Memories Of Life In Thimpu, Bhutan (1977-1980)

I lived in Thimpu from 1977 to 1980. I was four when I got there, and seven when I left, but I still have fairly vivid memories of my three years there. I may not remember the sites of Bhutan too clearly (for that, I need to go back, and I certainly plan to in the near future), but I remember our house, my school, happy times spent with family and friends, and quite a few incidents from my life. I lived there with my father (who was the Indian Ambassador to Bhutan), my mother, and my two elder sisters. My father, during his 35 year career in the Indian Foreign Service, had postings in Tokyo (1956-1959), New York (1962-1965), Nairobi (1965-1967), Manila (1967-1971), Sofia (1975-1977), Thimpu (1977-1980), Belgrade (1983-1985) and Vienna (1985-1989), but if you ever asked him which was his favourite posting, he would say Thimpu. My mother's answer would also be the same.

We lived in a lovely cottage up on a hill. My father's office was also up on the same hill, barely a 100 meter walk away. New India House, a new complex with the Indian Ambassador's house, the Indian Embassy, and houses for members of the mission, had been commissioned before we went to Thimpu, but it was a bit of an eye sore compared to the beautiful cottage that had served as the Indian Ambassador's residence, so my parents decided to stay on there and not move. The next Ambassador after my father, shifted to New India House, which was certainly comfortable and convenient, but lacked the charm of our cottage. Our house was surrounded by greenery and trees, and how I loved climbing trees those days! A few falls didn't deter my enthusiasm and my family referred to me as a little monkey! I was further encouraged to behave like a monkey because of my mother's numerous stories about Kapish, the monkey with the magical tail that could be elongated or shortened at will. Those were happy days. I felt protected and loved, being with doting parents and elder sisters, and my life felt so complete.

I didn't bother much about studies back then. I was a mischievous kid, who was always busy either climbing trees, or playing with animals, or playing with my toys, or rolling boulders down hills (my mother made me realise the potential dangers of that and I stopped). My class had 22 kids, and every time my report card came, I would proudly run home and tell my mother that I had come 22th (not 22nd) in class! My academic performance had to do a lot with Dzonkha, the local language, which I never managed to learn at all, and I would always get zero in it. Back then, hitting kids in school was an accepted norm, and I do remember being hit by my Dzonkha teacher on one occasion. My performance in school suddenly went up one year because I got addicted to a numbers game called Bagatelle, and suddenly I was topping in Maths, and that took my overall scores up, despite the continued zero in Dzonkha!

My best friend in Thimpu was my namesake, Akshay Mishra, the son of Dr Akhil Mishra (an army doctor) and Anju Mishra. Akshay had an elder brother, Avinash. He later got a younger sister, Akanksha, who was years younger than us. Akshay was a year elder to me. The way we first met was quite funny. One day in school, I was generally throwing stones in the air. One stone went and hit Akshay, who was then on a swing. Akshay got hurt, got was very upset, and came and beat me up. Soon we became friends, and we went on to become inseparable. Akshay's parents became very close family friends. They continue to be, and Dr Akhil Mishra has been a family doctor of ours all these years.

Siddharth Singh was an officer in the Indian Embassy, and lived in Thimpu with his wife Jyotsna and his kids Devika and Uday. Jyotsna Aunty was always this very lively person, great at telling stories, and in this one respect, she reminded me of my mother and I was very fond of her. Years later, in 2001, I visited Siddharth Uncle and Jyotsna Aunty in Rome. He was then the Indian Ambassador there. The Singhs hadn't met me in years, and remembered me as an extremely naughty kid. One evening while I was there, there was an important official dinner at home, and Jyotsna Aunty told me I could join, if I promised to behave myself! Ahem, I was 28 then, but I can't blame her for having said that because I really had been this very mischievous boy! Rajnikanth Verma was another officer at the Indian Embassy, and he lived there with his wife Minu and his three daughters, Saloni, Sonali and Sonia. Sonali was my age, and we were friends. The Vermas also became family friends. The Singhs and the Vermas have stayed in touch with the family through all these years.

The king of Bhutan back then was His Majesty Jigme Singhe Wangchuk. He was in his early twenties back then. There was a fairly high level of interaction between my parents and the king. He would come over to our place for official dinners, and we would go across to the Dzong every now and then. He was a kind man, loved by his people, and my parents were genuinely fond of him. He had a fairly informal relationship with my father. My mother would make every attempt to try and limit my interactions with him, because no one ever know what mischievous thing I would say or do. On one occasion, at a lunch at home, I asked him how many idlis he had eaten, and when he said 4, I boasted that I had eaten 12, with sambar and chutney smeared all across my face. On another occasion, I said to him "You are His Majesty. Where is Her Majesty?" He was a youngster back then, and hadn't yet got married. He laughed and replied "All of Bhutan wants to know." On yet another occasion, the Queen Mother met me and said "Hello Dear". I promptly said "I am not a deer. I am a tiger."

