'Baanjh'

Sud and I had decided to wait a year before planning a family. When we thought the time was right we excitedly got down to business, only to discover nothing was happening and there was no good news to announce. After a few months went by I began to worry, but was convinced by the ladies who knew it all that these things were unpredictable and I should not stress. "Don't dwell on it" I was repeatedly advised, which just made me want to bop them in their smug faces as it is like saying "If you don't think of a green elephant I will give you a million bucks!" Taboo images are all that keep one preoccupied  - even if it is just the brain working in overdrive to keep visions of exotic animals or in my case babies at bay.

After a year of disappointment I began to do the doctor rounds and everyone I saw reassured me there was nothing wrong with either of us and we should just be patient. I would have my fingers crossed every month and when there was the tell tale sign of 'no luck' I would weep in my husband's arms. We would go out to parties where I would see mothers feeding their tiny tots and come home in depression. My neighbour in Tezpur produced a little girl and I went across with gritted teeth to do the needful 'oohing' and 'aahing', only to be told in no uncertain terms that she would rather I  not pick up the child since I was a sterile 'baanjh' and so might put the evil eye on her little one. 'Baanjh' is a derogatory word used for women who cannot have children.

Then there were those knowledgeable biddies who came up with the most fantastical suggestions of what I should do to conceive. Strange contorted positions were recommended, times of the month and in which direction to face were suggested and I was even given a vial of Sai Baba's supposedly holy ashes to do unmentionable things with. My poor husband went along with all my bizarre requests with a helpless and worried expression, though he stopped short of actually telling me that maybe I was behaving in a completely daft and irrational manner.

The strange thing is that I am not a superstitious person by nature but had got to that desperate stage when I was willing to try anything, anyway, anyhow. When I did finally conceive, only to miscarry a couple of weeks into the pregnancy and was then informed that I could never have children due to complications that ensued, I felt a strange sense of relief that the whole situation was now out of my hands.

The other paradox was that I had never been a particularly maternal sort of person and always preferred puppies to babies. I could  never bring myself to 'cootchie-coo' other peoples newborn bundles, but being told that I would never have one of my own was soul shattering. Even then it was more the idea that Sud would never be a father, or that my parents would be deprived of grandchildren that was more heart breaking than anything else.

Ill Health and Goodbye

The last year of our tenure in Tezpur saw both Sud and me suffering from ill health. He developed a bad allergy, which I was convinced was caused by something in the lush greenery of the countryside. Some folks suggested it might be the cats, but I argued that in the 'basha' we had lived closely with the animals and not faced any problem. It was much later, when I did more in depth research, that I discovered that sensitive reactions have the potential to build over a period of time. My poor husband was in dreadful shape with severe respiratory problems and  had to be put on steroids as a result of which he could not fly. I have never kept another cat since then as he is now so touchy that he immediately begins to wheeze even if a feline is innocently prowling somewhere in the vicinity.

We had started planning a family as well and I conceived only to miscarry a few weeks into the pregnancy. I was admitted to the Military Hospital were the doctors did what they had to do, but I found  the bleeding would not stop and I was running high fever accompanied by a crippling back ache. When I returned for a consult I was told I had an infection and was given the usual antibiotics. I did not feel any better and was in a miserable and weakened condition when news came that we were posted to Pune, to the new MiG-29 squadron that was forming there. I sadly said my goodbyes to Tezpur in a sorry and debilitated state as I followed a silly tradition of my own every time we moved, of making a quiet round of the house saying thank you walls, thank you kitchen, thank you chairs, thank you beds while touching everything one last time.
I decided to take a break in Saraya where it was diagnosed that I had a ruptured uterus. The doctors said I would never be able to conceive as my fallopian tubes had been blocked by scar tissue resulting from the severe infection that I had endured for so long.

It took months for me to recover from this ordeal though I was in depression at the idea of not having children. I was never a particularly maternal sort of person, but once I was told that it was an impossibility, the hankering for offspring naturally and irrationally grew into an obsession. I narrated woe begone dialogues to Sud saying he could marry again or leave me, because I knew he would have made a wonderful father. He glared at me and told me to stop being melodramatic as he claimed he loved me and did not particularly need or want a baby making machine. He was always supportive and understanding, though I must admit I did wallow in self pity for quite a while after and made his life quite miserable.

