Life in Delhi

Our Own Flat
After two months of waiting, our house allotment was made, 'expedited' as we opted for a type one rank lower than what Ramu was entitled to. It was in Vinay Marg, about four km from my office and six to his. A much sought after colony among the knowledgeable, we were cheek by jowl with Nehru park, and close to Sarojini Market, one of Delhi's best shopping area for almost everything. Being on the ground floor, we had a little patch of lawn in the front and a kitchen garden space at the back.
Ramu would usually drop me off and pick me up again and then go to his office in our new Fiat [aptly named Premier Padmini]. There was a luxurious bonus at Ford – a swimming pool at the guest house that staff could also use. So on warm days, he joined me for a short while. Being pretty busy otherwise, we did not go out much; even a cinema was rare. Our other exercise was a walk in the nearby Nehru Park, a charming medium-sized garden.
Annaiya joined us as soon as we had settled in our flat. Also, Shivaram moved from Poona to work for us when Gopala went off to the States some months after we came back. So he handled cooking the three meals a day and I had no housework to do. There was also the ubiquitous Tamilian part-time maid servant, so the household was running as smoothly as anything in India can do.
When our unaccompanied sea shipment came, with all our books, and other clothes and some nice kitchen stuff we had, to our surprise they were all intact.
But we had trouble with one item. The Customs summoned us and asked us to explain why we should not be arrested. The problem was an atlas that did not depict Kashmir as part of India! We pleaded ignorance but of course that was not admissible. Anyway, after stern warnings, and blacking out the offending part of the map, they released all our stuff including the offending atlas.
Life in Delhi
Some time after our move there, Sripathi, R's sister, Savithri's husband, was transferred to Faridabad by the National Sample Survey, where he worked. So they were just an hour's drive [those days] from where we lived. Another of my sisters-in-law, Lalitha and her husband, Babi, already lived in Delhi. Then there was Sundara's family. So we had quite a bit of Mugur family interaction. On my side of the family, the trickle started quite a bit later with my niece, Vimala [Malli] and nephew, Ravi and his wife, Geetha, settling down there and being in close contact. In addition, there were umpteen cousins and some uncles and aunts around whom we met occasionally.

Soon, it was summer, and the 'andi' [dry hot winds blowing from the Thar desert in Rajasthan] really hit us. A fine layer of dust then covered everything, and one felt even the covered food tasted grimy. We were lucky, people said, that we had the ground floor since the topmost floor, here the first, takes the brunt of the heat. We really welcomed the Ford Foundation swimming pool. Even Ramu used it sometimes, swimming as much as he could, and soaking in the coolness.
Should I trust a doctor?
It was my first taste of a hot dry climate, followed by the still hot and humid monsoon, and I reacted with a chronic cold and cough, and rather than go to a doctor again, I just took regular doses of an asprin that I had a bottle of with me, to keep this in check.

Around this time, I started to have my periods almost every fortnight. After a few such episodes, I went to the gynaecologist whom Prabha used. She pronounced a hysterectomy essential. I was aghast! I came home and mulled over this, and then I had an idea. When I told the doctor over the phone that every episode had been preceded by a heavy bout of asprin taking, and asked whether could be any connection, she calmly said, yes, it could very well have. She added that some women were so sensitive to drugs that it could happen to them with some other drugs too. As a final touch, she told me that a few even died from such heavy doses! I did not say it aloud, but to myself, I blurted “Damn you, and you wanted to remove my uterus! You did not even ask me if I had taken any drugs, or any such question. All you wanted was to make money out an operation'.
She had not asked me about any medications I was taking, even after I had told her the history of my failed pregnancies and my sensitivity to drugs when pregnant! I felt she was just pushing me to an operation that was unnecessary. I stopped dosing myself with tylenol and the bleeding stopped. Perhaps due to my getting used to Delhi weather, my frequent colds also vanished. My faith in doctors was further shaken.