-Brian Mendonca
As I look around this Teachers' Day to wish my teachers, I find there are less of them on this earth. Many of them have bid adieu like Sr. Alvina, Ms. Anne Menezes, and Professor Newman.
However, my day ended today reconnecting with Mrs. Ahuja (87) who cared for me and with whom I stayed as a paying guest during my Delhi years. I was delighted (or Delhi-ited) to know she had relocated back to Delhi after a sojourn in Mumbai. True, she was staying alone but you could feel the zest, the joie de vivre in her voice as she spoke cheerily from 2000 kms. away.
We recalled fond memories of her making parathas for me when I stayed with her. When I asked what she was eating, she giggled asking me how I knew she was eating when we were talking on the phone. We held the conversation in Hindi and it almost seemed I was back in her drawing room having the customary pre-dinner chat on a spring day in Delhi.
Mrs. Ahuja - Bimla Ahuja - was a teacher of English in Delhi. She also taught at Don Bosco technical school, Okhla, a hop, skip and a jump away from her current abode (which was mine too) in Sukhdev Vihar, South Delhi. Yet she never put on airs and was a paragon of simplicity. Her chuckle was always round the corner of a conversation. When I left Goa to begin my working years in Delhi it was Mrs. Ahuja who helped me make sense of the city. She advised me on many occasion and I am the better for it.
Mrs. Ahuja was near when Dwayne was born in Holy Family hospital, Okhla. She asked about him today when she was talking to Queenie. It did not take long for her to pick up from where we had left off. When Queenie asked her how she spends her time, she replied, 'I am short of time.'
From my experience of my days spent with her, Mrs. Ahuja always had something to do. She would spend a lot of time meditating. She would tidy all the rooms, attend to her self-care, or rush off for some bank work. She introduced me to Sokka Gakkai Buddhism and the vibrations of the chant nam-myo-renge-kyo. However, Mrs. Ahuja respected all faiths and would listen eagerly to my sharings after I came back from Sunday Mass at the Masigarh church nearby.
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