Dulangmukh, Kaziranga, Shillong

View from the quadrant and the only fish we saw

Once every few months Sud would be deputed to go as the Range Safety Officer to Dulangmukh, which is where aircraft would go for live gunnery practise at the range there. I accompanied him on one of these trips and after flying to the remote and now defunct airfield of Zero and then jolting along non existent roads, we reached the crude living accommodation that was there for the RSO's. We spent a lovely few days where I would go with my husband to the quadrant in the early morning and watch in complete fascination as the pilots did their firing and bombing routine. I remember the thrill of having Amul zoom cheekily low and announce over RT that he could see I was wearing a blue sweater! We took long walks into the dense jungle and along the Subansari river which is the largest tributary of the mighty Brahmaputra. We had enthusiastically carried all our fishing tackle but unfortunately discovered that this waterway was so polluted that only  small dead fish floated along its banks. We  would return to our humble lodgings in the chill of the evening to happily snuggle into cosy sleeping bags never once complaining that there was no electricity, running water or any other kind of  modern day comfort.

Kaziranga

We drove to the Kaziranga wild life sanctuary which was about 80 kilometres away on our trusted Yezdi bike and that too was a wonderful experience. We were there  in the breeding season so all the animals had babies and it was thrilling to see them roam free in their natural habitat. Besides plenty of deer and wild elephants we did get charged at by an indignant and protective mama rhino who was looking out for her little one. The 'mahout' yelled blue murder and threw his 'ankush' at the angry creature who put on the brakes in confusion at all the noise giving the elephants time to do a right about turn and move respectfully away. When my mother visited a few months later we made another trip to the game reserve and this time stayed with friends at one of the tea estates. I think that was one of the only times I wondered if maybe I had married a man in the wrong profession!

Waterfall in Shillong and the tiniest baby elephant I have ever seen in Kaziranga

We did the drive up to to Shillong as well which was the longest bike ride I had ever undertaken. I remember my back felt quite broken by the end of the 250 kilometre journey since for some reason I stubbornly insisted on carrying our rucksack instead of listening to Sud's suggestion of letting him put it on the fuel tank in front. I was wearing my dark glasses all the way and was most horrified to see I had got badly tanned except for under the goggles so ended up embarrassingly looking like a raccoon. We only stayed here a couple of days and it was only years later when we were posted to this beautiful part of the country that we could explore it more at leisure.

Life in Tezpur




Lalima, Me, Umesh with Antara, Cooper and Sud  ready to play Holi



In the mid eighties life  in the Air Force was relatively simple. The only ones who owned TV's and VCR's were those who had the good fortune to have done a tenure in Iraq.We bought our first TV just after Indira Gandhi was assassinated in October 1984, as we would have to walk down to the mess to watch the latest news which was quite an inconvenience. I remember looking forward to Hum Log, Buniyaad and the Sunday film which the servants and their kids would all congregate to watch with us. There was also an open air auditorium where we logged every single movie that came, either sweltering in the humidity, huddled under umbrellas in the rain or freezing in the cold.



Sud, Ritu,Mum, KB, Bhanu and Varsha at Tipi



Calling on fellow officer's or bouncing was considered a fun evening's entertainment. Bouncing, as I explained earlier was a tradition when folks would drop in unannounced, usually in the wee hours of the morning, demanding a meal or coffee. The lady of the house would have to rustle up something or the other no matter what the time or mood. I personally was never a fan of this custom but always did the needful whenever hungry faces turned up at the front door. The youngsters would sometimes insist on taking over the kitchen and on one occasion I remember them manufacturing some egg 'bhujiya' which was really tasty. The next morning on opening the fridge I discovered some pork mince was missing and realised with horror that the drunken men had mixed it in with the eggs and cooked it for just as much time as it takes to scramble the 'andas'.