Once we went to the king's palace, the Dzong. He had a mini zoo in the palace, and he noticed how fond of animals I was. We went home, and there was a little gift from the king that followed - a box with two white rabbits, Benji and Zeenat. As we found out, rabbits can really multiply fast, and before we knew it, we had dozens of rabbits. My mother constructed a large cage for them in our garden. Sadly, there was some kind of epidemic and they died all one after the other within a few days of each other.

We also got a precious gift from the king's aunt, Ashi Choki. She sent us two albino Lhasa Apso dogs, with long white fur, pink noses and blue eyes. They were Karma and Karsang. I absolutely loved Karma and Karsang. Karma was a female and Karsang was a male, and they were both very affectionate and filled our lives with joy. They would bark the place down whenever the doorbell rang, and if someone from the family entered the house, they would run around the house in a frenzy of excitement. Karma was very well behaved, and lived up to the age of 16. She travelled with us from Thimpu to Delhi to Belgrade to Vienna and back to Delhi. Karsang was very mischievous and was always getting into trouble. He was constantly running into the forest and wouldn't get back for hours. When he finally got back, he would bury his face into my mother's sari, as that was his way of saying sorry. He would sometimes run to our school, which wasn't far, and he would go and sit in my middle sister's class and growl if anyone said anything to her. He would try and chase cars whenever he was taken for a walk. That unfortunately cost him his life. At the age of 3, he once tried chasing a car while he was being walked and the leash snapped, and he got run over. That was a sad moment in our lives. Karma had a total of 10 pups, spread over three different litters. Not many of the pups survived beyond a few weeks, because Apso pups are really tiny and weak, like little mice. Laika was one of the pups who did survive, and he was given to Akshay Mishra's family and went on to live a full life.

Our house was like a bit of a zoo, because in addition to me (I was quite a wild little animal back then!), the rabbits and the dogs, we also had a cat, Leiki. Leiki used to keep warm in the Bhutan winters by snuggling in between Karma and Karsang. Karma and Karsang were so small, that Leiki was practically their size. Every so often, she would give Karma and Karsang a slap on their faces if they didn't comply with any of her demands. They really were bullied by her!

Moti Singh joined us as our cook while we were in Thimpu. He had worked with elderly friends of my mother's in Delhi, Shiva Rao Uncle and Kitty Auntie, and he came to us when they were no more. He came with his young son, Jaswant, who was 9 years elder to me and became a buddy of mine. He used to help out with work around the house, and my mother educated him. He was excellent at sports, and got my two sisters and me interested in sports.

We had several members of the family visiting us while we were in Thimpu. The visitors included my Nani (my maternal grandmother); my Masi's sons Kapil and Arun Kathpalia; my Mamaji's daughters Radha and Poornima Kathpalia; my Mausaji's brother Shashi Kathpalia, who came with his wife Naina and kids Nandita and Vivek; my Chachi's sister Ani Naik (a well known painter), who came with her husband Murali (also an accomplished painter) and kids Ravi and Rupa; and my mother's close Parsi friend Minnie Boga and her Canadian husband Robert. I enjoyed it immensely when we had visitors staying with us.

While we were there, Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Thimpu. He was then the External Affairs Minister in the Morarji Desai government. I was too young to remember much of his visit, but as my mother told me, he charmed everyone (my parents, members of the Indian Embassy, and the Bhutanese royalty) with his down to earth ways, his kindness, his poetry and his articulate style of talking. There was a large reception in his honour at our house, and besides members of the Indian Embassy, the Bhutanese royal family had also been invited. He was a vegetarian and did not drink alcohol. My mother asked him if non vegetarian food and alcohol should be served at the dinner. He was so humble and non imposing in his ways that he said we should do what the accepted custom in Bhutan was. He had high blood sugar, so my mother was careful with things. When he was being served tea, my mother asked him if he would like some sugar. He said yes. My mother gave him half a tea spoon of sugar, and promptly he said "Prem Se Daliye". When he had to make a speech during the dinner, he adapted the lyrics of a popular old Hindi song, made it relevant to the context of Bhutan and recited it, to much applause! He really won over everyone's hearts!

We travelled a fair amount around Bhutan. I can't remember too many details of the historical places we went to, but I do remember that we visited places like Paro, Punakha, Bumthang and Phuentsholing. We went everywhere in our Ambassador car, and I thought my car was called Ambassador because my father was the Ambassador! Bhutanese people are very warm, friendly and accepting, and that is what endeared the country so much to my parents. We were exposed to Bhutanese hospitality, music, dance, archery (the national sport) and cuisines during our travels around the country.

My mother came away to Delhi for a month when my uncle had a near fatal scooter accident. Fortunately, he recovered from the accident. I missed my mother terribly over that one month, and I wrote a letter to her every single day. The contents of the letter were always the same, as I would write about missing her, about the two dogs, and about my father and the car both being Ambassadors! My letters to her always had little drawings too, of all the things I had written about.

