| In the 7th instalment from his forthcoming book “An Unsuitable Boy”, Jas Kalsi writes about an episode from London in 1980… |
 |
Ravinder Rathor understood the reasons, but never knew the real truth behind why his father, Raj Singh Rathor would always get so annoyed whenever he heard that their old family friend Geeval Auntie was about to visit with her nasty children in tow. He never said, but there would be the usual arguments between Ravinder’s parents, with Mrs Rathor saying: “It’s so embarrassing to see how you behave whenever she’s around”, adding “I don’t really like her either, but she’s coming all the way from Kenya, so it’s final” as Mr Rathor begrudgingly agreed to play host to the uninvit- ed guests flying into London Heathrow the next day… |
Geeval Bhopal, lovingly nicknamed by the three Rathor children over the years as “Devil Auntie”, was from old Kenya days, when Mr Rathor and his extended family all lived there. It was even before the Rathor children, Ravinder, his brother Narinder and sister Kieran were born, but they had heard all the stories. Geeval Auntie was married to Arun Bhopal, one of their father Raj’s best friends and whom he confided in when he met Pyari, the beautiful ‘Bollywood’ film star, back in Kenya in April 1956. At that time, Raj Singh Rathor was in turmoil. He had fallen madly and totally in love with Pyari but it was a relationship that was always doomed because she was a Hindu and he was a Sikh. Apart from that, she was married! During this time, Arun, who was a Hindu, had been a loyal friend to the young Raj and the two stayed close for years up until Arun’s death from a heart attack in 1975 at the age of just 50.
It is customary to call such acquaintances “Auntie and Uncle” even though they were just family friends, as terms of endearment and Ravinder would often remember Arun Uncle bouncing him on his knee in the gardens of the Rathor family home in Nairobi, Kenya. Arun Bhopal married Geeval Ghanda in Kenya during the summer of 1966 and according to all accounts, it was a disaster from day one. It was an arranged marriage, with the bride’s family insisting on a Dowry that all but bankrupted the Bhopal family. Such Dowrys were outlawed by the Rathor family and indeed all modern Hindu and Sikh families as they were seen as divisory and totally unnecessary, even though most families practiced the system and indeed continue to do so to the present day. This was devastating to Arun as he had to forgo his Scholarship to Cambridge to study Natural Sciences, which was his dream. At the time, nobody could understand why he would sacrifice everything for someone whom he hardly knew. He wasn’t in love with Geeval at all – everyone knew that, but he was intent on marrying the not-so-well matched bride, albeit 14 years younger.
Looking at the pictures of the Arun & Geeval wedding from their father’s collection of old Fuji Film Technicolour slides over the years, the Rathor children would often mutter to themselves that Geeval Auntie was so unsuitable for their dear Uncle Arun. Kieran Rathor would call her a witch because of her big long nose and the children were convinced about the stories that “Devil Auntie” had cast a spell on Arun Uncle to marry her. They used to call Arun Uncle “James Bond” as he looked so much like Sean Connery. He really did! Over the years, as the stories were exchanged between various relatives and friends and family, it had emerged that some form of blackmail had ensued and that the whole of Geeval Ghanda’s family were unsavoury characters who had been pursued by the Indian State Police for years and two of her four brothers had served time.
It was now the morning of the flight from Nairobi, Kenya to London as the Rathor family waited not-so-happily for Geeval Auntie, her daughter Deepa and son Vikraj, both 13 years of age, at the arrivals area of the airport.
Sure enough, they had arrived. Geeval Auntie had enlisted the help of a steward and was being pushed along in a wheelchair, although she was in perfect health at just 41 years of age! Accompanying her was another steward pulling four large suitcases and assorted smaller boxes and bags and her children fighting with each other as usual. Ravinder observed that Geeval Auntie had not spotted them waiting and was carrying a walking stick, with her head resting back on the wheelchair and her right hand on her forehead, appearing to be ill. Just then, her wayward children had pushed into the luggage steward and most of the bags fell onto the floor. At that instant, Geeval Auntie jumped up from her wheelchair, stormed upto the steward and hit him over the head with her walking stick, shouting in Hindi “you idiot – don’t you know how expensive my things are! Pick them up, right now!” As he complied apologetically, the children pointed to him and laughed as their mother composed herself and elegantly walked back to her wheelchair, with the walking stick clutched in one hand and being rapped onto her other hand just like the whip of a school mistress. Momentarily, just as she sat herself back in, she looked ahead and saw the Rathor family right there, obviously realising that she had been seen and immediately feigned distress, contorting her face as if to cry and saying to Mr Rathor: “Raj, Raj, please come and help me – your poor dear sister is here..” “Why are you in a wheelchair, Auntie?” asked Ravinder’s sister Kieran.
“Oh, I am very poorly my dearest – too much work for your poor old Auntie without her husband by her side” she replied. “Not too poorly to attack a steward” whispered Ravinder as brother and sister glanced at each other, shaking their heads in disbelief. As the stewards finished loading the two cars with all her bags, Geeval Auntie looked at Mr Rathor during the embarrassing silence as the stewards held out their hands for their customary tip. Everyone felt they deserved medals for what they put up with but they went away happy with a generous tip from the unwitting host of the day. Mr & Mrs Rathor looked at each other with disdain and Raj whispered: “now you know why I didn’t want her here..” to his shell-shocked wife. With Ravinder driving one car and his father in the other car with Geeval Auntie and her kids, they all drove home. Back at the house, Ravinder and his brother unloaded the luggage from the cars only to find pungent vegetable curry seeping through one of the suitcases and into the carpet, adjacent to which they found chewing gum pushed into the back seats and a broken ball point pen which Vikraj Ghanda had been playing with leaked all of its ink into the cream leather of Mr Rathors beautiful new Mercedes S280. Oh dear. Inside, Geeval Auntie explained that she had cooked the curry especially and could not understand how it could have leaked and would Kieran be a dear and clean it up quickly as she had expensive clothes inside! The unwelcomed guests stayed for over two weeks at the Rathors and what followed almost cost Mr & Mrs Rathor their marriage, uncovered the real secret behind Geeval Auntie, her marriage to the handsome Arun and the truth about the infamous Ghanda family in India. |
