this story.

About the same time my father came across an advertisement in a newspaper (he was a lecturer in DK College Mirza then) for a Central Government job through UPSC. Bharat Chandra Kalita was sharp (reason for passing through the fire of life unscathed), had great people skills and lack of fear for the unknown. From a remote (in 1970, Mirza was quite remote) part of the country, against advice from his peers and seniors (getting this job is impossible they said, he was just wasting his money), he booked a train ticket and reached Delhi.

His command over English was pretty okay, but he spoke it with a distinct Assamese accent. The syllables ‘Ch’, ‘Sh’ and ‘V’ do not exist in the Assamese script so every ‘ch’/’sh’ syllable is pronounced as ‘s’; all the consonants are rounded , so Arvind becomes Aurobindo). He topped the interview answering a difficult question easily and was selected for a Lecturer’s post in the prestigious National Defence Academy, Pune.

Dad lived in the Officer’s mess in NDA for a few months before returning home to get my mum and me to join him. There was a swimming pool adjacent to the Officer's mess and it was visible from the balconies of the mess rooms. My father’s eyes popped out figuratively when he saw the ladies in their swim suits. He had only seen them in Hindi movies earlier.

Alone in Mirza, the joint family members were there of course, but mum was struggling to take care of me without the father of the child. She had just completed her BA in Political Science and had joined as a teacher in a local school. I had breakouts in my skin and was delirious with fever. From whatever she described it was probably a combined infection of measles and chicken pox. In traditional Assam, poxes are not treated. Poxes are called “Ai”, “Mother Goddess.” Such infected are worshipped, non-vegetarian food is prohibited.

I was dying, my pox lesions had been super infected with bacteria but the elders kept dabbing holy water and worshipping the baby. Lila Kalita defied everyone and took me to a doctor. She never gave up easily. This was the first out of the two times she made sure her first born survived. The doctor gave antibiotics and it was a miracle for the village folk that I survived.

The miracle actually was the defiant mother I had inherited, lucky for me that I had no say in that choice.

Chapter 2: Jurithewriter has started writing her story.

These two are dad, Bharat Chandra Kalita ; and my mum, Lila Kalita. They were both as delectable as they look and with dispositions to match. My dad’s friends would tell me whenever we visited Mirza (I was raised and lived in Pune till 17 years of age) that dad and mum were seen as one of the most perfect marital alliance in the region and the moment the alliance was declared, everyone was in awe about how brilliant and beautiful their kids would be.

Well, it doesn’t usually work out that way.

So, the fact of the matter is that they were both good looking, academically brilliant (toppers in their respective times), dashing, articulate. Humans are never satisfied with what they have.

Let me tell you by example.

Palasbari, that’s where my roots lie (although I’ve never actually lived there), used to be a flourishing township on the banks of the mighty Brahmaputra in the early 1900s. The economy of the region used to be controlled by the Mohajans. Sotal Mohajan was an affluent timber and silk trader, his trade having reached as far as Sikkim. The Mohajans led a grand lifestyle in those times. Naturally, so did Sotal Mohajan and his 8 children. Like the seasons, life changes, unlike the seasons though not with the same predictability. Nevertheless, any alliance with the Mohajans was considered a privilege and glamorous.

Each rupee that was stashed away under Sotal Mohajans’ mattress disappeared along with his breath while being treated for a serious ailment. His eldest child, Bharat, begged the grocer to give him materials required for the death rituals promising him he would pay it back later. He was just 12 years old.

Durgeswar Kalita was regal, had European looks with light coloured irises and an entire family to match. He had a transferable government job in the agriculture department, was fluent in English and his family was an outlier in the smorgasbord that was formed by the innumerable ethnicities that makes up the North Eastern part of India.  His second child was clever, brilliant, stubborn and his favourite. Lila Kalita was raised with a lot of love, pride and privilege.

After Lila and Bharat got married, despite their pedigrees, they weren’t impressed with what they saw in each other. That didn’t stop them from giving birth to me a year after their marriage. I didn’t look like either of them and was quite a cry baby. Apparently mum would stand me in the centre of their courtyard when I would stubbornly decide not to stop the bawling and egg me to increase my decibels further.

Juri, aru jure (kaand)

Juri, (cry) louder.

And I would oblige.

