Most of us must have heard about haunting spirits and haunted houses. Even the White House is not free from such lore. Spooky stories spice up our childhood and often add colour and flavour to our otherwise happy and carefree life.
But only a few of us must have heard about haunting names and numbers! Now in the evening of life, when I reflect on the years gone by, I strongly feel that some names and dates have haunted me and left behind a cornucopia of memories and experiences.
Like Ghaffar the driver who appears in many a novel of R K Narayan, some persons or people with the same names have come into my life and played their roles. Even some dates at different times have touched my life and carved a niche for themselves in my heart. Numbers 17 and 19 have played big roles and given me some ‘aching joys’, making me mourn and murmur.
I was born on July 17 and I had some health issues. My mother had often told me that once or twice she had lost hope of my recovering from bouts of indisposition. Because of this, I was the apple of my parents’ eyes, though there were eight sons and daughters at home. My eldest brother was in the Army. On 17 December 1971, the last day of the Indo-Pakistani war, he was gravely injured and lost a few inches of his left leg.
Years later when I was doing my first degree, a young medico came into my life, and changed its course dramatically. After some short ‘spells’ of love and longing between us, she married another doctor on December 17! And since then I have started writing my initial ‘M’ as “17”!
As a commerce student in the 70s, I, like many of my friends, had become a strong admirer of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for her bold and epoch-making decisions of nationalisation of banks and abolition of the ‘Privy Purse’.
Indira Gandhi was born on November 19 and she had nationalised the banks on July 19.
But never in my wildest dreams had I thought a girl, that too a namesake of Indira, would walk into my life as my wife on June 19. My mother too liked her daughter-in-law Indira because she was also a great lover of Indira Gandhi.
Alas as fate had it, my mother passed away on 19 November in 2015 at the ripe age of 93.
The name ‘Indira’, and the dates 17 and 19 have haunted me and definitely played decisive roles in my life.
M Somasekhar Prasad
Email: matamsomasekharprasad@gmail.com