When Gail left Calcutta I was rudderless for a time. My parents persuaded me to try out the British public school system - it was an abject failure - I left one boarding school after three days and ran away from the other after a term. It was long enough.
Back in Calcutta I was sent to the dreaded Miss Bath's. Another of the ladies who had originally come out to India as governesses and then stayed with their own schools she was legendary. She forgot nothing and no one - me particularly as I had only stayed at her school for a week as a small baba. I hated it - all rules and discipline and, as I remember, very little love or learning. But, I had pretty much burnt all the educational bridges and Miss Bath was the last gasp if I wanted O'levels. I was never sure that I did but my family conspired to convince me that they were a good thing.
My rebellious ways were untamed from AISC and, not long after joining the school, I was part of a classroom revolution that chalked TEACHERS ARE THE SLAVES OF EDUCATION: WE ARE THE MASTERS on the blackboard. Needless to say we were punished - equally needless to say - I did very little of the punishment. It was during one of the lengthy afernoons that I first became really aware of Annabel. She was two years younger than me and I knew her - I knew Tony her brother quite well- but I discarded her as too little to be of any real interest. She had shown an early flair for blackmail, blagging cigarettes from me out at Tolly by threatening to tell that I was smoking and I must have thought she showed some promise for I gave in and handed them over.
Annabel was my opposite - hard working, disciplined and determined. Where things could floor me she would use them as an impetus to move on. Her saving grace was a shared sense of the absurd and her fierce loyalty once she gave her friendship. I'm not sure how but we became at first good aquaintances and then very good friends. She is my best friend in every sense. Best because of longevity, because she is 'best' at so many things, best because you don't get better than her and I don't have a better friend than her.
What little intellectual development there was at that time was completely due to her. As she studied for A'levels and I partied I was allowed to 'help' by being questioned about the meanings of Donne and Shakespeare. I had to keep up because anything else would have been viewed as failure and so I learned more by default with her in Sunny Park on hot afternoons than in any classroom.
We became inseparable - Joannabel to our friends. We mourned over the loss of boyfriends, cheered Arthur Ashe to victory at Wimbledon via the World Service and travelled to Puri and Nepal. We had widely divergent interests - Annabel was and is a superb golfer - she won the All India: to me golf is the ultimate waste of a good walk. She was always sporty - explaining to me that she had good hand/eye co ordination wheresas I was as clumsy as clumsy. She could sing - I am tone deaf; once being asked to be quiet during a school assembly as my lack of tuning was putting other people off. She spoke fluent Hindi - once berating a policeman for not clearing the traffic to such an extent he turned round and told her to go home and tell her mother to find her a husband to teach her some manners.
How do you quantify something that is so integral to your life. Annabel is the sister of my heart. Her place in my life is still, forty years on, central and immoveable. To the best of best friends - Happy Birthday Craitur - sorry about the card.
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