1966-1970

I was living in Bhandup and shifted to Matunga my family house since 40s. I found myself suddenly amidst lot of strangers. Comfort of known people was taken away, admitted to a school which closely resembled a wedding hall, kalyana mandapam to be more precise. I thought this is one big hall and I have lot of relatives, all tamil speaking people. Teachers many of them, whom by mistake I addressed as Mami. I can’t recall, though whether I got a spanking for that. lunch much to my horror was 3 chappathis folded to precision with potato bhaji rightly centered. This made the centre chappati soiled, which I always threw away, much to disgust of my ‘amma’, nirupa roy of our house. The lunch was to be taken in assembly hall. After the lunch break, the hall would look a mess, few students everyday will have a fall slipping on a banana peel or thayir chadam. I still remember khaki clad man, thick mustache would single handedly clean the floor for PT period to start after 1 hour.

My building was full of people who were speaking strange tongue, which I later came to know as Gujarati, Marathi, Konkani, malayalese, kutchees, etc. Guys would pick up fights with me for reasons well known to them I was too proud to talk about it to my folks at home. I was wonderstruck, hating, why I was taken away from Bhandup.

My call for recognition came, when I pulled up a guy for harassing my kid sister. I fought a bitter battle with one Suresh , my good friend for years to follow. Fight then was actually holding each other by neck and roll on the floor till one of the two got tired or got separated by some elder. Boys would discuss in detail, who won or lost. The next day we got together to play showing no signs or knowledge of the fight previous day. My parents for years told me don't get into fight with marathi and gujarathis. I never understood why those days. They were synonymous for being mighty and moneyed, respectively. ( know something, we guys of 77 helped our parents in getting over that ' alien feeling' of mumbai.

I got the due recognition from guys of the gullee, got included in the gang, played cricket , for good 6 months taken as kutcha limbu. My most humiliating experience then and my ambition was to get promoted to pukka limbu group.

My idea of Bambai was the world I was exposed to. All the doors in my floor of my building was always open. We could hide in anyone’s house, if we were playing hide and seek, or thappo or chor police. If any door was closed, we used to actually lock it knock on the door/ring the bell and run away.

My neighbor would bring in dal/kadai in exchange for sambhar/khootu or rasam.
This was a daily ordeal. The pretext was Raju ( my house name) ko acchha lagega. In fact, I never liked the garlic. My bro used to relish it. Our Konkani neighbor not to be undone would bring some thing which we used to religiously put it in the bin. Gosh it used to stink. Best kept secret for years.

Please be explicit in telling me if this is boring. I would write about life of 70s in my next mail, if you guys want me to continue. Such bolu tho, I am writing all those meaningless stuff which were hidden and waiting to be unraveled from some part of my brain.