A Year of Ups and Downs

1978

Now the search for a suitable school had to be made. Ramu and I were torn between a strong desire to be egalitarian and send Adit to a Central School [meant for all government servants' children], which would have the added advantage that even if Ramu got transferred, he would have been admitted to the local Central School, and an equally strong motivation to give him a 'good' education that the local Central School did not have any reputation for. In the end, we both agreed that we could not deprive our child of a good education when the alternative system was just not acceptable.
But we ruled out some 'good' schools as too elite and others as too far and so on, and finally chose Bal Bharati, set up as a school for children of the Air Force, but which admitted others too. I made sure, though, it did not drill children into military discipline or militarism.
The school bus picked up and dropped him, always eager to go to school, and cheerful when he got back. As usual in India, uniforms were mandated and theirs were light and dark blue, the Indian Airforce colours. No stupid tie, thankfully, as so many schools in India seem to have adopted, despite the tropical climate.

Adit had a couple of |friends nearby from his preschool days, and most evenings they would either play in the local playground or park. But his best friend was his cousin Darshan, his elder by a few years, whom we met most weekends. Some of my professional friends' sons were also close to him, and when he learnt from them that they had joined the Delhi riding club, he too was eager and became an ardent rider at the age of four or so, and soon a good one too . Whenever the head groom saw me drop or pick up Adit, he would try and prevail upon me to also learn to ride. ' Oh, no, I am too old', but the repetition of this mantra did not work and his persuasive skills made me join the class, but only after a year or two. I enjoyed riding and learnt to even canter, though Adit was scornful, 'You do not post properly'! At least I did not fall or get ill from fear as I did in Kashmir.

Some years stand out in one's life as the most memorable or momentous. The year 1978 was definitely one such for me, for some good and happy reasons and for some bad, sorrowful ones.

Married Women cannot move!
One day, Charles Egger, the other Deputy Executive Director, sauntered into my room and after passing the time of the day, he sighed,”it is a pity about women not being able to move to other locations”.
What did he mean, I asked. “Well, you are three here who could be posted to international postings, but Sarojini and you cannot move, and Razia refuses to move – she wants to be with her parents”.
“Who said Sarojini and I cannot move?”
“Could you, both of you?” in a surprised tone. “ You are married..”
Indignantly, I retorted,” Well, I happen to know that Sarojini might very well be happy to move [as a friend, I knew that at that time, she might be eager to move out of Delhi, for personal reasons], “ and as for myself, the job, the place and the timing would be important, but in principle, I too might consider moving”. [Ramu and I had discussed this when during the time he was posted to Calcutta, he was considered for some assignments outside India, as well as when I came back from the staff seminar and told him how I had not tried to meet Heyward as I had no interest then of moving out of India. We agreed that if one of us got an interesting post outside India or another location within it, the other could go along and try for a suitable job, or do some research or writing].

Egger was delighted. “O.K., I will see what the possibilities are”.
Several months were to pass before anything came of this conversation, but towards the end of the year, an offer did come my way


My visits outside India continued this year with a meeting at Alexandria of what was grandiosely termed the UNICEF Knowledge Network on Women. As with most such meetings it was a mixture of hard work on planning and policy discussions and fun and bonding with colleagues. The part of Alexandria we stayed in was very modern and adjoining the sea and one day when we had some free time, some of us went for a swim – it was quite cold, maybe as it was still spring. Another foray was into the old city, where we saw a beautiful mosque. That was the first time I heard an explanation for the rule that some muslims follow that women should cover themselves – the guide there explained that otherwise men would be tempted. It crossed my mind at once, that it was not fair to ask to make another pay for one's shortcomings, but wisely I kept my thoughts to myself. This kind of argument is advanced even today to explain away sexual harassment – the victim is always blamed. I later learnt about the virginity belt or the lock around the woman's pelvis that was apparently practised in mediaeval Europe when the knights were away for the Crusades - this practice had its roots in a similar urge to make women pay for men's weakness.

