A Tale of Love, Loss and Regret

Some people get through life proclaiming “I have no regrets!” Not me. Here's a story about a life-lesson learned - all about Love. And Regret.

1995

You would agree that the world was very different back then. It was a world without cell phones, social media, pre-Cartoon Network even. Those were the days I would read from a book to entertain myself. And that book would habitually become dog-eared, pencil-marked, and coloured, almost always.

I remember that day in vivid detail. I was a slightly bewildered seven-year old who stood on the porch stairs of boarding school waving to my mother; oblivious to it being a ‘Goodbye ‘of- sorts!

You see, I could not understand why all the other little girls began wailing as their parents turned at the corner and then out of sight. I was convinced that my mother would pick me up from school in the evening like she always did. (Despite being aged seven, I had already been to five schools by then!) It was just another new school where I would continue to be the Princess.

Glimpses of my childhood prior to Boarding School!

St. Mary’s, Pune had a lovely campus and I wanted to explore it straightaway. Almost immediately, the large Matron yelled out that beyond those trees on the left was out-of-bounds and the corner to the right where the cars were parked, was the outer limit for boarders.

Now I was totally bewildered. “What’s a ‘Boarder’?” I wondered. I was appalled by her harsh tone and all the “rules”. Surely, all those rules didn’t apply to me?

I nodded and was about to scamper towards that corner anyway, when a shrill bell rang from out-of-nowhere. That plump Matron told me it was time for Lunch and we all had to go the dining room. Over a hundred girls of all sizes and shapes gathered.

A bell rang and prayers were said. Then a bell rang and we began eating. Some served themselves. Because we were so little, our food was already served onto our plates. I ate slowly and was chattering away, excitedly. Another bell rang and it was time to leave, but I hadn’t finished my food. I stared in horror when the Matron snatched my plate and nudged me away from it. She said she would slap me the next time I wasted food. The bell rang again and we all had to ‘rest’.

More bells, by the hour; every hour. By evening it dawned on me that my mother was not coming back.

I hated it all. Never before, had my life been so regimented and I must have had received a spanking from the large Matron at least four times by the end of that week. But unlike the other little girls who were my classmates, I refused to cry. I resignedly got used to the bells.

It dawned upon me that I was no longer the District Collector’s daughter with nine servants to attend to me, three tortoises, large gardens to wander and play and any-time meals.

Now, I was one among the twenty-odd boarders of “Junior Dorm” with just a wooden plank in a shared cupboard of my clothes, and one bottom bunk bed that was at the far corner of a large dormitory, shared by at least a hundred other girls. Add to insult, the Matron picked the clothes I was to wear, and I never managed to finish a single meal on time, so was served a paltry amount of food each time.

But the weekend came and all that changed.

My Surabhi Aaboo {Assamese word for grandmother} was waiting for me on that same porch that Saturday morning. She was my grandmother’s cousin and my local guardian.

She firmly told the Matron that she would be taking me home as per the Rules and I was convinced she was my Fairy Godmother. With twinkling eyes and a big smile, my sari-clad guardian swept me over in a big hug and said “Let’s go, Chitty!”

When Surabhi Aaboo dropped me back to the boarding the next day - watching her leave me on the same porch as my mother had the previous weekend - was when the first bout of tears came to my eyes.

St. Mary’s, Pune (back then!) had both day scholars and boarders.

Do you know what being a “boarder” really meant?

It meant that every single goddamn rule the school had, always applied to a boarder first. We were the ones that had a little ball-point pen mark next to our names during roll-call - the ones to “watch out for” constantly.

Moreover, my folks had designated me a ‘monthly boarder’. This implied that only on the last weekend of each month was when I was permitted to leave on the Friday evening and return by Sunday evening.

But Surabhi Aaboo who doted on me as if I were her own grandchild, would come to pick me up every weekend anyway.

I do not remember ever telling her how homesick I was. Yet, she just understood that come the weekend, and I would be sitting there on the porch every Saturday morning between 10 am – 12 pm (the designated free hours) knowing that she will come for me.

Her house on Boat Club Road was enormous …I would feel like a Princess all over again.

There were sprawling green lawns to run all over in any direction I pleased. There were bookshelves as high as the ceiling, filled with all kinds of books which I could pull out and read whenever I fancied. And most importantly, there were meals that were hot and wholesome, according to my taste and pace.

As a seven-year old, I was skilled in manipulation and the subtler nuances of human nature. Every letter that I wrote to my mother was heart-breaking, sometimes with a tactical tear-drop that would blotch up my signature. Moreover, I would strategically send the letter to my mother’s office, instead of home, on a postcard.