Cawas and Pat

 I was still an introvert and did not make friends easily and it was the CO's wife Rani Bhatia who advised me to try and open up a bit since people were labelling me a snob. This is when I began downing a couple of rum 'n' cokes at get togethers, since I found they helped in loosening me up a bit. Rani took me under her wing and I always think of her with the deepest affection. Unfortunately she lost her husband in a crash a few years later and we completely lost touch.



Amul, Jojo and Don



Seema Mukul was someone who I grew close to as well. We both bought bicycles and would be seen zooming around camp  happily doing canteen and grocery shopping. Amul Kapoor and his lovely wife Chitra always welcomed us into their homes at any time of the day or night. Lalima and Umesh Shastri lived upstairs and we would sometimes organise our parties together. I would make the meat and sweet and Lalima would do the vegetables and 'daal' and then we would exchange half of what we had cooked. We were in different squadrons and always kept our fingers crossed that our guests would not crisscross and discover our secret catering arrangement.

Rani and late MS, Neelu and late Cooper, Ritu and Pakoda, Lily and Aru, Seema and Don, Chitra and Amul, Ritu and KB Singh, Sarita and Polly, Cawas, Pat and Ajay were some of the people who made Tezpur a wonderful place for me! Thank you all wherever you are!

Mouse

Oh dear, a Mouse

When we moved into the permanent accommodation allotted to us I inherited a resident cat, who responded to the  unimaginative name of Puddy. She was an affectionate old thing and had been looked after by the previous occupants so I happily took over as her care giver.

One morning I was sitting out on the veranda sipping my morning cup of tea, when I saw Puddy rushing along with something small and black in her mouth. I grimaced with disgust thinking she had caught a mouse, but when she dropped the sodden object at my toes I realised it was just a  new born kitten. I had never seen such a tiny little thing and picked it up gingerly not really knowing what to do. I decided to make a cosy home in the guest room for my feline family and would leave a window permanently open so mother cat could come and go as she pleased.

who grew and grew into

The little one grew into this amazingly beautiful jet black tom whom I adored as my own child. Unfortunately the name that came to mind when I first saw him was what my baby was called - Mouse! I felt a deep unexplainable affinity for this animal and never having brought up a cat before I came to realise what fun, funny and entertaining creatures they can be. Once while walking home in a drizzle after a party late one night, I was met by a wet and bedraggled bunch of fur who had been patiently waiting under a bush for me all the while. I remember thinking that this did not seem to be typical behaviour for a cat, from what I had heard and read.
My friend Lalima lived upstairs and she definitely did not share the same adoration I felt for my pet. I was startled to see her in a very angry mood at my door one afternoon and asked her what the problem was. She demanded that I immediately change the name of my stupid cat and I laughed hysterically when I heard the reason why she was insisting on this. She had been summoned to her daughter Antara's school by a very worried class teacher who gently told Lalima that there seemed to be a problem. Antara was a bright girl in many ways, she stated, but  just could not understand why every time she was shown a picture of a cat or asked to spell the word, she would seriously insist that C-A-T was Mouse!

Mouse fell ill a year and a half later with some sort of bronchial problem and I was totally helpless since there were no vets around whom I could consult. My heart shattered when he died in my arms just a couple of days later. I wrapped him in a fancy black shawl and asked my husband to dig a little grave for him in the back garden. I sensed Sud wanting to say something about the expensive shroud but he saw my pathetic state and held his peace. Everyone around knew how shattered I was and I had people coming over to commiserate and say how sorry they were for my loss, as if God forbid, someone in my family had passed away.

Once I got over the grieving I felt it was somehow for the better since we would have had to leave Mouse behind when we moved out on posting, which I think would have been more difficult for me. My baby had a short life but it was a comfortable and happy one and I would never have to worry about how he was managing without his mama, or if someone was taking care of him the way I did.

MOUSE

The Beautiful East

We were allotted a permanent accommodation after eight months in the 'basha', so could finally unpack all our worldly goods and set up house properly. We lived in Tezpur over three years, which was the longest tenure that we ever stayed in one place in all our time in the Air Force.

