I remember as a kid living in a chawl in Vakola at Santacruz, Mumbai (or Bombay as it was known long ago), I used to wait eagerly for his visits. Devanna – as my elder cousin, DR Belle has always been known to me – used to visit us frequently and we used to go to the nearby fields next to the airport to buy vegetable leaves.
Much later after he got married in 1973 and I returned home after running away for a while, I went to his Indian Air Force quarters in Lohegaon, Pune, on a brief holiday. (He used to fly IAF aircraft and retired as a Wing Commander).There were many in the area who were surprised to see a longhaired, jeansclad youth walking on the road, and one senior airforce officer’s wife stopped her car and also gave a lift to the hitchhiker that was me.
I’ve enjoyed great times with Devanna and Vijayanthimala Belle (centre in the pic next to Gayatri) over the decades, visiting and staying with them in Delhi, Hyderabad and of course Mangalore. So it was wonderful to have them with us in Pune today after a long time.
Indraprastha, Hadapsar, Pune
Nov 25, 2019