This meant that before my mother could get a hold of it – her entire office from the Peon on the ground floor to her Personal Assistant on the top floor would have read it.

The story goes that, one fine morning about ten of her staff members entered her office glaring at her accusingly. My mother had a reputation for being the fearsome and revered District Collector of Bellary (Karnataka), but they encircled her desk without any fear or reverence. Her PA resolutely said almost-yelling “How can you leave such a small baby in that school there, Madam? If you do not go and bring her back, we all will resign!”

{Now that is a serious threat, as no one leaves a government job in India unless under extreme duress.}

So Mom caved. My mother can be likened to a coconut, tough as nails on the outside but all soft and gooey on the inside.

I can never forget that month-end of June 1995.

Finally, I was going home! Or so I thought.

You can imagine the sincere outrage when I was left on that porch again on Sunday evening. Both my Mom and Surabhi Aaboo had come to drop me and this time I began not only to weep and wail but also throw a tantrum in front of other boarders and their parents and the Matron too.

Surabhi Aaboo bore witness to it all and thereafter resolved to come to see me every weekend, come what may. Despite my Matron’s requests, then firm warnings, and then actual pleas that she was not welcome, Surabhi Aaboo always arrived every Saturday, all sparkling and twinkle-eyed.

My mother recollects the long (STD rates applied!) phone conversation between my own Grandmother and her younger cousin.

Aaboo (My grandmother): Surabhi, Darek athvadiyu ene leva ane malva NA JATI! Translation: Surabhi (in the tone of an older sibling talking to a younger one) – DO NOT go and see her and take her out every weekend.

Surabhi Aaboo: But, Geeta! She is just a small girl and she waits at the stairs for me every time. I can’t Not go to see her at least…

Apparently, that went back and forth like a ping-pong match for about 20 minutes – with my grandmother weary that perhaps she was not going to win this battle with her younger cousin!

Throughout that academic year, Surabhi Aaboo never missed a weekend to visit me. This was despite Matron stomping around like a raging bull with my grandmother’s actual letter in hand, declaring me forbidden to leave the premises except for the last weekend of the month!

Surabhi Aaboo and Chitty - the picture that inspired 3000 words!

Surabhi Aaboo became my constant, my guardian, my friend and I her most beloved ward!

Sometimes, I think it is fair to attribute my love for travel to those frequent afternoons at Surabhi Aaboo’s home. I recollect one rainy weekend that came with a small thunderstorm. I was stuck indoors – wondering what to do. She pulled out an enormous book which turned out to be the Oxford Great World Atlas and handed it to me. It was thick, heavy and hard-bound; I could barely stand straight trying to hold it!

She then sat me down and wrote the names of ten places. After showing me how to look up the first place (Paris!) she instructed that I should find the rest “before the thunderstorm ends.” By evening I was in love with the Atlas and in awe of how big our planet was – there was so much to discover! Eyes sparkling with excitement and a pencil and paper in hand, I would run to her every two hours and ask her to list out more places for me to look up!

Looking back at the three years I spent as a boarder at St. Mary’s today, I reminisce them as “happy” times. Eventually, I began to feel at home there and made friends, adjusted to the curriculum and schedule and began to perform better with each year.

In fact, the day I learned that I was to leave the boarding and start at a new school in new city and away from Surabhi Aaboo, was when I actually cried again.

2005

I was in back in Pune as a student. This time as a fresher in college. ILS Law College having earned the No.1 ranking of India’s law schools that year. (Well, according to the highly dubious India Today magazine’s Annual College Ranking, anyway!)

Those college years were also my outdoorsy years!

I was just excited to be off to college, ready to taste “independence” and eager to sample some college-life. Pune offered an abundance of Things to do – especially being so close to the gorgeous Western Ghats with numerous trekking groups that delighted the nature lover in me .

My college had a hill of its own, and within months of arriving in Pune I had a new set of friends, a healthy mix of classes, diplomas, treks and college curricular activities that I was involved in.

As Surabhi Aaboo lived at the other end of town, I met her only once when I arrived. Somehow the first year passed by without us being able to meet despite one or two plans to do so.

To my mind, I was going to be around in Pune for five whole years (longer than I had ever been in any city!) and I had all the time in the world to meet her properly.

The next three years also went by – neither I nor Surabhi Aaboo tried to meet up with one another. Occasionally we would speak for Diwali and New Year, but it was more of polite enquiry than fond recollections.

Sometimes I would even pass by her house on Boat Club Road and gush to my friends – “My grandaunt and local guardian lives here; aren’t the lawns so beautiful!?”

