Moving In

In December 1987—exactly a year after my father passed away—Bhavana and I decided to change the map of our lives. We moved out of the familiar comfort of Jaishree Bhavan in Wardha and into the MGIMS campus at Sevagram. It wasn’t a grand leap. It was a quiet shift. But it changed everything that came after.

We were allotted Flat No. 13, first floor, in the “Type 2” quarters near Kasturba Vidya Mandir. Two bedrooms, a small drawing room, and a kitchen that quickly became the busiest room in the house. We didn’t own much then, so the move was almost embarrassingly easy. One truck, a few steel trunks, and we were done.

To set up our new kitchen, I took my seventeen-year-old niece, Surekha, on my scooter to Sitabuldi in Nagpur. We returned like proud hunters with our trophies: a gas stove, a Sumeet mixer-grinder, and a 165-litre Kelvinator refrigerator. Soon after, a black-and-white Digichrome television arrived. Ulhas Jajoo and Mr. C.B. Taori helped coordinate it, as if buying a TV was a public health programme that needed teamwork and planning.

Once we settled in, colony life took over—quickly and completely. We were surrounded by young lecturers: Dr. Ramji Singh, Dr. Mendiratta, Dr. Ajay Agrawal, and many others whose doors stayed open more often than closed. Privacy existed, but it wasn’t treated as a sacred right. In a two-minute walk you could meet twenty people you knew, and if you looked even slightly troubled, someone would ask, “Kya hua?”

Evenings had their own rhythm. Badminton in the open, cups of coffee that never stayed hot, and snacks that travelled from one house to another without needing permission. Birthdays were not private family affairs. They were community events. One child blew the candles, and the whole block ate cake.

The Malgudi of Sevagram

Sevagram was a village, but our colony felt like a little town square. It had its own characters—warm, quirky, and unforgettable—people who could have walked straight out of an R.K. Narayan story.

Dr. K.K. Ghuliani, Head of Community Medicine, became our next-door neighbour when we shifted to Vivekanand Colony in 1989. In the department he looked stern, almost military. Students feared his punctuality more than exams. But at home he was a different man—easy, affectionate, and addicted to Scrabble. Many evenings ended with him grinning over a triple-word score while the rest of us protested like injured parties.

His wife, Mohini, held the colony together in ways no official circular ever could. She taught flower decoration and knitting, organised children’s programmes at the staff club, and somehow made every gathering feel like a family event, even when half the people were meeting for the first time.

Then there was Dr. R.S. Naik from Forensic Medicine—a paradox if there ever was one. He worked with death all day, yet he carried the liveliest spirit on campus. As warden of the boys’ hostel, he followed one simple philosophy: “Boys will be boys.” And since this was the pre-cable-TV era, he started a Cine Club. Every weekend, films were screened, and the hostel boys got their dose of Bollywood, romance, and noise—exactly what young men need when they are stuck in a rural campus with too much study and too little distraction.

Lali, Kali, and the Director

But the most eccentric—and most loved—were Dr. Samit Kumar Ghosh and his wife, Laxmi. Dr. Ghosh, our Professor of Anatomy, lived with three passions: dissection, gardening, and dogs. He spoke English in a rich Bengali accent and carried a temperament that could switch from thunder to tenderness without warning.

The Ghosh household didn’t “keep pets.” They had family members who happened to be dogs.

They had adopted two street dogs and named them Lali and Kali, based on their coats. These weren’t dogs who slept outside. They slept on the bed, ate home food, and were spoken to in Bengali like small children who refused to study.

One Sunday morning, the colony woke up to a crisis. Lali and Kali were missing.

Mrs. Ghosh rushed out in panic—hair uncombed, an informal house gown, and a big red bindi that announced she meant business. She stopped a passer-by and demanded, “Excuse me! Have you seen Lali and Kali?”

The man was Dhirubhai—the formidable Director of the institute. He stared at her blankly. Lali and Kali sounded like nieces, or granddaughters, or maybe two important VIPs he was expected to recognise. When she explained they were dogs, his expression shifted from confusion to alarm. He muttered something, shook his head, and escaped before he could be recruited into a search party.

Years later, when Dr. Ghosh moved to Kolkata, their devotion reached another level. They booked a special carriage on the Mumbai–Kolkata Mail for Lali, paying a handsome sum, while Kali travelled by car. They were not dogs, after all. They were Sevagram royalty.

A dent in the car, a lump in the throat

Dr. Ghosh could be fiery, but he also surprised you when you least expected it.

In 1999, we bought a second-hand Maruti 800. Bhavana was learning to drive, while managing her job in the IT department, two children, and the daily chaos that runs every Indian home. One Sunday morning, while reversing out of the driveway, she misjudged the angle.

Crunch.

Our car hit Dr. Ghosh’s shiny, well-kept vehicle. A dent appeared—clear, ugly, and impossible to hide.

Bhavana froze. She knew Dr. Ghosh’s temper. She imagined the shouting, the humiliation, the long lecture that would follow. Still, she walked to his door and confessed.

Dr. Ghosh came out, looked at the dent, then looked at Bhavana standing there with her head slightly bowed, waiting for the blast.

Instead, he turned to me.

“Kalantri!” he said sharply. “Why are you not helping her more?”

I stood stunned.

Then his voice softened as he spoke to Bhavana. “It is not your fault. Reversing is difficult. You are doing too much.”

He looked back at me. “She is managing home, children, job. You must share the load. Shoulder her burden.”

And with a casual wave of his hand, he dismissed the dent as if it was a mosquito bite.

Bhavana came back home with tears in her eyes—not from fear, but from relief. The car had a dent. But what stayed was something else: the unexpected kindness of a man who could have shouted, but chose to protect.

Amrita arrives—and Ashwini finds a tail

In October 1989, we moved to the first floor of Vivekanand Colony. Soon after, Bhavana went into labour. It was 10 p.m., and the hospital was barely five minutes away on foot. Dr. Chhabra arrived quickly, and within an hour, our daughter Amrita was born.

Ashwini, then three and a half, was thrilled. Outside the labour ward he met Dr. Anuradha Gokarn, a house officer who was engaged to her batchmate, Fali Langdana. In a playful mood, she asked him about a recent staff club party.

“What did you do at the party?” she asked.

“I became Lord Hanuman!” Ashwini announced.

“But you don’t have a tail,” she teased. “How did you become Hanuman without a tail?”

Ashwini looked at her as if the answer was obvious.

“Oh, that was easy,” he said. “I used Phali for the tail.”

He meant the long bean vegetable—phali. But Dr. Anuradha burst out laughing. The thought of her fiancé, Fali, being used as a tail in a toddler’s costume was too funny to resist.

That’s how those years felt: small homes, open doors, shared laughter, and the comforting noise of neighbours who slowly became family.

We moved to Sevagram thinking we were only changing our address.

We didn’t realise we were also choosing our people.

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