Mixed bag - A dash of romance!

When we moved from the YMCA house, Shankar babai too moved on, as Mummy made sure he successfully finished his school final, after flunking it once. He went back to Kakinada and then came the tall, statuesque beauty with a captivating face – Chantammalu atta! With her, she brought a whiff of romance and I got to experience my life’s first real love story. She was already engaged to be married to her cousin – Kalyan Ram, more popularly known as Babu to the adults in the family and mamu to us. He was studying medicine at Visakhapatnam and was a frequent visitor to our home at Cuttack, as long as atta lived with us.

This was also the time that ammamma came for her annual visit or maybe to help us with the shifting or to be with Susi, during her recuperation. She was so captivated by atta’s beauty that she was forever giving her home made remedies and tips on how to enhance it further. Atta was an apt pupil and used to make note of all that ammamma said and religiously followed them. The women of the house were constantly going out shopping and visiting various temples and places, dragging us kids, all around the place. This essentially meant me being away from my explorations and games and I hated this.

I used to look forward to Babu mamu’s visits, as much as atta would. Because, when he visited us, she would invariably excuse herself from the trips into the town and I would be left behind with them. Imagine 5-year old me, chaperoning 20 something couple! I would hang around atta and mamu, while they would sit next to each other with their hands wrapped around each other, whispering sweet nothings. I did my best to listen in to what was being said and unfortunately could not make head or tail of it. Once my attempt at eavesdropping became unsuccessfully, eventually bored, I used to move out onto the verandah to play with my friends. The minute I spot Mummy and ammamma returning from whatever errand they were on, I used to dash inside to alert the romancing couple. No one asked me to do so, but I did it, anyway, as I sensed that the elders would not be thrilled to find them both so engrossed in each other. Not that they did anything that would scandalize the family, but we are talking about the 1970s and families like ours were not so liberated to accept this kind of courtship.

When mamu was not around, atta used to write long letters to him and they were reciprocated by equally lengthier notes. The post man used to come for the deliver of the letters during the afternoon and one would invariably find atta waiting on the verandah for him. I used to find it strange that she would post a letter today and starting waiting for mamu’s reply from the very next day. You see, even I knew that it would take 3-4 days for a letter from AP to reach us in Orissa!

Yes, unlike the current times, where all it takes a click on the mouse button to send a message to your dear one, we were so dependent on the Indian Postal Service for messages to be delivered.
Every major street had a monstrous looking red tin contraption called the “post box”, which also served the purpose of a landmark. The post boxes had small display boards with the clearing timings. There always used to be race to ensure that we beat the postman before he cleared the box. The more adventurous of the lot running down just as he was closing the box and thrust the letter in his hands. Once he accepted the letter, we would return with a massive grin, chests puffed out and strutting like a super hero! Nothing can beat these simple pleasures of childhood, not all the gold equivalent to my weight :-)

The day she received the letter from mamu, atta looked radiant and her happiness knew no bounds. She would run into our bedroom, and read the letter for hours together, behind closed doors. I used to wonder why should she read it with the doors so tightly bolted from the inside and pester Mummy and ammama to help me understand the logic behind this strange behavior. All I received was knowing smiles and glances from the adults, when they were in an indulgent mood, which was rare. Else I would be subjected to angry glares and worse, to a whack on my head by Mummy, accompanied by an angry remark on how precocious I am!

You can imagine how devastated I was, when it was time for atta to leave. It seemed that a page in my life, which started documenting the interesting dynamics of human behavior during courtship, remained incomplete. Yes, this little romance that I witnessed at such tender age made me worldly wise, no doubt. I played cupid for several couples in the years to come - some of them had a fairy tale happily ever after ending, while others ended up in tragedies (some did not even reach the wedding altar!). However, I earnestly wish I saw this particular love story to its logical completion. In a way I did, when I saw them get married couple of years later, but there were so many pages missing in between. True, I got bits and pieces here and there, mostly, from my cousin, Ajji short for Ajay. He once told me how he used open the letters that mamu wrote to atta, and read them secretly and found them extremely romantic. Poor unsuspecting mamu never could imagine that his 9-10 year old nephew was up to no good, when he asked him to post the letters he wrote to his beloved!