Emergence in Time
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Summer of 1979
It was the summer of 1979 -- perhaps May or June -- when the phone rang at Renu Villa. Back then, it was a big black landline phone with a rotary dial from Calcutta Telephones, because BSNL didn’t exist yet and cellphones were still firmly ensconced in science fiction novels. We were a dozen people living together in one large, semi-joint family, and there was one phone for all of us -- a privilege in those days, since not many homes had a phone at all. Ours sat on its own special marble table on the first floor, while I lived with my parents on the second. A buzzer, installed by my enterprising father and operated by one of my aunts, summoned me downstairs. I was told that Fr Hincq, SJ, from St. Xavier's, was calling for me. Fr Hincq was the Principal -- or perhaps the Headmaster? -- of the St. Xavier's Higher Secondary Institution, which was sandwiched both physically and metaphorically between St. Xavier's College and the Collegiate School, from which I had passed my ICS...