Part 3: Settling In, Joyfully.
Chapter 11: In Our Own Home: Mother, Bakul, & Me
It was May 1954 and the start of the three of us finally living together in our own home. Although she was only nineteen and a half years old, she had a good aesthetic sense of decorating the house with whatever little we had to work with.
I had just started my job with the SQC unit of the Indian Statistical Institute, where I earned Rs150 per month, and had not yet discussed with Bakul how we would manage the household.
We began the practice of going for a walk on the Juhu beach after dinner. The beach was less than a mile from our home. During one such walk in the first week, I asked her if she had thought about how we would run the house with only Rs150 per month. I told her that I had made a commitment to the unemployed 50-year-old son of my Palanpur uncle that as soon as I got a job, I would send him Rs15 every month.
Without any complaint, she said we should keep the commitment.
Out of the remaining Rs135, she confidently said she could manage the house. The rent was only Rs15, and the girl to clean metal dishes after dinner would cost only Rs2 per month. She said she would wash the clothes for all of us by hand in the bathroom and also sweep and mop the floors.
I was reassured by her positive spirit but was internally pained that she, who had never done such work in her parents’ home, would now be required to do so because she married me, a poor boy.
Chapter 12: A Daily Routine
Our routine was established quickly. I ate a little Bhakhari with a small glass of milk. Bakul kept two small bhakharis and chhundo, plus a slice of lemon, in a small stainless steel box and put it in my bag for lunch in the office at 1 p.m.
Our office was closed only on Sundays with half-day work on Saturdays. With our own house and our own bedroom, we became very close.
We needed to go out for a walk on the beach every Sunday for total privacy. The constant presence of my mother in the house made us behave with caution out of respect for her. Going to the beach by holding hands and hugging was an experience we enjoyed.
Once, we walked and sat behind a wall separating the sandy beach from the garden of the bungalow on the other side. We sat close to each other. She said she had just heard a new song by C.H. Atma.
It was very beautiful. Its lyrics ran like “Preetam Aan Milo.” She loved the song and so she sang one or two verses.
It was a classical song, and I loved it. We talked about my interest in classical Indian music, which she had not heard much of. She loved semi-classical songs by Pankaj Mallik and K.L. Saigal. I, too, loved these two singers.
Her godbrother Haru sang their songs very well, and one day, she would ask him to come and sing for us. We discovered today that we both liked the same semi-classical singers.
We were being drawn closer and closer. The respect for each other was now quickly turning into genuinely romantic love.
Chapter 13: Unwavering Support
I had only two pairs of good office clothes—two pants and two bush coats. Bombay weather and visits to factories for work made clothes of the day dirty.
Quite often, our officer in charge of the unit, Dr. Miss Vaswani, would invite industry managers to our office for a seminar to discuss how our services could help them. These meetings would take place after office hours from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. I, too, would be asked to make a presentation. I needed cleaner clothes. Bakul told me not to worry. She would wash yesterday's pair, get it starched and ironed, take a 4:30 train, meet me at 5:15 at the Marine Lines station, hand over fresh clothes, and return home. Luckily, my office was very close to the station. I would go into the bathroom at the office and change to presentable clothes. This kind of situation would happen several times a year. She had unbounded energy. She was a problem-solver in my life.
Chapter 14: Indian Classical Music
One evening, one distant uncle (BK Dada) told me that Abdul Halim Zafar Khan, an eminent Indian sitar player, was performing a major concert in a private club in Santacruz. He knew I had an interest in classical music, so he was prepared to give us two tickets for the concert.
He felt Bakul, too, would enjoy this concert, and we both agreed. After dinner, we took the train one station south from Vile Parle to Santacruz. We reached the club in time for the concert to start at 8 p.m.
The artist was young and strikingly handsome. He played many ragas, but the last one he started at midnight was Miyan Ki Malhar. This was my most favorite raga. The artist played it with great emotion. Bakul was able to see some resemblance to the music she loved in the movie Tansen. As the raga was being played, it started drizzling outside. The concert ended at 1:00 a.m. We took almost the last train northbound.
On another day in 1956, Pandit Omkarnath Thakur, doyen of Indian classical music, was giving a concert In Brabourne Stadium in Churchgate. We decided to attend. We bought the tickets and sat in the cheapest seats in the stadium.
Panditji sang “Bhairavi raga, Jogi Mat ja Mat Ja" with such emotion that the whole stadium was vibrating. Particularly when the last line of the burning pyre was sung, one could visualize the cremation pyre burning in the stadium.
The concert ended at 2 a.m. and we took the last train from Churchgate to VileParle. Bakul was simply thrilled and deeply moved by this classical rendition. These two exposures to Indian classical music made her appreciate why I liked the classical music of India so much.
