VEENA GUPTA : Remembering Veena Didi

Late Smt. Veena Gupta Jee

Specttrum Profiles: Shrimati Veena Gupta of Budaun (Uttar Pradesh), whom I always called Veena Didi, remained part of my life for nearly four decades through a relationship that began with her young son Anmol in 1988. A caring mother with a deep interest in the future of her children and grandchildren, she stayed connected even when cities, careers and long stretches of time separated us.

My first meeting with Veena Didi belonged to a very different Budaun and a very different phase of my own life. I was staying at the Government Inter College campus, where my father lived in an official residence as hostel in-charge. I was preparing for the next phase of my career when a former student of my father approached me with a request. A young boy needed some guidance with his studies.

The boy was Anmol Gupta ‘Mickey’. He was still in primary school, perhaps around ten years old. I started teaching him in my free time, and what began as a small academic responsibility soon developed into a much warmer association with the family.

Veena Didi was already thinking seriously about her son’s future. She wanted Anmol to receive a good education and explore the possibility of studying at a reputed residential school. That concern took us all the way to Nainital. Anmol’s father, the late Ramesh Gupta ji, travelled with me, young Anmol and a driver to explore admission possibilities at the well-known Birla Vidya Mandir on the hill.

It was much more than an admission enquiry for me. I was young myself. Yet the family trusted me with their child and included me in decisions that mattered to them. My bond with Anmol became particularly strong. When Veena Didi wanted him to spend his holidays with her sister, I accompanied him by train to Lucknow. On another occasion, I took him to Delhi to stay with relatives. I even gave him two collections that were precious to me then: my rare coins and matchbox covers.

Life subsequently carried me to Indore (Madhya Pradesh) to pursue journalism. The everyday connection faded as careers, cities and responsibilities took over. I met the family again after a year or so at their new home, but gradually we travelled into our separate worlds. Veena Didi, however, never completely disappeared. In later years, Facebook became a small bridge between us. She would occasionally respond to something I posted. A few years ago, while I was living in Chandigarh, she asked me to visit Budaun.

Then came another message last year. She had been watching my travels across India and wrote in her familiar way: “Sab jagah ghoomte rehte ho, kabhi Budaun bhi aa jao. Mujhe aapse kuchh baat karni hai.” Those words acquired a different meaning for me later.

I had lost both my parents years earlier. Gradually, Veena Didi had become one of my few deeply personal connections with the Budaun of my younger days. When I shifted from Chandigarh to Faridabad, I called Anmol and reconnected with the family. The distance of many years began shrinking again.

Then came 4 June 2026. I returned to Budaun after thirteen years, primarily in connection with my ancestral land. Meeting Veena Didi was high on my personal list. When I finally saw her, time suddenly became visible. The energetic mother I remembered was physically very weak and largely confined to bed. But the curiosity was still there.

Our last meeting with Veena Didi in Budaun on 4 June 2026. Nearly four decades of memories came together in one frame. Anmol Gupta Mickey on the right side.

I had carried my five paperback books for her. We sat together and talked about life, family and the years that had passed. She asked where I was staying in Budaun. When I told her that I had checked into a hotel, her response came with the authority and affection of an elder sister: “Next time aao toh hamare saath ghar par rukna, hotel mein nahi.”

It sounded like an ordinary family instruction then. Today, it has become one of the sentences I will remember most from our last meeting. The family offered me freshly prepared idli, sambar and other delicacies. We clicked a few photographs together. Anupam, popularly known as Jimmy, was abroad at the time, so I could not meet him during that visit.

And soon the conversation turned towards another young boy in the family. This time it was Raghav, Anmol’s son, who was visiting from the United States. Veena Didi wanted to know what Raghav should do next in his studies. That moment stayed with me. Almost four decades earlier, she had been thinking about little Anmol’s education and had travelled mentally with us all the way to a residential school in Nainital. Now Anmol was a mature businessman and father of two sons, while his mother was discussing the educational future of the next generation with the same curious eyes.

For me, another strange thing had happened to time. Somewhere in my mind, Anmol was still that little boy travelling with me to Lucknow and Delhi. In reality, he and his brother Anupam Jimmy had built substantial businesses in Budaun. Anmol took me around his GS Hero MotoCorp and Kisna Diamond & Gold Jewellery showrooms. Later, we visited the family’s grand home on DM Road, in the same part of Budaun where I had spent my school years.

Even the departure carried the warmth of an old family connection. I had casually asked Anmol if he could arrange a few Dasbajiya plants for me, the local flowering plant whose pink blossoms open around ten in the morning, giving it its familiar name. The plants reached my hotel room the next morning. They did not arrive alone. Anmol also sent a box of Habbu Halwai ka peda, a wall clock and two large divine calendars as memorabilia from Budaun. Small things perhaps, but journeys back to old places are often remembered through precisely such things. That June visit now feels particularly precious.

A day before I was due to fly to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra, I saw the news through a local portal. Veena Didi had passed away on 6 August 2026. She had spent her final days under treatment at Medanta Hospital in Gurugram.

For a few moments, the mind returned to 1988. The GIC campus. A small boy called Anmol. A journey to Nainital. Train journeys with a child entrusted to me. Those coins and matchbox covers. Facebook messages decades later. Five books placed in her hands. Fresh idli and sambar at the family home. A few photographs together. And her affectionate instruction that next time there would be no hotel.

Her invitation to return to Budaun had finally been answered. I am grateful that it was. Veena Didi leaves behind sons Anmol Gupta Mickey and Anupam Gupta Jimmy, their families, and generations carrying forward the values and aspirations she invested in them. For Specttrum Profiles, this is an unusual story. There is no professional career to map and no collection of awards to record. There is something more intimate: a human relationship that survived distance, changing cities and nearly four decades of life.

For me, Veena Didi was also a living thread connecting the Budaun of my youth with the Budaun to which I finally returned. That thread has ended physically. The memories remain. And somewhere among those memories will always be her smiling face, curious eyes and two affectionate calls home: 

“Kabhi Budaun bhi aa jao.” 

And when I finally did: 

“Agli baar aao toh hamare saath ghar par rukna; hotel mein nahi.”

My heartfelt tribute to Veena Didi. Om Shanti.🙏

--Narvijay Yadav

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