I really want to go back to Bhutan. What pains me and really breaks my heart is that though I have travelled extensively around the world in my adult life, I was not able to go back to Bhutan during the lifetime of my parents. I would have really wanted to come back from my trip and share stories with them, and it pains me beyond measure that I cannot do that anymore because they have left us. Yes, my sisters are there and I will return from my trip and share my adventures with them. My middle sister visited Bhutan a couple of years ago with her husband and teenaged daughter, and they came back with glowing accounts of the country. I will visit Bhutan soon, albeit with a very heavy heart because I didn't end up going when it would have been than much more meaningful!

Memories Of Life In Vienna, Austria (1985-1989)

I lived in Vienna from 1985 to 1989, from the age of 12 to the age of 16. My father was the Indian Ambassador there, and it was his final posting before he retired following a 35 year career as a diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service. For him, it was more than an Ambassador's role, as he was also India's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is headquartered in Vienna. There is no doubt that Vienna is an incredible city but I have very mixed memories of my four years in Vienna, some very fond ones, and some unpleasant ones.

Schonnbrunn Palace, Vienna

Stephansdom, Vienna

Karlskirche, Vienna

We lived in Spitzergasse 2, tucked away in the 18th district of Vienna. It was a big house within a large space with huge, beautifully manicured gardens. The second floor was the guest floor, with two guest bedrooms, and another room that we used as a library. The first floor had three bedrooms, plus the TV room. The ground floor had my father's study, an antechamber, a massive drawing room, the dining room and the kitchen. The basement contained the garage, the utility rooms and the servants' quarters. The 18th district is largely a residential district, away from the city's commercial areas, but it is well connected to the historic city centre by tram. I felt a sense of independence that I had never experienced before. Vienna was a safe city, with excellent public transport, so my parents were very comfortable with my being out in the city by myself without any supervision. In hardly any time at all, I was very familiar with the tram and metro routes, and could get around the city without any difficulty.

The Indian Ambassador's Residence in Vienna

My elder sister was away in college in England through our Vienna stint, but we got to see her quite often. My second sister was with us for the first two years, and then she came away to India for her college. My father used to stay busy with work, but he used to largely make it a point not to work over weekends, and he used to take out a lot of time for the family. He used to also take us on driving trips every now and then. We of course went to some of Austria's most beautiful towns, like Salzburg, Innsbruck and Graz, but we also went on two long international road trips, once to Paris, London, Brussels and Bonn in 1987 (my cousin, Arun Kathpalia, joined us on this trip), and once to Monaco, Barcelona and Madrid in 1989. I was too young to help out with the driving back then, so the responsibility lay entirely with my father. The long road trips used to get tiring - he used to count ABC backwards in order to try and stay awake whenever he felt sleepy!

A View of the old town, Salzburg

The Dom, Innsbruck

The Uhrturm, Graz

There were other trips too during my days in Vienna. My cousin Arun, my elder sister, and I went to Italy for a week in the summer of 1987, and we visited Rome, Florence and Venice (where I dropped my pouch with my passport into the Grand Canal - a gondola rider thankfully scooped it out for me!). In the summer of 1988, I made a couple of solo trips. I visited Budapest and stayed with the Indian Ambassador, Sati Lambah. I also went to Berlin, and stayed with the Indian Ambassador, J Doddamani, and got along very well with his son Sanjay, who was a terrific Indian classical dancer. On my way back to Vienna from Berlin, I missed my connecting train at Regensburg at 4 pm, and the next train wasn't till after midnight. In all honesty, I missed the train on purpose, so that I could see Regensburg Cathedral. After seeing the cathedral and having dinner at McDonald's, I waited for several hours at the railway station. It wasn't exactly a fun experience, because I was surrounded by drunk people, drug addicts and homeless people who kept accosting me. I went and sat next to a policeman at the platform and didn't budge until my train arrived!

My mother used to stay quite busy with official engagements, and there were constantly formal receptions and dinners at home, more so when there were visiting dignitaries from India. But my mother always took out a lot of time for me. She encouraged me to follow my interests like table tennis and chess, and she also took an active interest and joined me in watching Amitabh Bachchan movies and Michael Jackson videos! I used to enjoy music those days, and without batting an eyelid, she bought expensive tickets for me to attend concerts by some the biggest pop acts of that time - Michael Jackson, George Michael, Whitney Houston, A-ha and Europe. She and I would have these long conversations, and she was more of a supportive friend than anything else. She used to also send my favourite food for lunch everyday (chicken curry and rice, or meatballs and rice), and the big family joke was that my lunch bag was bigger than my school bag! She was a tremendous hostess to my friends whenever they came over, and she would entertain them with funny stories from my childhood. On my 16th birthday, she happily agreed to host a big birthday party at home, and I had 55 of my school friends who came over! She was once invited to my class to give a presentation on India as part of our Third World Studies class, and she conducted the presentation beautifully. I was so very proud of her for being the person she was - a warm, friendly person, with exceptional communication skills and wonderful story-telling abilities.

