“I think I am ready for Gadbad,” said Nandini, referring to the local ice-cream parlour that served a sinfully cold delight of jelly, cream and custard. “Let’s do it on Tuesday the 11th,” she had told Meena, her childhood friend.
Meena remembers the telephone conversation vividly, more so because it was almost six months since Nandini had lost her younger sister Rachna. And a return to their ice-cream trysts meant Nandini was finally coming out of mourning.
“I could not control my emotional outburst. I knew this was going to be special for both of us as Rachna had left so many memories,” says Meena.
But that was not to be. Nandini’s body was found at the Borivali station on 7/11. She was returning from work and was supposed to meet Meena at Gadbad in Santacruz.
The Naiks — they are still grappling with the loss of two daughters within a few months — are trying in their own way to explain the inexplicable.
“She must have called Nandini,” says their father Ramesh Naik, 60, pointing to Rachna’s photograph on the wall. “They were always together in everything they did. They laughed, fought and lived with a lot of affection for each other.”
For Ramesh, Nandini was the ‘‘pride of the house’’. She was the accounting wizard, while sister Rachna was the ‘‘homemaker’’. The joke in the family was that if a guest asked for water, Nandini would point to the kitchen, while Rachna would also force a plate of Maggi on the unsuspecting visitor.
But Nandini was a “cleanliness freak”— she couldn’t tolerate a speck of dust and would throw a fit if things got moved from their designated place.
Ramesh describes Nandini as the “daughter with a bouncing ponytail who always dressed pretty.” The first class commerce graduate from MMK College was the first in their Goan-Konkani family to crunch numbers efficiently. And that’s why he got excited when she wanted to pursue an MBA in finance.
From a call centre, Nandini effortlessly moved to her new job as credit manager with a finance company affiliated with the ICICI Bank. The fruit of her new salary — backed up by Rachna of course— stands proudly in their one-room Santacruz home: a double door LG fridge. But the mother is yet to wear any of the gold ornaments worth Rs 30,000 that Nandini gifted her — ‘‘investment is priority, liquid cash is evil,’’ she used to say.
“Her brain always accounted for the cash she earned. And she was thrifty to a fault. Kunjoos ek number ki,” laughs aloud Ramesh, recalling how she would only buy vegetables that were cheap. “Once she got a truckload of ginger from Dadar market because it was cheap.”
Her cousin Namrata (21) doesn’t agree: “She did buy clothes and shoes, but all were for Rachna. She even coaxed Rachna into wearing western outfits as she had a tall figure.” And her only weakness: tandoori chicken and a purple shade lipstick she guarded with her life.
Ramesh also revealed that this year would also see ‘‘half-ticket’s’’ — the family would rile her for her small frame — wedding. Her fiance, who worked in the Middle East, had been waiting for eight years to marry her, he says.
But the celebrations stopped on February 24 when Rachna accidentally fell in the bathroom and suffered a brain haemorrhage. Her death changed everything in the family. Nandini withdrew into herself, refusing to attend social gatherings and their house, usually the favourite Sunday haunt of friends, became quieter than ever before. “She would come home from work. Eat something and go to sleep,” recalls her father. As days progressed to months she became more and more aloof, lost interest and even stopped talking much. Family and friends tried their best but couldn’t pull her out of her shell.
The news of Nandini’s death reached Ramesh late. He was on his way back from Goa’s Beacholin temple, where he had gone for a puja to the family deity in connection with Rachna’s sudden demise.
For always, Ramesh’s abiding memory of his elder daughter will be of the time he saw her in hospital on July 12. ‘‘Her face was without a scar, beautiful as always.’’
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