Chapter 15: A Pregnancy I Did Not Know About
It was the summer of 1956 with long daylight. We had formed the habit of periodic long walks on the Juhu beach. One Sunday after dinner, we set out to walk. The beach was less than a mile from our home. After reaching there, we decided to walk north on the beach towards Versova/Andheri. We walked for about an hour and decided to return home by a different route.
At one point, there was a narrow creek that we had to jump to cross to reach a road that would take us south toward our home.
We did so with some jumping effort and started walking south towards our home in Vile Parle.
My mom was worried about why we had not returned. We explained the situation, which made her visibly upset. I did not understand why.
The next day, after her shower, Bakul asked her mother to accompany her to their doctor’s office. She had started bleeding, and the doctor confirmed she had a 6-week miscarriage. She and the mothers knew about this pregnancy, about which I was not told.
Chapter 16: Our Second Pregnancy
It was the end of 1957. My office asked me to go to Baroda and start exploring industries there to see if they would be interested in applying SQC techniques in their respective plants. I left for Baroda at the end of February 1958. There was considerable interest from all the factories there. I was asked to establish an SQC unit in Baroda to serve industries there. I did so by April.
I found office and residential space for a staff of three or four statisticians trained in SQC techniques. We rented the entire lower portion of a beautiful bungalow with a lovely landscape around it. Bakul and my mother had to move to Baroda.
Bakul had told me at the end of February that she was probably overdue for her monthly period by two weeks. So, when she arrived with my mother in April, she was over 10 weeks pregnant. Our custom required that the first pregnancy needed to be celebrated with a religious ceremony at around twenty weeks. Relatives from Kundla, Palanpur, and Bombay were invited in July. It was her responsibility to rent mattresses and decide where they would sleep. She and Mother had the duty of feeding all the guests.
One day, because of a slight drizzle of rain, the tiled floor in the lobby leading to the kitchen was slippery, and Bakul fell. Her mother took her to a lady doctor who examined her and concluded that the baby’s position had changed. If she was kept in the hospital for a few days, she could change her position where it should be. My Mother would not agree, as religious and other ceremonies required Bakul’s presence all the time.
The entire ceremony was satisfactorily completed. Our custom required that the first child be born in the parents' home.
Accordingly, Bakul’s mother and she traveled back to Vile Parle in Bombay by the middle of August.
In the presence of so many older relatives, I could not hug her or even have a private talk with her. We both were forced to exercise restraint.
Chapter 17: Birth of a Son
On November 8, sometime during the day, we got a telegram from Bakul’s mom that Bakul had delivered a healthy boy of nine pounds, and both mother and son were doing well. My mom and I in Baroda were thrilled and decided to leave for Bombay that night.
My mom had predicted that Bakul would deliver a girl because her mom and my mom both had their first child as a girl. She was simply overjoyed.
We took the Gujarat mail that night and reached my Mama’s home the next morning. When we rang the doorbell, my mami opened the door and said Bakul and the boy were well, but she had to be cut open to deliver. None of us had ever heard the word C-Section surgery.
We went to the hospital. Both moms smiled and hugged each other. I stood near her bed and looked at her and the boy with a great sense of satisfaction and happiness. I was not allowed to touch the mother or the child. That was the custom.
I returned to Baroda, and my mom stayed in Bombay at Mama’s home. Bakul would remain in the hospital for two weeks to ensure there was no infection before she was sent home. She would stay at her mother’s place for three months. Her mom hired Ganga, the old wife of the gardener who was an expert in massaging with oil both the mother and the child after delivery. She also fed nutritious food with ghee for Bakul’s speedy recovery.
At the end of January 1959 I had to go to our Bombay office for a conference. After the conference, my friend and colleague Sivaramakrishnan and I visited VileParle to see Bakul and the boy. Both mother and son looked radiantly healthy, as my friend commented to me on our return trip.
It was decided that a special pooja called Navchandi would be performed in VileParle before Bakul and the boy could return to their home. This was a special protective pooja. This was done by a priest trusted by Bakul’s mom and my mom. This pooja was recommended by the Surya Samhita we had visited several years ago in Patan.
They came home in mid-February. Our son was getting healthier by the day, eating his mom’s milk. Bakul, too, looked healthier than ever before, with glowing skin and good energy.
My sister came over from Amreli. Our tradition required that my sister should name the boy. A few months before, Bakul and I had read a Gujarati novel by Kanaiyalal Munshi called Bhagvan Parshuram. We both loved the valiant character of Parshuram, and so we gave that name to my sister, who agreed to use that name for our son.
Bakul placed him in a local Catholic school before he was three. He studied in this school until 1964 when we moved back to Bombay from Baroda.
Many events took place between 1958 and 1962. I am skipping over these events to focus on November 1962, when one significant event took place.