Our elderly cook, Moti Singh, stayed with us. Unfortunately, he got cancer and passed away while we were there. His son, Jaswant, also stayed with us and did work around the house. He and I were great buddies. We would play table tennis and chess together, and we would watch Hindi movies together. He was a very smart chap, hugely into body building, and I was genuinely fond of him. Mohan used to work with the previous Ambassador, S K Singh. After we came, he continued staying at the Indian Ambassador's residence, but he worked as a messenger at the Indian embassy. His brother, Puran, joined us from India when Moti Singh became very ill, and he started working for us. Our driver was George Thattil, a very amiable man from Kerala.

My family got close to several people in Vienna. There was Frau Sarma, who was the Indian Ambassador's Social Secretary. She was a very warm, friendly, elderly Austrian lady. She had got married to an Indian, but he had passed away years earlier. Frau Sarma was a treasure trove of interesting stories, and she was extremely resourceful. There was Hamid Ali Rao and his wife Asiya. Hamid was then a youngster at the Indian embassy. When their daughter Alia was born, my mother brought them to our residence for a full month, so that she could help Asiya look after the little baby. A life long friendship developed between my mother and Asiya. There was Marialena Fenandes, a pianist from India who had settled down in Vienna and had become an accomplished concert pianist. Listening to her play was always a special treat for my parents, my sisters and me. Dr Raja Ramanna, the distinguished nuclear scientist, was a frequent visitor to Vienna those days, and he struck up a close friendship with my parents. He was also a very good musician, and was adept at playing the piano. I recall an evening at Marialena's place, where Marialena and Dr Ramanna both enthralled us all with their piano skills! There was Bijoy Borthakur at the Indian Embassy, his wife Deepali, his twin sons Arijit and Avijit, and his little daughter Urvashi. The boys and I used to enjoy playing chess together. Sadly, Bijoy Borthakur passed away in 1988 after he got cancer, and the family returned to India.

I went to Vienna International School. It was at the other end of town from where we stayed, but I used to go by tram and metro, and the journey took almost an hour. It was a large school, divided into Primary School, Middle School and Senior School. It had absolutely fantastic infrastructure. The school had over 1,000 students, and there were kids from over 70 countries. The faculty was very good. I have pleasant memories of teachers like our English teachers Mr Graham (he was also the Drama teacher, and had a terrific sense of humour) and Ms Dettman, our Maths teacher Ms Smith (she was a very thorough teacher and got me interested in Maths, a subject I went on to pursue in college), our German teacher Mr Evert (I enjoyed my German classes, thanks to him), our French teachers Mr Decreuse and Mrs Gosset, our Physics teacher Mr Dindorf, our Biology teacher Mr Edgell (who was quite a heart-throb with the teenaged girls in our class), our History teacher Ms Ardley (I got along well with her), our Head of Senior School Mr Laidler, our Head of Middle School Mrs Ellwood, our Music teacher Mrs Schweighoffer, and our Physical Education teachers Mr Macaulay and Mr Bretherton.

I made several friends at school. There was Waseem Al Qaraguli, the son of the Iraqi Ambassador. I used to hang out quite a bit with him. Our parents knew each other rather well too, because they were all from the common diplomatic community. Humberto Gonzalez (from Spain), Fadi Jabra (from Egypt) and Basel Abdelmoneim (also from Egypt) were all friends I played table tennis with. We had a table tennis table at home, and my friends were constantly in and out of our place to play table tennis - Humberto in particular, because he stayed close by. Michael Csorba (from Hungary) was a friend I played chess with, and we used to hang out together. Rahul Narang was an Indian boy whose father ran a well known India restaurant, Taj Mahal. Yuri Fattah (who was half Bangladeshi, half Japanese) became a friend - he used to live close to our house and used to drop in from time to time. There were girls like Anamika Ghoshal (she was half Indian, half Polish), Jahanara Hasan (she was half Pakistani, half American) and Shokoufa Azarnia a.k.a. Shoki (from Iran) who became friends.

Sadly, one thing left unpleasant scars on me at my school. I experienced racial bullying, like no one should have to. It was probably done in jest with no ill intention (except perhaps by a small bunch of kids, who were genuinely nasty to me), but at that young, impressionable age, it can have serious long term implications. Now I was an Indian boy of 12, and I spoke like regular Indian boys of that age do. Yes, I had an "Indian accent", but coming from India, why would I have an American accent or a European accent? I found that within months of my joining school, kids were laughing at Indian accents whenever I spoke, and they were trying to mimic Indian accents. One of them happened to see Peter Sellers' "The Party", in which the actor plays the role of Hrundi V Bakshi, who speaks with a strong Indian accent. Every time I spoke, kids used to copy what I was saying, speaking like Hrundi V Bakshi. I wish I could say it was just a handful of kids who were doing this, but sadly it was quite rampant. I got extremely conscious of how I spoke, I became very introverted, I lost pride in my identity and I started lacking self confidence and having feelings of not being good enough or cool enough! It's something I carried with me for years, even after I left Vienna, and I'm not sure I've ever managed to get over it fully. The damage was done! I never complained to the teachers. I probably should have. My defence mechanism became that before anyone could mimic me, I would make fun of myself. I did talk to my mother about the situation. She came and met my homeroom teacher, Mr Thatcher, who said he would look into it. However, these daily incidents didn't really take place in front of the teachers, and I was not the type who would go complaining to teachers. On a few occasions, I lost my cool and got into physical fights, which was so uncharacteristic of me, but boy was I pushed to the corner and harassed!

