New Responsibilities in UNICEF

The week after all this, there was a Regional Meeting and in the midst of it, Gerry suddenly took very ill, and had to be flown back to the USA for treatment. He never returned to UNICEF as after his recovery, he resigned and started working on his own from Washington D.C. Apart from the shock of this sudden departure of a close friend, I found I was handling most of his duties in addition to my own.
A couple of weeks later, I had to again absent myself from office due to Adit suddenly taking badly ill. He, usually so lively, was motionless and did not utter a word. Fearing the worst, I rushed to the doctor – it was severe bronchitis but he recovered fast. I felt then that it was Raji' s fault as she did not seem to be interested in baby care.
Walking to Office
Meantime, the government agency in charge of housing officials in government housing, which had levied a penalty rent on us for continuing in such quarters more than a year after Ramu had been transferred, gave notice that we should vacate them. This was fair enough, and so we now started house-hunting while paying market rent [the highest slab that they levied in such cases]. Since I had been jealous of Ramu for having his office within easy walking distance from home in Pimpri while I commuted 15 km. on that horrendous Bombay-Poona road to the Deccan College, this was my chance to pick a place within a stone's throw of my office.
In December of '74, we moved to Jor Bagh, the same area that the UNICEF buildings were in. 'Buildings' because the office used to straddle five different ones when I joined, and then they added two more. Unfortunately, I had left the Delhi office before the office moved to just behind my old offices in CSD-FF , a really smart one , built by the same Stein, who was the architect for those buildings as well as the India International Centre, all next to Lodhi Gardens.
Sripathi helped me move and that made it easier. Still, the change from a spacious government quarters, open on three sides and with a garden in front and back to a townhouse, hemmed between two other such houses and a hanky-sized lawn and, even worse, a cemented courtyard at the back was quite traumatic. However, all we lost in moving was a teacosy, last seen on top of one of the movers' heads! He must have really fancied it as a headgear.

After having avoided coming home for lunch as the baby was invariably asleep, when we moved to JB, I found that with Adit old enough, it was worth the short walk to do so even at the height of summer. Most evenings we went to the park and on weekends, we met with one or the other of the family. Pratima also lived in Jor Bagh, and our families were often together.