Remembrance

by admin

May 19, 2020

4003

I must have been two years old when my dad’s older cousin and his family returned home after some years in the US. Rumy had spent summers in Baroda, studied at university there and was as close to my dad and his younger brother as if he was their own brother. He met and married Veena, a charming and lovely addition to our family. She hailed from a family of freedom fighters and educationists, and had sat on Gandhiji’s lap as a child. They were both employed as teachers at the university, as was my mother. The two couples were good friends. Rumy and Veena even dropped in with their little baby, the oldest of my cousins, to meet my mum and dad honeymooning in Mt Abu. Some years later, they moved to the US, to study and to teach. I was born while they were away. My brothers and cousins were all clustered together, born four years in a row and then there I was, seven years later, the only girl and baby of the family.

Back in the early 1970s, international flyers were met with great pomp and ceremony. My dad travelled from our sleepy little university town to the big city, where he escorted Veena’s mummy to the airport to receive the family. As they waited in the Arrivals lounge, they watched the family walk across the tarmac. Freny aunty, it was later related with much hilarity and so often that I feel I must have been there too, clutched my dad’s arm in alarm at the sight of her daughter cradling what appeared to be a brand new addition to the family in her arms. Nusla, she gasped, have they had a third child and not even told me? My dad, only half sure that it wasn’t a baby Veena was holding, reassured his cousin’s mother-in-law without really any conviction. Much to Aunty’s relief, it wasn’t a surprise baby but a fluffy brown teddy bear almost as big as a toddler, or in this case, as big as the recipient of this magnificent gift: me. I have a vague memory of being rather wary of it in the beginning, but that bear became my boon companion for all my growing years, travelling with me from Baroda to Cochin to Madras. He sat in a corner of my room, the most comforting and non-judgemental friend a girl could wish for. He was reluctantly gifted to my niece only after I was married.

My new cousins took me into their home and their hearts and I fell in love with them – the two handsome, smiley boys, my lovely, gentle aunt and my funny, clever uncle. They lived in a quirky flat in the university staff quarters one street away from our house, a distance I could cover on my fat toddler legs, or even, with some help, on my faithful tricycle. They had returned with a large sleek double door fridge, a novelty in an era of squat little refrigerators. One of my earliest memories is of a sunny afternoon in their kitchen. I knelt on a dining room chair, rocking back and forth in anticipation of the huge bowl of aamras and hot rotlis that was to be my afternoon treat. Veena kaki turned away to get the snack, and I rocked a little too violently. I was tipping over and into that solid fridge door before she could react. A little scar on my chin is the only reminder of the tearful scene, the hysterics caused by the needle approaching my chin to stitch it up, the huge bandage that decorated my chin at the next family occasion, and the loving recounting ad infinitum of my legendary love for aamras rotli and consequences thereof.

I found everything about that untidy, Bohemian flat fascinating. My cousins shared a warren-like bedroom, filled with lego pieces, cycle helmets and model airplanes. The balcony outside was crammed with hanging plants and stacked bicycles and the living room…that was my idea of heaven. Books crowded every available surface, there was the most beautiful revolving book case that could keep me entertained for the entire evening and music played endlessly – Rumy owned a record player that stacked four or five LPs, the absolute cutting edge technological marvel of 1974.

Everyone read or created, hummed or whistled. The walls were hung with paintings and textiles from North east India or from North America. There were interesting artifacts and knick-knacks scattered everywhere. Nothing was out of bounds, everything within exploring reach. In short, their home was a treasure chest for a little girl to delight in. It was a happy home, much like my own, and I remember always feeling very loved and very safe there.

Rumy, as we were all instructed to call him once we turned ten or so, wore collared shirts, usually in a fine check with the sleeves rolled up, and baggy trousers. His face was creased with laughter lines and he sported a thin moustache. His voice was hoarse and had a slight wheezing quality, especially when he laughed. He chuckled and chortled, his thin shoulders shaking with merriment, eyes crinkled and the laughter spells would invariably end in a fit of coughing. Rumy and my aunt laughed merrily and laughed often. He had a wicked sense of humour and loved nothing more than to tease and prank the ones he loved. We had grown up listening to the stories of the crazy stunts he had pulled on unsuspecting family members. These were the stuff of legend, especially the Seblu-cha-dusca episode. Rumy, my dad and his younger brother, that triumvirate of terror, young and full of beans, had chosen for the innocent victim their cousin sister, sheltered and shy, who had come to study in Baroda. A new restaurant had recently opened and they declared that the Italian icecream, fancifully named Seblu-cha-dusca, was the best thing on the menu. Off went the cousin with her gaggle of girlfriends to try this amazing icecream. The poor waiters denied all knowledge of the dish and had to face the sharp edge of the young lady’s tongue, who stormed out after complaining that her cousin brothers had been served the icecream and that this was nothing but gender discrimination. But the joke didn’t end there. The cousin told her aunts, my grandmother and grandaunt, about this wonderful icecream. And the old ladies toddled off, dressed in their Sunday best, to savour the treat. They came back, red-faced and rebuffed, and smelling a rat from years of past experience of the boys’ pranks. The boys were given a dressing down and made to apologise to their cousin sister. My Shirin fui never quite forgot the incident. One only had to mention the word Seblu-cha-dusca for her to turn red, and then laugh ruefully at the innocent girl she had been before once again lambasting the three culprits for embarassing her all those years ago.