I remember an incident in our art class where we were making objects out of clay. As I worked quietly, this certain boy kept taunting me, and kept making fun of me, my country, my religion, the way I speak, Indian food, and basically anything and everything Indian. He got tacit encouragement from his friend who was laughing, and he went on and on with his jibes. After almost half an hour of this, I looked at him and said "What about your country?". He made a hard ball out of the clay in his hands, and he smashed it on my face. He was stronger than I was. I was stunned and I just let things be, despite the physical pain I experienced. I remember another incident when it was an Indian festival, and my mother had put a red teeka on my forehead in the morning. I went to school and this other boy who enjoyed bullying me, came up to me and started asking what was on my forehead. When I told him, he made fun of me and told me to go back to India and do these things there instead of doing them in Vienna. These incidents still sting after all these years, and these are only two out of numerous ones that took place.

Another cause for bullying was that after our Physical Education classes, we were supposed to take showers and change before getting back to class. I was a modest person, who valued his privacy, and I was not at all comfortable taking a mass shower in front of everyone else, so I never did. This led to unending taunts from my classmates, with all sorts of nasty comments and shouts of "Akshay Shower!" I figured that as a teenager, one needs to either blend in with the crowd and be like everyone else, or be prepared to face harassment. Anyway, I stuck to my guns, but at the high cost of putting up with taunts for years. Even now, I'm pretty clear that I would want my son, Rehaan, to grow up in India and not outside. If he lives outside India, he will be different, and that is an invitation for mockery and taunts, and that's the last thing I would want for him.

Vienna was the place where I had my first ever crush. I was a shy chap back then, plus my confidence had in any case taken a beating because of all the racial jokes I had been subjected to, so I would be tongue tied whenever I met this one girl, and it would be an achievement worth mentioning in my daily journal if on any day I managed to gather the courage to say hi to her! So needless to say, there was never much conversation between us, because I would practically start stammering out of nervousness if she was in the same room!

In addition to the great faculty, Vienna International School had amazing sports infrastructure, with an athletics track, a football field, tennis courts, and indoor courts for basketball and volleyball. There were extra curricular activities on offer like cooking classes, and fabrics classes. I remember making a cake in the shape of a straw hut, which even our Lhasa Apso, Karma, refused to eat! In my fabrics class, I made myself a pair of shorts. My mother joked and said we would give those away in dowry when I got married! There were other interesting activities that the school organized. So for example, when we were learning about the Renaissance in history, the school took us out on a 3 day trip to Florence, where history came alive in the form of the city's fascinating art and architecture.

I have gone back to Vienna several times after we returned to India in 1989. I went in 2001, 2008, 2009 and 2011. Vienna is one of the most beautiful and historic cities in the world, and exploring Vienna is any traveler's delight, with fascinating sites like Stephansdom (the main cathedral), Karntner Strasse (the pedestrian street in the heart of the city, with its many shops and restaurants), Sacher Hotel (with its famous Sacher Torte), Kunsthistorisches Museum (which has a fabulous collection of paintings by top artists like Titian, Velazquez, Vermeer and Rubens), Karlskirche (a baroque domed church with beautiful frescoes), Peterskirche (with its rich baroque interior), the Rathaus (the gothic town hall), Hofburg Palace (with its treasury, and the world famous Spanish Riding School known for its Lipizaner Horses), Belvedere Palace (which features the world famous painting "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt), Prater (a famous amusement park with its large ferris wheel and Madame Tussauds Wax Museum) and Schonnbrunn Palace (one of the most spectacular palaces in Europe).

Rathaus, Vienna

High Altar at Peterskirche, Vienna

Johann Strauss Statue at Stadtpark, Vienna

Every time I've gone back, I've met up with some of my Vienna International School friends who have stayed on in Vienna - people like Giacomo Strazzeri (a friendly, jovial, amiable chap from Italy, who I'm genuinely fond of), Armando Javier (a very social fellow, who is great at keeping in touch), Natascha Lavnick (a warm, friendly girl from England, who went on to marry a Sri Lankan), Shokoufa Azarnia (who went on to become a doctor in Vienna), Nassim Mafi (like Shokoufa, also from Iran), Igor Medan (Shokoufa's husband, from Serbia) and Juan Arellano (Nassim's husband, from the Philippines). In 2011, I went back with my then fiance and now wife, Kamalini, and we were there for the 20th anniversary of our graduation from school. Armando and Natascha had painstakingly organised the reunion and had done a great job of it. Close to 40 of us, from a batch size of about 100, had come. We had Facebook to thank for the great turn-out. It was good to see everyone. We met up in our school one evening. Then there was an extended lunch the next day at a restaurant just off the Danube River. On the third day, we went off to a little town called Langenlois, famous for its wineries. I've been to other reunions as well, but this one was really memorable.

