Fruitcake - Volume 1: The Chapter 10 10: Journal: New Place New Family
After our discussion concluded, Uncle Banerjee retired for the night. Vikash went back to his car. On his way, he told me to call him if anything was needed. I sat next to Geeta’s bed and started reading the diaries. I opened the xerox, it felt more like a notebook and on the first page it was written “MY JOURNEY OF LIFE”. It was a very eloquent choice of words.
I found the first entry dated back to the 12th of January 1992.
12th Jan 1992
Today Papa received news of his new posting. He has to report in Purulia in 4 days. This is going to be a field posting, the family is not allowed there, so he decided that I would be staying with my Pishi’s (father’s younger sister) family in Kolkata. They live in a very big bungalow there. Papa keeps telling me that Pishi’s husband was the one who gave me my name Abhinu. He said that I would be very happy there, they have 4 very sweet daughters and I will be very happy to meet them. He also told me that uncle has arranged for my admission in DPS and that we should leave for Kolkata tomorrow morning. Papa has arranged to transfer our furniture directly to my Mom’s home in Purulia. I told Papa that I am going to miss him very much. He hugged me and said that he is going to miss me too. He went to his room and gave me a big notebook. He told me that I can pen down my thoughts on it. Whenever I feel lonely, I can consider the journal as my best friend and write everything down.
***** “Wow!!! I like Abhinu’s father, it’s good that he is teaching his young son the habit of keeping a journal.” *****
13th Jan 1992
Papa woke me up at 5:00 AM and asked me to freshen up. We took a helicopter ride from Ladakh and were dropped in Jammu airport. From there we boarded a flight to Kolkata. This was my first helicopter ride and I was very excited about it. Papa told me that this helicopter is called MI-24. This is the largest attack helicopter in the world. We reached Kolkata around 11:00 am. We found uncle waiting for us at the airport with one of his daughters. I introduced myself to uncle and then he introduced me to his daughter Aarohi. She was the same age as me. Papa told me that co-incidentally Aarohi and I were born on the same day. As we were returning Aarohi told me that she was born 2 hours before me. As we reached uncle’s home, I was introduced to Aamaya didi, Darika and Garima. Darika and Garima were 2 years younger than me. I could see that they are twins. Aunty took me to a room where I would be staying for the next 3 years until dad gets his next posting.
14th Jan 1992
I woke up at 5:30 AM and found that papa was already up and ready to leave. He had his uniform on. This would be the first time I will be away from Papa. He decided to accompany me to school before he left for Purulia. Uncle told me that Aarohi and Aamaya di also studied in DPS and that Aarohi is in my class. I was excited that at least I have someone whom I already knew. Around 6:30 AM, a green gypsy came to pick Papa up. It was exciting, to imagine my first day at school and being dropped in a military vehicle, with 2 armored cars following them. We reached the school. Papa and I went to meet the Headmaster. They had some discussion and then, the headmaster took me to our class. He introduced me to Poddar ma’am who was our class teacher. After that Papa told me it was time for him to leave. But he will be back in a week after he is done with his reporting. I didn’t want him to leave and could not help crying. Papa bent down a little and told me that It doesn’t look good for the most popular boy in school to cry, and using a handkerchief he wiped my eyes with it. He took my notebook and on the last page jotted down a number with his pen. He told me that if ever I felt like talking to him, or I was in any sort of trouble I can always call this number. After the class was over, just as my father predicted, all my classmates crowded me and started asking about my dad. By the end of the day, I was famous. Actually, Aarohi, Aamaya Di and I became the most popular kids in school that day. That day made me realize the level of respect and honor is bestowed on an army man.
**********”Abhinu’s dad seemed like a remarkable person. I really hoped I could get the chance of meeting him one day. I continued to go through the next entries.”***********
15th Jan 1992
My day in school has been normal. Nothing much happened. After school, I went to my room and did my homework. Darika came to my room and told me that aunty had got a DVD for the Home Alone movie and if I was interested in watching it with them. I kept my books on the table and went with her to watch the movie. During the movie, I started to miss dad. I left the movie halfway and went to my room. Amaya Di and Aunty came to my room and asked me if I was alright, I told them that I was missing my dad. Aunty tried to console me by saying that they were also my family. She raised her arm and hugged me and told me that she will call my father next Saturday and I can talk to him. I thanked her. She left the room saying that if I don’t want to watch the movie it’s fine with her. Aamaya di and aunty left the room.