Rumy and Veena kaki had their own spots in that sprawling living room, both curled up in mirror images of each other. My uncle would sit on a low slung easy chair, wide brown canvas strips interwoven over a wooden frame, one of a pair. I loved those chairs. They gave easily to your shape, and springily cradled you. Rumy’s sitting posture was all angles – knees drawn up and feet curled under, head cocked. Or he would stretch out, ankles crossed, head thrown back. All the while, his hands and fingers would be busy – lighting a cigarette, gesticulating to emphasise a point or scratching the high dome of his gnome-like head. His bright eyes twinkled as he cracked endless jokes or as he won arguments against all comers. This was a home of teachers, that was clear even to a young child. There was always a lively debate in that living room, students walking in and out, university colleagues popping by, and often there would be two or three conversations happening simultaneously in different corners of the room. Rumy would listen attentively to everyone, ruminating over all angles before giving his unique slant to the day’s topic. Children were free to interrupt in adult conversations. He never talked down to us, just brought the topic to our level of comprehension and carried on, as would any fine teacher. He really was Puck, as so many friends and admirers have described him. Wise, without the burden of weightiness. Clever, without the cutting edge of sarcasm.
Witty, and often self-deprecating, without malice or spite. Generous, with his time and knowledge, without ever asking in any way for repayment. Pay it forward, seemed to be his unspoken request and hundreds of his students and friends readily accepted his challenge.

He was the only adult who apologised to a sixteen year old me for the loss of my brother – though he was a counsellor to so many troubled kids in the university, he confessed that he felt he had failed in this case. He hadn’t been there to help this special young man, who had grown up in front of his eyes, ‘like my own son’, he said to me, ‘I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for him to talk to’. Those words helped me through the many years of guilt and remorse that followed my brother’s death.

When I dropped out of a master’s programme at university, Rumy patiently heard out my incoherent explanations. He never said a word of reproach though I knew that he and Veena kaki had put in a quiet word along with my application. I was too ashamed and too immature to apologise for the trouble I had put them through. Instead, as I flailed around, they simply pointed me down a different path and a master’s degree in a new field of study.

Our relationship evolved as I grew older. They became my closest confidantes, and I turned to them again and again for advice, guidance or a patient discussion of problems and solutions. When I casually mentioned that I didn’t like being called by my family nickname anymore, Rumy did not ignore me like other family members. Instead, he made the most concerted efforts to always call me by my full name. He really listened…even when I thought no one was listening.

On my wedding day, my three uncles, led by Rumy, were transformed into bashful school boys as my new husband introduced them to their childhood cricket hero. They shook hands shyly, murmured a few incoherent words to the great man and then spent the rest of the evening gleefully recounting the incident. At the end of the evening, the family sat down to dinner. Rumy took one look at the wedding feast and declared, ever present twinkle in those eyes, that it was barely adequate. Where were the gur per eeda (eggs poached on a bed of curried bone marrow – an archaic wedding menu item), he plaintively complained. That was the least he had expected from his niece’s wedding menu and its absence was something he lamented each time we met after that. I’d cook an elaborate meal, he’d tuck in, then sit back, a naughty smile tugging at his cheeks. Just as I’d be basking in everyone’s compliments on my cooking, a quiet voice would ask – but when do we get to eat the gur per eeda? And the entire family would collapse in laughter. The more exasperated I grew, the more the teasing and the ribbing continued.

But finally came the day when I pulled off the impossible – I left the legendary wit and prankster speechless. After conspiring with my aunts, the uncles were invited over to my place for brunch. We ladies had spent the morning digging marrow out of a pile of cooked mutton bones. Do you know how many mutton bones you need to get a single substantial serving of marrow? A lot. Still, it was so worth the effort. The uncles sat down at the table, and I ceremoniously placed a small dish in front of Rumy. He poked at it suspiciously. Gur per eeda, I said demurely. Please, go ahead, eat it all.

And Rumy sat there, dropped jaw and stunned expression, before heroically admitting defeat and eating a few mouthfuls of the calorie-dense and indigestible goop. We laughed about it for years afterwards, describing to each other the expression on his face, the rare speechlessness, the sweet revenge.

Rumy would greet me not with a hug and kiss, but with both bony hands gripping my shoulders and a beaming smile. Or he would cup my face and give me a penetrating stare from his brilliant eyes, asking all the right questions and finding his answers in my eyes without a word being said.

He and Veena kaki have been my rocks of support, when I was dealing with my teenage angst or when I was dealing, years later, with teenaged kids of my own. They would gently and humorously calm me down, matter of factly bring my dramatics to a halt, reminding me of not so long ago when I was the difficult teen. My kids adore them, they have been the very best sort of senior family members my kids could have known – young in thought, wise at heart, eager to listen and happy to share. When my younger son made it to a prestigious Engineering programme earlier this year, I was in two minds about the college itself. The only person whose opinion mattered to me was Rumy – I listened on the phone as Veena kaki told him about the admission, and his murmur of approval was the clincher for me.

The very last time we met, Rumy lay in a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes and monitors, fidgety as always. When I was leaving, I bent to kiss his cheek. He groped for my hand and kissed it. Then he gave me his sweet smile and nodded to me. So this one time, I cupped his face in my hands, stared into those eyes, and nodded back to him. All was said and understood. A lifetime of love and support, gratitude, respect and pride passed between us and at the last, we wished each other a safe onward journey. No goodbyes.