Vienna International School Reunion, 2011

On my 2011 trip, I showed Kamalini the city where I spent four years of my childhood. She absolutely loved Vienna, and I enjoyed showing her around. I took her to the most famous sites of the city, I took her to Vienna International School, I took her to the Indian Embassy and I took her to the Indian Ambassador's Residence, where I had lived. At the Indian Embassy, we happened to meet the Indian Ambassador's wife. I asked her if we could come and see the house the next day. She said sure. Kamalini later told me that I kept referring to her as "Aunty", though she was probably my age! Well, Ambassadors' wives had always been aunties for me, so it just came naturally to me, and I totally forgot that I was now a middle aged man myself!

My wife, Kamalini, at the Indian Ambassador's
Residence in Vienna in 2011

Before Vienna, I had spent a couple of years in Belgrade, and I always say that those were among the happiest days of my life. Vienna could have been that too, had it not been for what happened in my school. But I put it down to kids having fun, being goofy and immature, and perhaps not realising the implications of their actions. Anyway, these things can happen anywhere I guess, so I shouldn't hold it against Vienna. It certainly is one of Europe's most magnificent capitals, and a city that every traveler must make it a point to visit. The Austrian country side is spectacularly beautiful, with the lakes around Salzburg and the Austrian Alps near Innsbruck. Austrian cuisines are world famous, with specialities like the Wiener Schnitzel, and of course the Sacher Torte. Austrians are by and lot a friendly lot. In the world of art and music, Austria boasts of big names like Gustav Klimt, Johann Strauss and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Whichever way you see it, Austria in general and Vienna in particular are among the favourite destinations for a lot of people I know, and I'm proud to be in that group!

Sacher Hotel, Vienna

Vermeer's Artist's Studio at
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Franz Josef at Madame Tussauds, Vienna

Memories Of Life In Belgrade, Yugoslavia (1983-1985)

I lived in Belgrade from 1983 to 1985, from the age of 10 till the age of 12. Back then, it was the capital of Yugoslavia. Now of course, it is the capital of Serbia. My father was there as the Indian Ambassador. My parents, my second sister and I went there, but my elder sister had to stay back in boarding school in India, because back then, the International School of Belgrade (ISB) only went up to Grade 8. My second sister and I were in Grade 8 and Grade 5 respectively, but my elder sister was in Grade 11 so she couldn't join us there. My father had been terribly upset about not being able to take my elder sister along, but the boarding school back in India worked out very well for her, and a year later, my second sister also went there.

The Parliament Building, Belgrade

We lived on Andre Nikolica Street 19, barely 500 meters away from the International School of Belgrade. We used to walk to school. The distance was further reduced if we chose to cut across the Africa Museum, instead of walking along the road. The Indian Ambassador's residence was spread over an area of close to 2 acres. It had formerly been the hunting lodge of a Serbian Duke. The house was absolutely beautiful, with four bedrooms up on the first floor, a wooden staircase going up, the drawing / dining / living rooms on the ground floor, and the kitchen in the basement. There was a separate building that housed the servants' quarters, and there was even an underground tunnel connecting it to the main house. The premises had an outdoor swimming pool and a large garden, fully of cherry trees and a lot of other exotic greenery. As one entered the gate, there was a marble statue of Venus outside the house. The drawing room had ceiling frescoes of cherubs and nymphs. The main bathroom had a stain glass panel of Venus. The whole house was like a living museum!

The Indian Ambassador's Residence in Belgrade

The years spent at International School of Belgrade were without doubt my best school years ever, and I have very fond memories of them. Back then, there were just 165 students present in the school. My Grade 5 teacher was Mrs Miletic, a lovely lady. I didn't keep very good health those days, with occasional asthma attacks. As a result, I would often get exemption from Physical Education class, and I would sit and draw pictures of animals while my classmates were out playing sports. My Grade 6 teacher was Mr Doneski. He was also the Middle School Science teacher. As an extra curricular activity after school, he taught chess, and I took a strong interest in the game and eventually went on to become the school champion. The Middle School Maths teacher was Mrs Obradovic. She was a strict, no nonsense teacher, but was very good at her subject and was well respected. The Middle School English teacher was Mrs Jovovic, an extremely likable person. The school principal was an American, Mr Miller, and his wife, Mrs Miller, was the librarian.