16th Jan 1992
After assembly, I went to class. Poddar Ma’am was on leave today so we were asked to sit in the class. We got the news that we will have a class test tomorrow and there will be a surprise for the top 3 scorers in the class. Since I joined the school midseason, Aarohi has been helping me cope up with my studies. She has been a really good friend to me. I was hoping to score good marks to make papa proud of me. After the announcement, Soham came to my desk and started taunting me in a haughty tone insinuating that I was considering myself a popular student and tomorrow’s exam will reveal that I was just a show-off when I won’t clear the exam. Soham’s insulting tone made me retaliate and I ended up challenging him to score better than me in that exam. Aarohi cautioned me that scoring better than Soham is not easy. He is the topper of the class. I assured Aarohi that tomorrow his confidence is going to be shattered. It was his overconfidence that was going to bring him down. The whole day was spent studying for the upcoming class test.
17th January 1992
I was both excited and nervous about the class test today. I knew Soham would be fully prepared to give me a tough challenge. It didn’t matter even if he scored better than me. We are classmates.
It was a one and half hour test. We came to know that Poddar ma’am has requested Mr. Verma to skip his class today and she could extend her period for the test. As I looked at the question paper, it felt like luck was in my favor. The other night Aarohi and I went through certain questions which we thought were important and to our surprise they were the same questions which we prepared for, the other night. After the exam, Poddar ma’am told us that she will declare the results on Monday. The rest of the classes continued and we returned home waiting for tomorrow.
****** “I have already started hating this Soham guy. He is such a bully and far too haughty that he is the class topper. I hope his over-confidence is shattered. But I don’t want Abhinu to be the one. It should be his sister. She is better than both of them. There is one thing though, this boy Abhinu is really brave. For a 6-year-old, living away from his father could be difficult. But what about his Mom, where is she? Why doesn’t he stay with her? I continued reading through the diary to find out the answers to my questions.” ******
18th January 1992
Today was a Saturday, and time to call Papa. In the evening, aunty dialed up the contact number which was given to her by Papa. When I called him up, papa told me that there has been some problem and that he would not be able to come on Monday as promised earlier. I asked Papa if everything is all right, and he replied that his second in command is on leave, so until he is back, he will not be able to leave his unit. I was sad, I told papa, that I don’t want to talk to him. He lied to me. I know Papa was also sad that he cannot come to see me. He told me not to cry and asked me to give the phone to Uncle. I went to my room and sat in one corner, with a picture of my Mom and dad, thinking about our happy days together as a family.
19th January 1992
It was a Sunday. I tried enjoying my day but I was still missing dad a lot. Uncle planned to take us to Science City for a change, to keep my mind off yesterday’s events. We enjoyed the whole day there and also had our lunch outside. This was the first time I had visited places of Kolkata, other than my trip from DumDum airport to Uncle’s place and my daily visit to the school. By now Aarohi and I have become really good friends. After we had lunch, uncle took us to Saint Paul’s Cathedral. This is a lovely Church. Uncle told me this church is 150 years old. He told us that this design is known as Victorian architecture. I was awestruck looking at the talent of the architects of that time. I asked uncle if I can go inside the church and he allowed me. We went inside together and admired the beauty of the church and by evening we were back home again. I kept worrying about the test results to be announced tomorrow and finally went off to sleep.
20th January 1992
I was so worried about today’s result that I couldn’t eat my breakfast properly. I was in panic mode wondering about the results. This was my first time worrying about a class test result. Perhaps it was the challenge I made with Soham which was making me react like this. Poddar ma’am initially announced the names of the students who scored less than 15 marks. After that announcement, she started to call out the names of the toppers. I saw Soham standing up, as ma’am was about to declare the name of the topper. It was a funny moment when she said Soham it’s not you, it’s someone else and she said that the topper is Miss Monica. I turned around to see who this Monica is and to my surprise, she was one of the most beautiful girls I’ve seen in the class. Aarohi came second and Soham and I came third. Ma’am came and said that she is really proud of me considering that I joined school midseason and still managed to score better marks. I told ma’am that I have got the best sister in the world who has helped me a lot with my studies. Ma’am congratulated Aarohi for that as well.
Ma’am went to Monika and told her she is proud of her. She had improved a lot.
**** Wow, I was proud of my sister. I remember back in Kolkata all Monika knew was to play games and never cared about her studies. But one day dad told me that something changed with Monika, she became a bookworm. She has proved everyone that she is the best allrounder. I decided to read on but my body was giving up. I was feeling sleepy. I put my head next to Geeta’s hand and went off to sleep. ****
