Aditi is unable to connect to her mother on
the phone. It’s her and the boarders’ phone call day. Every Thursday and Sunday
the boarders’ of Gulmohar call their parents, 4 minutes on Thursdays and 8
minutes on Sundays. She (and K. Padmini, both from Gangtok) is the only one out
of the 28 boarders who didn’t get the line. The rest all signed in the phone
call register.
The SA 1 examination is going on. Hence, some of the girls
study till late night while the others are fast asleep. Aditi too fell asleep
thinking she would be unable to speak to her parents.
I get a call somewhere between 10:00-10:30 pm. Generally I
don’t pick up calls from boarders parents after 9:30 pm. But today I did when
the office phone buzzed and “Aditi’s Ma” appeared on the screen. I went to room
no. 4B. Her bed is no. 3, in one corner facing the window (in Gulmohar we call
it facing DPS Guwahati). She was fast asleep.
When the rouser call rings in the morning at 5:30 am almost
everyone wakes up on time except Aditi. When I take a round to check if
everyone is awake and brushed their teeth, she would still be sleeping. I would
go to her bed and wake her up gently. Once I was in such a round and as
expected she was fast asleep, all curled up in bed. “Wake up, Aditi. Wake up, Aditi”,
I told her. She opened her little eyes. I sternly commanded her to get up from
bed and go. She was still in a half-sleep-half-awake state when she replied “Go
where, Ma’am?” It was for the PT/ Yoga classes I meant. Even though I acted as if
I was angry with her for asking such a question when she ought to know her
daily schedule followed in the hostel, deep inside I was not. Her question only
made me smile from inside.
She spoke to her mother first and asked her why she didn’t
keep the phone with her. She told her mother that her tuck was almost over and
asked her to come from Imphal to Guwahati to meet her and bring her the special
Maggie cooked by her mother. In the hostel, most of the boarders eat uncooked
Maggie as they eat Wai-Wai - raw.
She asked her mother about her father’s health, if the lump in
his face has subsided. In all her innocence she beseeched her mother to pray to
the Almighty to cure her father. She was crying when she spoke those words.
Hope the one above us sees her tears and listens to her prayer. She later spoke
to her father in Hindi and asked him about his well-being. Her tears stopped
immediately as she started the conversation with him, as if she didn’t wish him
to know that she had cried a moment earlier. I could sense a grim in her face
as she spoke to him. She asked her father to “kick that doctor”- the one who
was treating him.
I must have waited for more than 4 minutes by her bed.
Shabana, Aditi’s roommate got up from her bed and climbed on to Aditi’s bed
when she became emotional. Krishna, her other roommate who was sleeping
peacefully until then too woke up when she was on the phone. Donu Kena, her
Arunachali roommate had just entered the room after studying in the study room
when I was about to leave their room. I wished all the 4 roommates good night.
Aditi is a very sweet girl even though she doesn’t spend much
time in studying. She was in Sanskriti- The Gurukul, Guwahati before joining
Royal Global School, Guwahati. She was my nephew Jonathan’s classmate in her
previous school. She is in grade VI A now and seems to know her lessons well
since she had already studied in class IV and V in Sanskriti (under ICSE) what
she is studying now in grade VI in RGS (under CBSE).