The school had special events like the annual Spelling Bee competition, and the annual Book Writing competition, both of which were won by my sister in 1983-84. It also had a unique sport, Four Square, which was a hot favourite with students during their breaks. We were also exposed to Music classes and Self Defence classes. There used to be an annual pet show, where our Lhasa Apsu, Karma, was crowned the "most beautiful dog". There was also an annual fund raising run through which money was collected for charity, and the amount of money collected depended on how many laps one ran. So there were numerous activities conducted to keep the students engaged and interested.

My best friend in school was Peter Vanderwal, the son of the Australian Ambassador, and my next door neighbour. I was extremely fond of Peter, and he was easily the most popular boy in class. Greg Wilde, also an Australian, was another friend of mine from school. I met "little Greg" in Canberra years later in 2011. He was as warm and friendly as he had always been, but I would hardly call him "little" anymore. Peter Pudaite was a classmate whose father was at the India Embassy, and he became a friend. I've met him again in Delhi and in Kolkata after we were both grown ups. Abeer Al Ajel, a Kuwaiti girl, got along well with me - she had lived in India for a few years, and that was something we had in common. Nandi Ahuja, a fashionable kid who had an Indian father and a Yugoslavian mother, was another friend I made. Monish and Karishma Mansukhani, children of the Air India representative in Belgrade, became friends. Shankar Narayan, the son of an Indian diplomat, was another friend and we used to enjoy watching movies together on his VCR player. Mujib Rahman from Bangladesh was a year senior to me in school, and he became a friend because of our common love for chess.

Meeting Peter Vanderwal in 2015 in Delhi NCR,
after almost 3 decades

Peter Vanderwal was always in and out of our house. We would chat, play Nintendo video games together, and read comics together. His favourite meal at our place was "meat balls and puris", which our venerable old cook, Moti Singh, used to make with a lot of love and affection (Moti Singh's son Jaswant also stayed with us and did work around the house, and became a good friend of mine). I would also visit Peter's place next door quite often. I can never forget one incident. Dinners at Peter's home were formal events, where people dressed up and were served by liveried butlers. One evening I went for dinner, and chicken was served. As a typical Indian boy, I was used to eating chicken with my fingers. Everyone else started eating with a knife and fork. Peter saw me looking uncomfortable and he dug in with his fingers. His mother immediately ticked him off and said "Peter, that's not the way we eat around here!" I somehow struggled through dinner with a knife and fork that evening, and then I said I must learn how to eat with a knife and fork. Soon there was no looking back, because it became so much a part of my life. Even now, everyone laughs because give me a puri, paratha, or dosa, and I will go after it with a knife and fork!

I felt a tinge of sadness on a few occasions during those times in Belgrade. My elder sister hadn't come along to Belgrade. My second sister had to leave for boarding school after 1 year. Peter's father got transferred to Papua New Guinea after Grade 5, which meant my best friend left Belgrade. My mother also had a health scare. It was suspected that she may have cancer, but it turned out to be TB. We did have a scare for a few months while she was ill. All these incidents left me sad. However, I had my loving and supportive parents with me, and that meant a lot to me and pulled me out of every difficult situation. My father was of course busy with his work, but my mother was always there for me, and I absolutely adored her. She would spend a lot of time with me, get my favourite dishes prepared for me, and take me for my swimming and tennis classes. I used to watch the daily 7:15 pm cartoon on TV (so what if it was in Serbo Croatian, and not in English!), and if we were ever out, I would pester my parents to get back home on time, and they always obliged! Whenever my father traveled to Delhi on work, as he had to from time to time, I would give him a list of my favourite Amar Chitra Katha comics to buy, and I built up a large collection, which I have with me even today (I read these out to my 5 year old son).

With my parents, I traveled around Yugoslavia a fair bit, and my favourite destinations back then were the walled Roman city of Dubrovnik, and the former fishing village of Sveti Stefan, which had been converted into a luxurious resort. I can never forget the joy of eating fried eggs with ham and bacon for breakfast straight from a frying pan in Sveti Stefan! The beautiful lakes at Plitvice were another highlight of our visits around Yugoslavia. The pretty towns of Zagreb and Ljubljana were other places I enjoyed visiting. During a visit to Skopje, while my father was busy with official work, my mom and I were taken around the town by the local government's protocol team. At Skopje Zoo, I remember seeing an animal and insisting with a lot of authority and confidence that it was a hyena. It turned out to be a baby bear, much to my mother's amusement. I also remember that we were taken to a winery. I got very nervous when my mother was asked to taste different types of wines. In Hindi, I kept telling her that she'd get drunk, so she should just pretend that she was sipping!