The First Blow
My flight back to India was via Bombay and it landed some time after midnight. The local UNICEF office driver told me as he drove me from the airport that my husband had asked that I be informed that my sister-in-law had died while I was away. Which sister-in-law, I wanted to know. But he did not know more. My mind was churning out all the possibilities and rejecting each of them, and on and on the worrying went on! I had so many sisters-in-law! Finally, I gave up and called Ramu, unsuccessfully first as connections in those days were not so easy – no STDs at that time, let alone mobiles. Finally I got through and learnt it was my youngest sister-in-law, Diana. Raghu, she and their daughter, Abigail [Abby] stayed in Bombay and normally I would have gone to their place when in the city. Ramu had wanted to warn me, not knowing I had chosen to stay in a hotel due to my unearthly time of arrival. The rest of the night was also most disturbing -Diana was one of the sweetest persons I had ever known, and she seemed to have come through a major heart operation some years back, and now this!

More to Follow
Soon after there was another demise in our extended family. Jayaram, a cousin's son who lived in Delhi and with whose family we had become quite friendly, suddenly died. He just had had twin daughters.

I think it was soon after that when Ramu's office driver, Nair's wife died back in his home in Kerala. We were all very fond of Nair, and this loss also affected us deeply. When he went off to Kerala, Adit felt his absence most, as the two used to hang out in the evenings near the parked office car and Nair used to regale Adit with tales of lush, green Kerala – God's Own Country, as it is nowadays promoted by the tourism industry.

The Brief Respite
During the summer vacation, we had planned a short vacation to Manali, a hill station in Himachal Pradesh, with the family of a UNICEF colleague, Jagdish Kumar. His two sons, Rajesh and Sharad, were Adit's schoolmates and close friends. We were joined by Abigail, Raghu and Diana's nine year old daughter. Manali, unlike some of the other Himalayan hill stations – Simla or Mussorie – was a quiet, restful place and we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Two memorable incidents during this trip stand out in my memory. We went on a picnic one day, and Ramu and Kumar decided to have their beer bottle cooled in the almost-icy Beas river, only to find, when they had waited a while, that the fast-flowing stream had gurgled away with it!

At the beginning of our stay in a rented cottage, we were told we could include a down payment for the fruits of an apple tree in the garden and enjoy all its fruits. So when as we got ready to leave, we reached out for the fruits and munched at them straight off the branches. What we could not reach, we got by shaking the tree and picking up the fallen fruit. For us, typical urbanites, it was such a lovely experience.

The Simla Workshop
Almost upon the heels of this holiday, I had to return to the same hills on work, to nearby, Simla, the erstwhile summer capital of India [during the British Raj]. This time, the journey was a shock to me, as all the hillsides on this more densely populated route were totally denuded. I recalled the Chipko movement a few years before in the Garhwal hills in UP state – no wonder the locals led by Bahuguna hugged the trees in their vicinity when the loggers came. But no such movement seemed to have sprouted here.

The occasion was the first in the series of planning training workshop mainly for the India office senior support staff but also including some programme officers. Several senior HQ planning and training section personnel were there to conduct the workshop - for us in India, this was new territory and we had to learn as much as the trainees so termed. The HQ staff too regarded the workshop as much training for them as for all of us. So indeed it was – we were all participants.

It was a very lively and useful workshop and we did unearth some hidden talents among the support staff.

A side show was a dance that some of the participants attended and one couple came away with the first prize.

The Unkindest Cut of All
UNICEF Delhi had the system of keeping the office open uptill lunch-time on Saturdays, which were otherwise holidays for it, with skeleton staff – a programme officer, a secretary and a driver, since the Government [in those days] did not observe a holiday on such days except the second Saturday of each month.

I was duty officer one Saturday in July, I believe it was the 8th, and all the time I was there, I was feeling seedy. I wondered if I was going in for a fever or cold. Soon after I came home, my younger brother, Gokul called me from Bangalore and said that our elder brother, Kumar, had had a bad heart attack that morning. I asked him if I should fly down immediately, but he reassured me that he probably would be okay soon, and he would keep me posted.

Well, he didn't. The next afternoon, Chandru Athimbere, my second brother-in-law, called from Madras to give me the news that Kumar has had two more massive attacks that morning and had succumbed to the last one. I flew down that evening with Adit. What possessed me to take the five-year old with me on such an occasion, I do not know, but the sight of all of us bawling over the body was too much for the kid and he rushed outside the house and threw up!

As we had done for Appa, we cremated Kumar in the electric crematorium. Then we had got performed some ceremony on that first day, but this time, Revathi decided that Kumar being a non-believer in rituals, no rite would be performed at all. Revathi however marks the death anniversary with some poor feeding each year.

