Sophia's Freedom

Chapter 10: Journal: New Place New family

After our discussion concluded, Uncle Banerjee retired for the night. Vikash told me that he will be sleeping in his car and that I should call him if anything was needed. I sat next to Sophia's bed and started reading the diaries. 

I opened the photocopied pages, it felt more like a huge notebook and on the first page it was written: "A LIFE WITH NO EXISTENCE." It was a very eloquent choice of words.  

I found the first entry dated back to the 12th of January 1992.  

                                                              12th January 1992

I have no clue how to write a diary, but this is the best way I know. This is the first time I am penning down my feelings into a journal. Today Papa received news of his new posting. He must report to 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 to 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.

He also told me a secret that this posting will be his final assignment and then he has asked his superior officer to relieve him from the armed forces. He wants to spend all his time taking care of me.

**** Wow!!! I like Abhinu's father, it's good that he is teaching his young son the habit of keeping a journal. It feels good to know that his dad really cared about his son, and is willing to quit one to the prestigious jobs in the country.****

                                                                     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 at 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. By the time 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 feel that they are probably 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 armoured 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 and ask for a Lt. Col. J. Christopher. 

After the class was over, just as my father predicted, all my classmates crowded around me and started asking about my dad. By the end of the day, I was famous. Aarohi, Aamaya Di, and I became the most popular kids in school that day. That day made me realize the level of respect and honour 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 want to watch 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 good friend to me. I was hoping to score good marks to make papa proud of me.

After the announcement, Harsh 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. Harsh'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 Harsh 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 Harsh 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 sir to skip his class today so that she could extend her period for the test. 

As I looked at the question paper, it felt like luck was in my favour. Last night Aarohi and I selected certain questions which we thought were important for the test and prepared notes for them and to our surprise they were part of our test questions.  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 Harsh guy. Just like his name, his attitude is also the same. Harsh with everyone. 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. 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. Once we started talking papa delivered the bad news 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 alright and he replied that his second in command is on leave so until he returns Papa will not be able to leave his unit. I was sad and in a brief moment of anger told papa that I don't want to talk to him.

He lied to me. He broke his promise. I was sad and probably Papa was sad too 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 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 had our lunch outside. This was the first time I had visited places in 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 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 Indo-Gothic or Victorian Gothic architecture as it represents Queen Victorian time.

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. As I entered the classroom my worries transformed into panic mode wondering about the results.

For the first time in life, my nervousness dominated over my senses probably due to the challenge made with Harsh which made me react like this. Poddar ma'am initially announced the names of the students who scored less than 15 marks. After that, she started to call out the names of the toppers. It appeared funny when I saw  Harsh readying himself to get up from his seat to respond, as madam declared the topper of the test.

Watching  Harsh's preconceived movements madam declared that it is not Harsh this time but someone else and 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 have seen in the class. Aarohi came second and Harsh and I came third. Ma'am further added that she is 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 and told the class how we should be helping. Ma'am went to Monika and told her she is proud of her. She had improved a lot.

*** Wow is that my sister Monika who was mentioned in Abhinu's journal. If she was, I am proud of her. I remember, earlier in Kolkata all Monika knew was to play games and never cared about her studies. But one day dad told me that something changed her and Monika became a bookworm. She has proved to everyone that she is an 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. ***

                                                                   TO BE CONTINUED…

                                                                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~