View of the Walled Town, Dubrovnik

Church of St Marks, Zagreb 

Three Rivers Fountain and Cathedral, Ljubljana

There were people who became close to our family. There was Deepak Malik from the embassy, and his lively, interesting and friendly wife Chandana. They had a 3 year old son, Orko, who was a real favourite at our house. Deepak was a great chess player, and I remember our 28:1 score in his favour. It was very sad news indeed when he passed away at a young age, some 15 years later. There was Lal Pudaite from the embassy. He was from the North East of India, as was his extremely warm wife, Lani Pudaite. Their two children were Peter and Dingdi, with Peter being my classmate and friend. There was Renu Rajan, the daughter of Mr Rajan who worked in the embassy. Renu was a warm person who went on to settle down in Belgrade, and become a doctor. She has kept in touch with us all these years and visits us in Delhi whenever she comes. Milenko and Vladomir were local drivers at the Indian embassy, and both were very likable people. Milenko hardly spoke a word of English, but he still enjoyed a great rapport with my family. Vesna Vucic worked at the Indian embassy, and was very popular with everyone, with her gentle demeanour and charming ways. Lubitsa and Elisabeth worked as part time helpers at our residence, and George was our gardener. They were all amiable people. People can make all the difference in a place that's away from home, and we had such wonderful people in our lives in Belgrade.

Renu Rajan with my Mother in Delhi in 2019

In 2009, I visited Belgrade, and I stayed at Renu's place with her and her young son Nihal. During that visit, I visited ISB and though I didn't get to meet my old teachers there as they had all retired, I met another teacher, Mrs Pat Andjelkovic, an American lady settled in Belgrade for decades. She took time out and showed me around the school. The school had expanded in the 24 years that I had been away. The school now went up to Grade 12, and the senior school was where the Australian Ambassador's house used to be. Mrs Andjelkovic visits India almost every year, and we make it a point to meet. We've struck up a warm friendship, though she is so much my senior and I didn't know her at all when I lived in Belgrade. Thanks to her, I managed to meet Mrs Jovovic. I rang up my sister and got her to talk to Mrs Jovovic, who had been her homeroom teacher. I also managed to speak to Mrs Miletic on the phone.

Pat Andjelkovic in Delhi in 2019

During my 2009 visit to Belgrade, I visited our old home in addition to visiting my old school. I also managed to see a lot of Belgrade's sites, including the Parliament Building (also called the National Assembly), Kalimegdan Fortress and St Marks Church. It was a very nostalgic visit indeed, and I returned to India and told my parents and my sisters all about it. Thinking back on my life, those 2 years were among the happiest years of my life. I did miss my sisters a lot, but I had my doting parents, I had an absolutely amazing house, I went to a school that I loved, and I made some good friends.

Kalimegdan Fortress, Belgrade

President Josef Broz Tito had passed away a few years earlier, and he had done a great job of holding the county together. When we were there, there was no sign of the ethnic trouble that was to come about barely a decade later, which resulted in the country eventually splitting into Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia. The mid 1980's were a happy time in Yugoslavia, and I absolutely cherish my childhood memories from Belgrade. I think I would like to take my wife Kamalini and my son Rehaan back to Belgrade some day, to show them the place where I spent 2 magical years of my life!

St Marks Church, Belgrade

The Girl Next Door Who Went On To Become Mrs Bhutto

My mother spent her childhood years in what is now Pakistan, and the family migrated to Delhi just after partition in 1947, when my mother was a girl of 12. A lot of my mother's childhood years were spent in Bahawalpur District, but they used to visit Karachi often. In Karachi, they used to stay in a plush locality called Clifton.

In Clifton, a gentleman of Iranian origin was their neighbour. He had recently come from Bombay. He lived with his wife and two daughters. One of the girls was called Nusrat, and she was roughly the same age as my aunt, and a good six years elder to my mother. My aunt, my mother and the two girls used to go out from time to time for movies and to the beach, and a friendship developed.

After partition and the formation of Pakistan, Karachi became the new nation's capital, a status it held till 1958. Houses in Clifton were requisitioned by the government for government use, and residents had to vacate their homes. Nusrat's father was not happy about this because he had just moved from Bombay and had set up base in Karachi. He used to share his grief with my grandfather, but then all residents in Clifton had no choice but to move out.

In November 1947, my mother's entire family moved from Pakistan and came to India. My mother never went back to Pakistan after that. All contact was lost with people left behind, including with Nusrat and her family. In 1964, my parents got married and my mother joined my father in New York. He was an officer of the Indian Foreign Service and was then doing an assignment for the United Nations.

In New York, my mother met a Pakistani diplomat during a certain function. He was very interested when he got to know about my mother's roots in his country, and they conversed a bit about my mother's childhood days in Bahawalpur District and the time she spent in Karachi. My mother mentioned the names of Nusrat and her family members, and this Pakistani gentleman's jaw dropped. He said "Nusrat is now Mrs Nusrat Bhutto, and is the wife of our Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto!"

Begum Nusrat Bhutto went on the become the First Lady of Pakistan, when her husband was Prime Minister from 1971 to 1977. She later became the Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party and mother of Benazir Bhutto, who was Prime Minister from 1988 to 1990 and then again from 1993 to 1996.

My mother was never in touch with Nusrat or anyone from her family after 1947, but it was such a quirk of fate that this teenaged girl she once knew went on to become such an important figure in Pakistan's history!