Innocuous little cleaning visit to my old house – lived there for 15 years. Havent been there even once since I moved out 5 years ago.
Quaint little catholic colony with un-Bombayesque amounts of greenery
And un-Indianesque amounts of facilities to play football and basketball and volleyball and tennis and carrom and TT
Jolly old men with cute hats and funny accents
Pretty ladies with long legs and the licence to show them off
The best location to smell the rainy wet mud without any urban adulterations
Actual Blytonesque places called ‘the chapel’ and ‘the grotto’; pretty words no? They are even prettier to look at!
Easter = Marshmallows, Christmas = Mars bars from the neighbour’s Canadian daughter (blue-eyes, rosy cheeks, absolutely smoking hot, sexy dancer)
Christmas Eve = Kiddies party, New Years Eve = Ball Dance and alcohol – catholic boys attended them, even got dates along. I was asked to sit at home and mug up why Afzal Khan embraced Shivaji so tight
The said Canadian daughter of the neighbour used to find yours truly adorable. She once announced if I was her age Id be her first choice for a boyfriend. Didnt exactly grow up to be the stud she envisaged :(
The kids living opposite our house were miniature versions of me and my brother. And when Sachin would make a 100, both pairs would be yelping with joy. We would exchange notes on how much McGrath was hated from balcony to balcony.
Abba was still the rage, George Micheal, even bigger!
Cricket was cool, football was cooler
But when the girls came out in their little skirts and shorts to play throwball, the crickets bats and the footballs lay unattended, unused, forlorn
And cycles were called bikes. And they were the ultimate status symbol. A BMX beat the Atlas and the BSA hands down. And there used to be biker gangs who would scour through the rough terrain of the colony, bullying the young and old; and then would end the day as the sun would go down with a good old ice-candy. How cool is that!
On good days in the field, we were the Waugh brothers, on bad ones we were relegated to being the Flower brothers.
We even had an Uncle Wilson who was the victim of all our Menace
And then there was this slim hot-headed girl. Spoke too fast in English and did not particularly like any of the boys. But she would come for tuitions in the building opposite mine and would sit at the balcony for hours to study. And I would sit on my window for hours pretending to study. The optimist in me thought that our eyes met quite often. There seemed to be that semblance of a smile also sometimes, reciprocated by a toothy grin on the other end. She had a pretty name, an even prettier face and played throwball as if her life depended on it.
Film : A Good Year (2006)
Starring: Russell Crowe, Marion Cotillard
Max Skinner – Every one of my memories takes place within a 100 steps from this place
Christie Roberts – So are they good memories?
Max Skinner – No........ They are GRAND!
P.S. - A list of things found while rummaging through the old furniture today – some old photos, my passing certificate for TYBCom(yeah, I am that careless!), a notebook converted into a personal diary which died a premature death after 2 and half entries, a torn cover of a cricket bat and, a spiral-bound marketing proposal of Umang 2003.
P.P.S. – For those who don’t know, I might be moving to Delhi for atleast 2 years, next month onwards. Or, I might be in Bombay for good. Either ways, will announce it here with a big post on the 2 cities. Hope the product is worth the build up Im giving it!
Quaint little catholic colony with un-Bombayesque amounts of greenery
And un-Indianesque amounts of facilities to play football and basketball and volleyball and tennis and carrom and TT
Jolly old men with cute hats and funny accents
Pretty ladies with long legs and the licence to show them off
The best location to smell the rainy wet mud without any urban adulterations
Actual Blytonesque places called ‘the chapel’ and ‘the grotto’; pretty words no? They are even prettier to look at!
Easter = Marshmallows, Christmas = Mars bars from the neighbour’s Canadian daughter (blue-eyes, rosy cheeks, absolutely smoking hot, sexy dancer)
Christmas Eve = Kiddies party, New Years Eve = Ball Dance and alcohol – catholic boys attended them, even got dates along. I was asked to sit at home and mug up why Afzal Khan embraced Shivaji so tight
The said Canadian daughter of the neighbour used to find yours truly adorable. She once announced if I was her age Id be her first choice for a boyfriend. Didnt exactly grow up to be the stud she envisaged :(
The kids living opposite our house were miniature versions of me and my brother. And when Sachin would make a 100, both pairs would be yelping with joy. We would exchange notes on how much McGrath was hated from balcony to balcony.
Abba was still the rage, George Micheal, even bigger!
Cricket was cool, football was cooler
But when the girls came out in their little skirts and shorts to play throwball, the crickets bats and the footballs lay unattended, unused, forlorn
And cycles were called bikes. And they were the ultimate status symbol. A BMX beat the Atlas and the BSA hands down. And there used to be biker gangs who would scour through the rough terrain of the colony, bullying the young and old; and then would end the day as the sun would go down with a good old ice-candy. How cool is that!
On good days in the field, we were the Waugh brothers, on bad ones we were relegated to being the Flower brothers.
We even had an Uncle Wilson who was the victim of all our Menace
And then there was this slim hot-headed girl. Spoke too fast in English and did not particularly like any of the boys. But she would come for tuitions in the building opposite mine and would sit at the balcony for hours to study. And I would sit on my window for hours pretending to study. The optimist in me thought that our eyes met quite often. There seemed to be that semblance of a smile also sometimes, reciprocated by a toothy grin on the other end. She had a pretty name, an even prettier face and played throwball as if her life depended on it.
Film : A Good Year (2006)
Starring: Russell Crowe, Marion Cotillard
Max Skinner – Every one of my memories takes place within a 100 steps from this place
Christie Roberts – So are they good memories?
Max Skinner – No........ They are GRAND!
P.S. - A list of things found while rummaging through the old furniture today – some old photos, my passing certificate for TYBCom(yeah, I am that careless!), a notebook converted into a personal diary which died a premature death after 2 and half entries, a torn cover of a cricket bat and, a spiral-bound marketing proposal of Umang 2003.
P.P.S. – For those who don’t know, I might be moving to Delhi for atleast 2 years, next month onwards. Or, I might be in Bombay for good. Either ways, will announce it here with a big post on the 2 cities. Hope the product is worth the build up Im giving it!
2 comments:
dont go
geet
Awesome post bro...
Amit Toshniwal
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