Post scriptum: Let me wind up today by fixing the ‘loose ends.’ For those of you who are not from Assam, Mirza and Palasbari are twin townships. You could compare Mirza to New Delhi and Palasbari to Old Delhi. The Brahmaputra changed its course over the years, every monsoon the floods would devour homes of the Palasbarians. Those who lost their land then shifted to Mirza which neighboured Palasbari but on the farther side of the river. More about this later.

 

Chapter 1: jurithewriter has started writing her story

 

Everyone has a story. This is my story. Not that it is something exceptional, I just enjoy playing around with words and the process of airing my inner contemplations through writing. I come from a family of writers. Like most musicians or painters or dancers come from families that have these respective art forms inborn into their beings.

As with other art forms, writing is a flow, its natural, there is an esthetics to good writing, an originality, it’s a gift from the Universe, and it has a soul. One doesn’t write for an audience, one writes because one wants to express oneself though a medium. I do tend to digress during my ramblings, a little like the abstract art forms where the expressions get a little mixed up.

So back to my story.

It’s the problem I have with handling intimate relations that somehow confuses me. I mean there’s nothing confusing about it, it’s just that I’m incapable of handling such relations, that’s pretty clear; the confusion lies in the why. Why am I incapable, whereas other normal human beings aren’t.

Let me start with the story of my birth. I did come into existence approximately nine months before my birth, but that part of the story will be shared later.

I was born in Mahendra Mohan Choudhury hospital, Guwahati. My mum’s labour pains lasted the whole night through, you all know how intensely painful labour pains are. The clocked time for my delivery in the gynaecologist's delivery note is 10.07 am. That’s a really long period of bearing the labour pains. As a doctor, I know that the time taken for a primipara (a first time pregnant woman) is the longest. In subsequent pregnancies, the time gets shorter as the uterus and birth canal openings have been prepped by the first delivery.

That was in 1970, in a rural Assamese family. Everyone wanted the first born child (and perhaps all subsequent ones) to be males. Perplexes me trying to figure out that if all kids were male, who would give birth to them if there were no females around. You know, the chicken and egg story basically.

To make things worse, some Goddess had appeared in my mother’s dream when she was pregnant assuring her that her first born would be male. But look what happened, I am the first born and I was born unambiguously female. Obviously, there was disappointment all around, everyone feeling sorry for my mum. My grandfather had come to see me in the hospital. When he went back home, his 7 children and wife surrounded him eagerly, waiting to hear about their new niece.

How does she look, they asked.

Sotal Mohajanor natini, sotal e hoise.

Sotal Mohajan was my paternal grandfather. He was extremely fair, pink and fair, but he had a flat nose. Therefore the nickname Sotal (his actual name was Rajat). A courtyard is called Sotal in Assamese. His nose was as flat as a courtyard.

Sotal Mohajanor natini sotal e hoise. The granddaughter of Sotal Mohajan is also Sotal. That was a reference to my nose.

Another dimension

 How does it feel when one loses both parents in  span of 2 odd years? I should know, but I don't. Will make an attempt to explain the paradox!

4 years back, my parents' home was a vibrant place because both were vibrant personalities. Popular, social, outspoken, courageous. Their home witnessed guests everyday, all guests have pleasant gastronomic memories. My mum had excellent culinary skills, one out of her many skills. The "old" couple never compromised on their meals, menus were never repeated for at least a week. The last twenty-five years they lived alone, post retirement and back to their hometown Mirza, after spending the earlier twenty-five years in the National Defence Academy, Pune. 

We were devastated when we discovered Mum had a hard breast lump, a secret she hid very successfully as she did not want to bother her children. It was Stage 4, surgery, the sure-shot cure for breast cancer if detected in the early stages, was ruled out. With medicines she survived for 2 more years. Post her death, we discovered Dad had dementia, another secret effectively hidden by my Mum. She had told her sisters to keep dad in an old age home after her death as "Juri wont be able to manage him." But Juri managed him. Juri was too scared to become an orphan, to be alone. Two and a half years later Dad too was gone. He knew his time of death and had told me about it. I had mistakenly assumed I could fight destiny. 

Dad was a writer, a fighter, a socialist, an excellent orator and had an exceptionally sharp and brilliant mind. A glance across the room and he would understand what I wanted to say. My mum was equally brilliant and we witnessed a lot of academic parries on the dining table. They took care of me on their own when my forty two year old body underwent bone marrow transplant and I had no other caretakers.

So do I miss them? I don't think so. Do I love them? More than ever before. I sense their presence everywhere. In another dimension for sure, but everywhere.