Kumar and I had always been very close, and his untimely death at the age of 47 affected me deeply. I often feel it must been telepathy that induced my seediness the day [perhaps the very time] of his first attack. After we surfaced from the bitter sorrow as we next to his body, when Lallukka cried out to me the moment she saw me come in, “ We used to call you both with one breath for a meal or to get ready to go out or..., how can we do that any longer? 'Kumar, Paddu; Kumar, Paddu..'?” Those words rang in my head all the time for the next several days.

As the days passed, the raw searing pain of his loss was slowly being dulled and then, as probably inevitable, I felt a sharp pain of both sad and sweet memories after a gap of many days, weeks or even months. In between, I felt anger at his not caring for himself and leaving his young family to mourn him. They have carried on bravely, none more so than Revathi. But it was there simmering underneath, the empty place he left.

A new hope.
Perhaps, I would have lived out the rest of the year fearing the worst. One more death in the family? The thought nagged me. But we were in the midst of important changes in our household even before Kumar's death. The expectation that was uppermost in our minds was the addition to our family through the arrival of a daughter. After more than a year of mulling over it, we had taken the decision to adopt a girl.

As do most single children, Adit was always asking why he could not have a sibling, and again typically, of the same sex. Some of the family also were drawing our attention to the possibility of an only child becoming spoilt. Another major influence at that time was my work as one of the two focal points for the International Year of the Child, due in 1979, but as normal, preparations at country, state and regional level had to be done by UNICEF well ahead of the year. As part of the ideas that were floating in this atmosphere, was a drive to pass a liberal child-friendly adoption law in India.

Adoption in India had been a rare occurrence traditionally, and was resorted to mainly when a couple had no son, a must for all believing Hindus, as according to the scriptures it was only when a son could light the funeral pyre did the soul get released from its earthly body. If they did not adopt a boy, the nearest approximation [the nephew, or younger brother, for example, but only on the paternal side] would be called upon to do this task, but I guess this was not a satisfactory solution to most. The result of this lopsided 'son preference' as it is generally termed in sociological circles, was that there were girls aplenty languishing for want of anyone interested in adopting them, while the scramble for boys made them scarce. The disabled invariably got left behind. There was a demand from foreigners for both girls and the specially challenged, but after some scandals about ill-treatment and abuse, both physical and sexual, the screening and waiting and thus the offtake became slow and tortuous.

Meantime, the government was keen on population control through family planning and after years of stressing 'You two, yours two' was moving to a new slogan 'Have one, adopt one'. [Years later, it was to become 'Girl or boy, one is enough!'] The laws governing adoption were, and still are, very restrictive, allowing only Hindus to adopt, while couples of other faiths could only be foster-parents, due to certain faiths not allowing adoption at all. The process also was very cumbersome. Even a Hindu who was childless could only adopt one child of each sex but if the couple had one child already, they could only adopt a child of the opposite sex. And so on and on. [A most recent ruling by one of the courts has however been that couples could adopt more than one of the same sex]

While working with some sympathetic government officials on the liberalisation of the adoption law, increasingly, I found these ideas and my personal longing for a daughter becoming entwined. Ramu was first not so sure as he felt that the family might not accept the idea and he kept thinking we were not so young, and if we did not live into their adulthood, our children would be in the care of others in the family, who might not care for them as one of their own blood. After many tense months of argument, we decided to pose the question to our close relatives. While Annaiya, as could be expected from an older generation, was quite concerned, mainly as he wanted to be sure Adit would not suffer neglect, the rest of the family welcomed the idea. We explained to Adit that this was how he was going to get a sibling and also that the rule was such that it had to be a girl, and it would be nice if we had a daughter and he a sister, and he too was quite open to the idea. So, now more confident, we finally decided to go ahead. It must have taken us a year or more to decide.

At that time, there was no central adoption agency like CARA now, and only a handful of agencies in the major cities did process any adoption at all. The Sisters of Charity [Mother Teresa's order] was among the most prominent and worked in many cities. We contacted the Delhi convent for a girl between her second and third year as our preference. 'Any other specifications?' 'Well, we do not think we could manage a child who is handicapped' These two criteria were based on my wanting to continue working and also not to have a very long age gap with Adit who was going on five. The sister in charge was surprised that we did not try for a boy; almost no Indian came forward to adopt a girl in those days. Another surprise for her was that we did not seek out a fair girl!