But it never struck me that I ought to visit. Our relationship was of a decade ago, we both were different people now.

In my fourth year, I found out that Surabhi Aaboo had cancer. For a brief time that my mother had come down to Pune to see me, we paid her a visit. She seemed to be doing well – as active and smiling as ever. She was always involved in a number of charitable meetings and gatherings – especially dedicated to the Arts.

Yet looking at a slightly-frailer her, I felt terrible that I hadn’t found the time to visit her. I decided that I would come to meet her with a handmade card just to let her know how important she was once to me.

I made a little collaged greeting card. Telling myself that I would visit as soon as my term exams were done, I would happily imagine myself giving it to her. I imagined an afternoon tea time spent reliving our memories, as I had read that being a Cancer survivor means one must keep happy and positive post all surgical treatments.

That day never came.

Ten days to my exams and I woke up one morning to my mother calling, informing me that Surabhi Aaboo had passed away the night before. My mother insisted I must go to her home immediately and attend her last rites ceremony to represent our side of the family.

I literally fell out of bed that day, and the next few hours that followed was a bit of a blur. It was as if the whole world had collapsed and yet, in a flash I could recollect all the moments, I spent with her years ago. All of which I had conveniently forgotten in the four years since I had returned to Pune.

I donned the white clothes (a Hindu custom), rushed to her house where there was a small yet grand last rites puja due. Despite so many years of not being in that house – I could make myself useful there to her son, his family and all the close friends who were busy organising things.

I could recollect the little things she liked and arrange things in a jiffy. I was that someone to do all the last-minute running around that is typically required at any large Indian gathering.

Surabhi Aaboo’s son – Milon, deeply appreciated my presence and all the help I could offer their family. He even called my mother the very next day to tell her how grateful he was and how lucky my mother is to have a daughter like me. But when I heard this, I could only hang my head in shame.

You see, a part of me knows I hadn’t acted just out of compassion or sincerity.

It was guilt. Pure, unadulterated guilt. The kind that feels heavy and achy on your shoulders after a long day at work.

The card I made, I had to tear up and then burn ; so stricken was I with this choking sensation every time I saw it. Some days later I became overwhelmed and was in tears at the realisation that despite my knowing she had Cancer, not once in seven months had I found the time to meet her.

Alright, I was busy and so was she. But I could have found the time, right?

So what if it was a long auto-rickshaw journey of about Rs. 65 to her house? So what if I needed to wake up a bit earlier on a Sunday morning? So what if I had to skip a movie date or a trek to spend some quiet moments with her? Wasn’t she always there every weekend for me, sometimes just to pay a small visit when I needed her?

Sitting on my front porch and steps of my tiny rented outhouse, I felt like the same lost little seven-year old on the porch, at St. Mary’s. Overwhelmed with nostalgia, eyes brimming with tears – these thoughts kept repeating in my head.

My beloved Fairy Godmother, my Grand-aunt was gone, and I never once did I manage to tell her a real ‘Thank you’.

Food for Thought

If you were to simply sit back and think of all the mistakes you made – which do you think were totally avoidable?

At thirty-something, I can now tell you about the real regrets I have.

No – it is not narrowly missing the top academic rank back in high school. Or when someone else got picked to represent my college for some competition. Or that rejection letter received from a coveted postgraduate school. It wasn’t even the numerous times I have had my heart broken.

It has always been when love and death meet at this inevitable intersection and then there is no going back. Regret only happens when there are no do-overs. No second chances and nothing teaches us that better than death.

I have come to realise, that it always is our inability to communicate to the people we love – how much we value them for making our lives a little better.

Grandparents, parents, siblings, lovers past and present, aunts and uncles, friends, a kind stranger, the nurse who attended to you, the doorman who greets you every day … Why does it take the moment when they are gone, for us to realise, maybe we should have simply said ‘Thank you’!?

It has been over a decade since Surabhi Aaboo passed away, and yet every time I open an Atlas, or sit at a porch, or see a grey-haired and smartly dressed lady holding the hand of a little girl, … I end up thinking to myself – Was I really that busy?

What could have possibly been more important, that I was unable to find a spare moment to just thank her?

Surabhi Nag (1935-2007) [Image courtesy: Milon Nag]

Dear Surabhi Aaboo,

I know you are missed by so many people whose lives you have touched.

I hope you also know how much you mean to me.

Thank you for being there for me when I needed you the most.

Please know that I can never forget you.

And please forgive me for not being there for you, as you were for me.

Love,

Chitty