I loved everything about this wild and untamed land. I have never seen such strange looking vegetables and fruit or more alien creepy crawlies. I would regularly have to sweep out baby snakes that had wriggled in after a particularly heavy downpour, since I never had the heart to kill them. What did give me the creeps were frogs that almost seemed to fly through the air and stick to walls and plants and I dreaded the day one of them would mistake me for a tree!

The lush rampant beauty of the East always fascinated me and we would often drive into the picturesque state of Arunachal for picnics. Tipi was a favourite haunt, with its cosy guest house and furiously raging Bharali river. Asia's biggest orchidarium is located here as well but the more common varieties grew in natural unbridled bunches everywhere. I would carefully pry them off  huge trees and bring them home to attach to the ones in my garden where they happily flourished.
There were evenings when the air was thick with fireflies and we would sit in our veranda just enjoying this amazing spectacle. Sometimes one of these minute creatures would get into the house and I would rush around with cupped hands to try and gently catch and let it out, since the idea of this tiny marvel dying trapped indoors upset me.

I will never forget the storms in this part of the world. I have never seen lightening more jagged and beautiful or rain more torrential. Winds howled with such savage ferocity that I could not even open a door against the strength of it. Our garden chairs would fly away if we did not hurriedly drag them in, and we got to doodling identifying marks on them since some evil ladies would keep the ones in good condition and leave the 'rut-put' ones unclaimed.
We would regularly go on fishing excursions with our friends Arup Raha and Cawas Motishaw. Arup's wife Lily was going through a difficult pregnancy so preferred to stay home, while Cawas was a carefree bachelor ever ready for fun. The four of us would drive out on our motor bikes at the crack of dawn, with all our tackle ready for a day of serious fishing. We only caught one miserable little thing in all the times we went which I ended up having to gut and cook once we got home - a rather disturbing experience since I had no idea of how to go about this gruesome task.
I always tremendously enjoyed these outings and it never mattered that we were unlucky fisher folk, got bitten by leeches or chewed by  elusive 'dimdams', which were nasty little gnats invisible to the naked eye but whose bite left itchy spots which scratched for weeks after.

Serious work

Monkey Business

We stayed in our little 'basha' for over eight months before we were allotted a permanent house. I was alone a lot of the time and found myself entertained by a band of monkeys, who arrived every few days to wreck havoc in the homes of those not on guard. My neighbour Lalima once scuttled over in complete hysteria, saying she had inadvertently left the front door open while taking a bath and a band of marauders had invaded her premises. She escaped through the rear entrance and rushed over for help. Once the intruders left we crept back to take stock of the damage. They had pried open her ration  'dubbas' and scattered the contents all over, they had raided the fridge for eggs and milk and left oily paw prints everywhere. The devastation of upturned furniture and scattered cushions was a sight that left us completely aghast and took hours to clean up.

On one occasion I was in the kitchen chopping up onions and tomatoes when I felt something brush against my leg. I presumed it was one of the resident cats and leaned down to pet it, when I discovered to my horror one of the cheeky creatures sitting placidly by my side. I slowly straightened up and then stood very still not knowing what to do. I stayed that way for about five minutes and so did the monkey. It did not seem hungry or aggressive and just seemed to enjoy leaning against my leg. Time ticked by and I began to get restless imagining myself standing like a frozen statue all day. I decided to take matters into my own hands and clutching the knife firmly twirled around with a dreadful shriek, brandishing my weapon menacingly. Luckily, friend monkey made a dash for the door instead of attacking me so I heaved a sigh of relief and got on with my culinary activity.
While taking a nap one sultry afternoon I was woken by the light fixture that hung by a wire from the ceiling, moving around strangely. My first thought was that there had been an earthquake, but when I noticed the wire being pulled into the roof, I realised the simians must have got into the false ceiling and were simply amusing themselves up there!

I discovered by chance that these crazy apes loved onions. I would throw them some and they would huddle in a group chomping away delightedly with eyes screwed tightly shut and tears streaming down their faces. It was a sight that never failed to amuse me and most of the vegetables that we got in our monthly ration usually ended up as monkey food.