When the Sister realised that I traveled quite a bit to other towns, she suggested that I try in other places too to speed up the process. So when in Calcutta, I went to their centre there and was quite disturbed to see so many kids looking forlorn and bored. Later, through my work, I got to know that kids in institutions generally are that way. One girl was pointed out to me as fitting my needs, but I was so confused, I just muttered that I could not decide and anyway, my husband had also to see the child before we picked one.

Then word came one day in the beginning of July that there was a girl the Mission in Delhi would like us to see. The kid had been transferred from Cuttack to Calcutta and from there to Delhi – I guess in view of the higher possibilities of potential adoptive parents in the metros. We went, the three of us, including Adit. But the poor child was scared at being picked out from the group she was at last perhaps adjusted to and being placed for inspection, and her unease was shared by us and there was just an awkward silence. The Sister in charge exclaimed that perhaps it was better we thought it over and came back if we felt up to it. So the week after Kumar's passing away, we went back and this time, the Sister suggested we take Meera for a spin and maybe the outing might make us all relaxed. But, once again, Meera was terrified at being separated from her mates, so we gathered a few of them and took them to a nearby park. The kids found the car trip enjoyable, and once in the open, and with a small treat of roasted peas, all were playing together noisily. By the time we came back, all of us were comfortable. As we entered the building, we asked Adit what he thought and he enthusiastically replied, “Let us take Meera home now”. She was happy enough to come with us now.

Neither Adit nor Ramu agree with this version. They both firmly hold that they were not with me on this second occasion, and that the outing was on the first visit itself, and that I brought back Meera on a second visit, all by myself. Not only is my memory to the contrary, but it was not plausible that I would have sneaked off on my own on such a major venture, or that I would have dared to bring Meera without anyone else in the car, when I could not tell how the kid would take the long drive of 18 km. without becoming worked up on being separated from the other kids or the caregivers she knew.

I do not recall any settling down problems that Meera had, except at nights, when she would wake up a couple of times, crying and I had to pat her in her babycot that had been Adit's or whisper softly 'go to sleep, go to sleep, Meeramma'; and so on. Sometimes I just slumped down next to her cot and dozed off myself.

Almost immediately, I took Meera to our pediatrician for a full examination. When he heard me soothing her in Tamil as she cried a bit in this new strange setting, he said,'Poor thing, everything is new and strange to her, and your talking in a 'foreign' tongue will only increase her disquiet. She must be used either to Oriya or Bengali, and the next best to use would be Hindi'. I dutifully switched over to Hindi. However, within a few days, Meera was picking up Tamil words only and not Hindi ones! She must just have decided to do as Adit did.

The first few days, Meera seemed to have an insatiable appetite, especially for bananas. She would wolf down so many at one go that we would be worried, she might get diarrhoea. She soon settled down to a more normal appetite. And accepted us as her family and the house as her home. Another thing was that she picked up the languages we variously used in the house and was soon fluent in Tamil, though she was less so in Kannada and Hindi. I think she understood English, but she started speaking it only later.

We soon had to get the adoption formalised. When we took Meera to the studio to have the necessary photograph, and she had to sit by herself in the already semi-darkened room, she was not happy. The photo we got showed her bawling. We felt it best to accept that as nothing would make her stop except when I took her in my arms and moved away from the studio. We were so worried that the judge might turn away our application on the grounds that we obviously had been ill-treating the child. But the procedure was short and sweet to our great relief.

As with most siblings, Adit and Meera were very different. She was more apt to get into small scrapes or be stubborn, and sometimes I just did not know how to manage her. I guess I was going by my experience with Adit, with whom one could reason even from his early toddler days. Perhaps my menopause did not help either – whatever the reason, I sometimes lost my temper with her but later felt very sorry I had. However that was a passing phase and soon Meera was the one who woke me up in the mornings and as I sipped my coffee over a newspaper on the front verandah, in the cool of the monsoon mornings, she had her glass of milk and played with her toys. Adit usually joined us a little later and sometimes the two played together for a while. However, he had soon to get ready for his school – he was now in the first grade in Bal Bharati.

Once she was a little settled in our home, Meera began to be bored, with all of us except Annaiya and the household help away for most of the day. So just a month or so later, and though she was just 2 years and 4 months old then, she went to the Playhouse School, where Adit used to go. There she took longer to settle down in the sense that Raji, our help from Madras, had to stay on the whole time for several weeks more than the school normally allowed. I think it was the carpool that we managed to find that turned her into a sociable and cheerful child even without a familiar adult around.

