Welcoming More Seniors

“I say, did you lock the door properly?” I asked Aunty as I walked up to call for the lift to go for our evening stroll. Sometimes an innocent question has a knack of turning into a missile. This was one occasion when it did.

“Tell me, when have I left the door ajar,” she quipped in a pitch reserved for such occasions. “No Madam (time to buy peace), just that last week half way to JP Nagar, you asked me if I had switched off the gas where you were boiling rice in the pressure cooker.”

“Don’t change the topic. We are talking of locking the door,” her tone suggesting one thing at a time.

The lift arrived, and I prayed for some passengers to join us en route so that we put up a smiling face at short notice and chat with them. It helps to act as a great leveler. It did.

Routinely we walk up to Alder Gate – mostly uneventful. But that day we saw a couple of our age relaxing in the steel bench. Upon eye contact, we smiled. All too eager to respond, they went a step ahead and stood up to greet us, or, more likely, to hold us up for a while for a chat. We were no less keen.

“My name is Venkatachalam. I belong to Nurani, Palakkad, but from age six I was brought up in Chennai. I retired as Professor of Chemistry from IIT, Madras. Two weeks back we moved to Alder (8014). In fact, quite a few residents here - nay IITians - greet me as having studied under me. I could place quite a few of them.”

“I am also from Palakkad, and Vadakkanthara village, close to Nurani. But then you never lived there,” I said.

Upon hearing the name Vadakkantharai his wife Padma, until now dormant, jumped into the fray. “There was one Chella Mami there.”

“She has two daughters, one in Calicut, and the other here in Bangalore? I attempted the next line. “Yes, yes,” she hastened. Vasanta, in Calicut, and Geeta in BMEL gate?” I asked like a CID zeroing in.

“Geeta’s husband Ramani is my elder brother,” she shared. “Oh my God, what a coincidence. Geeta is my cousin and I had the privilege to do my bit in this alliance.  

“By the way Ramani was my Chittappa’s best friend, and precisely why we recommended his name for the marriage,” Aunty clarified, not to be left behind for the credit part.

“Why not you come to home one day, and we spend some time together,” both the ladies asked each other at the same time. “It is a small world,” we menfolk supplemented.

As it turned, Mr Venkatachalam and Mr Radhakrishnan, also Alder (8084), are sambandhis, Radhakrishnan’s son having married Venkatachalam’s daughter.

For the uninitiated, Mr Radhakrishnan reigns supreme with informative, entertaining and spiritual contributions to the SFV Seniors Whatsup group. His movements in the complex are calculated to attract the minimum of attention.

On the flip side, my friend Shri Maanikavel who retired as the Registrar of Madras University, and his son are moving out of SFV. His son is relocating to the US some time in April. During the round, Maanikavel stopped us to say: “I am returning to Chennai in a day or two. I might come to help my son in packing. But just in case I don’t, let me bid farewell to you, sir,” he said rather touchingly.

Alas, for any action there is an opposite and equal reaction. If we have acquired a new friend, here is another to whom we have to bid farewell. Perhaps that what life is made up of, I shared with Aunty, more in a bid to patch up.

“That was an evening well spent, wasn’t it,” Aunty asked when we were returning home. “Except for the hiccup at the beginning, perhaps?” I glanced at her still unsure. She smiled.