After Sterling Forest, Urbana and my Defense!
I had continued labouring on my thesis revision once again while in UNICEF, fervently hoping that it would be third time lucky, or as the saying in Kannada goes, muttidake mursala [if you touch something, it has to be done thrice] and that would be it! After sending the revised dissertation earlier in the year, I was delighted when my adviser told me that it was ready enough for a viva voce to be scheduled. To my query whether I could do the viva in India with Prodipto and a couple of other academics, he was very firm with his 'no'! Luckily yet another retreat, again at Sterling Forest, came along that winter and I went off to Urbana after that retreat.

The Defense
I stayed with my SRL ex-colleague and friend Matti Frankel. The viva voce itself was quite gentle, with just a bit of grilling as to why I had picked such an inane topic, and how I felt my entire thesis was going to be useful. Then after all those years, I had my Ph.D. Degree vested in me. It was such a relief to have it over with!

While I was in Urbana, Rama, my niece, visited me from Illinois State University where she was studying for her masters in Speech. We had a good time together. After a few days, I got back home via New York. The sequel to my passing my viva was that one day, one of the UNICEF Delhi administration folks told me the inter-office pouch had a parcel for me from U of I. Oh, I told him, that must be my dissertation. Weeks later, he called me again, amazed that I had not still collected it. I explained that I had gone through the whole rigmarole only out of stubbornness and it was a useless bundle of papers. He just could not understand my indifference. I finally collected and it is still somewhere among my papers.

Ramu had also sent in his first draft after he got back to India, but when he received comments that necessitated his doing more work, he just did not go ahead. Of course, he had a lot of work on his head. Still, it was a pity, so near yet never attained!


The Look-see visit
Towards the end of the year, I was asked if I would consider a posting in Kabul as the Planning Officer there. After discussion with Ramu, I thought I would agree. But first there was an opportunity for both sides to have what was termed a 'look-see'. This took the form, in my case, of a short-term assignment to help the office prepare some special proposals for funding.

It was the beginning of December and snow fell sporadically and for a day or so covered the streets of Kabul. Yet most days, I used to walk to the office from the UN Guest House, where I was lodged for the two weeks of my stay.

At first I tried to avoid the numerous intricately woven carpets that seem to have been thrown carelessly in front of many a carpet shop. But a colleague in the office told me that it was considered good to have the carpet trod on and exposed to the sun and dust. So I walked on red carpets almost halfway everyday!

Another common thing I noticed and thought was a local peculiarity was that the walls around the houses were extremely high [almost twice the height of persons]. Later I found this was common in the Middle East.

I went only on one field trip, to a village nearby to attend a women's group meeting and what a difference between the women in Kabul and them – at that time, the urban lot were unveiled and these were in traditional attire but not the all-enveloping chadors that came into force later.

The UN guest-house had a room heater in each room and no central heating. One night, I went to sleep with the heater on and the window slightly open. When I woke up, it was to a raging toothache – a wisdom tooth. I had to see the UN nurse who gave me a general analgesic and advised me to see a dentist when I got back to India. By the time I got back, the pain had subsided but I still went to the dentist only to be told not to worry unless it pained or got swollen again, and till today all my wisdom teeth are still lurking within the gums!

It was a surprise to find an Afghan Hindu – one of the office staff, in fact and one whose family had lived in Kabul for generations. Sharma invited me home for the Afghan version of an Indian meal, quite tasty. Another link with India was the multiplicity of Buddhist sculptures in the National Museum. Some of them were truly beautiful, and when the Taliban tried to destroy them years later, I was most saddened. Later however, one learnt that most had been saved by the determined and committed curators.

The office assignment went on quite smoothly and I decided I would take up the offer of a posting once Ramu and I had a chance to discuss in detail and his own opinion was obtained again. Within a few days of my return, I told my regional director, Glan Davies and through him Crunden, the Representative in Kabul, who had also on his part approved of my being appointed to the post. I was to move there sometime in the middle of the next year.

Relaxation with the Kids
On weekend mornings, before the sun rose a little high in the heavens, we three, the children and I, would go for a jog in Lodi gardens. The first thing they did on entering it was to peer at the small pools at the entrance we took and delight in the tadpoles and shriek at the frogs jumping high in the air.
Most summer evenings, Leela would bring the children over to the office and we would set off for the swim. At first Meera was terrified of venturing more than an arm's length from the steps at the shallow end, but after a while, she herself decided it was not fun enough and began to swim, learning more by imitation than any teaching.