Whenever I think or share my (my dad’s really) humble background and the financial hardships & my mom’s climb down from her riches to rudimentary lifestyle tale… The overarching emotion is of gratitude and pride… Thankful to my parents of having brought me and my brother up with a happy childhood in spite of limited means… And a sense of achievement in where we have reached from those ground levels…
Today however was a different day…
To give you the background… after relocating to Singapore, I am visiting my home town – Mumbai after two and half years with family… The one thing I miss in Singapore is the Mumbai street food and today I went to my favourite dabeli, franky, sandwich & sugarcane juice stall on the street where I spent 35 years of my life… And the food was as delicious as I had yearned for… People say that the sense of smell can bring back memories… Trust me, the sense of taste deserves the same credit… I could still recollect the feeling of the same taste I used to have 20 years back when I ate tonight… I don’t know how to describe the feeling of being able to feel (not just recollect) the exact same way two decades later…
And to push me over the edge, the stall guys remembered me and asked – boss you ain’t seen much this days, you don’t seem to stay here anymore… Freaking hell… It’s Mumbai – Andheri : thousands of people walk that place every moment… These guy’s are small time vendors, yet they cater to hundreds of thousands… And they realised my absence – it triggered that feeling that shit man… I have left a place which was my own…
I walked up and down that street a couple of times… Reminiscing each and every shop and how things changed over time… I was playing back time in my head with every step I was taking… I saw familiar faces some remembering me and some starting to forget me…
And then I came to the entrance of the chawl where I had spent my childhood… And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to walk in to that lane… As I said, I am generally proud to go and see the place as it reminds me of my happy childhood and my growth from there… But tonight I wasn’t sure… I felt I will feel all the more sad knowing that I no longer belong there… Both that place and me having moved on and that connection existing now only in my memories…
Yet I walked in…
I had seen the place like that before in last few years… But today it just broke my heart… It was always a chawl – a poor people’s cramped building… But in my childhood it was full of life and maintained to a livable standard… Today its rundown to a level of being a ghost house… Flashes of how every thing that was part of my childhood once came back… And how now it was in ruins – almost beyond recognition… The ground, the toilets, the passage, the people… It was a poignant experience to see your childhood home go to the dogs…
I stood there frozen in front of the structure for a few minutes… Not sure again if I wanted to go up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the 10 feet by 10 feet room that was our home (which we still own)… I walked back out… And then in again… Eventually going up… I thought of ringing the bell of the only neighbour who now stay there… But I didn’t… I wasn’t sure what would I say after the pleasentries… I was afraid that they would bring up my past and tell me how I have grown every which way and moved away… Distancing me further from my childhood… Or tell me how things have gone bad for them or stayed that way… and I would just feel worse that life didn’t move on for better for everyone of us… So I just went back…
I started walking back to our present home around the corner… It is a 40 years old condo / society… Has a basketball court, badminton court, function room, children’s garden, senior citizen area, assigned parking to each flat, visitors parking, 24 hours water supply, spacious compound, super proximity to public transport, groceries, restaurants… Essentially it’s THE society to stay in, in this part of the suburb… And I again realized how lucky I was to have moved there…
And the irony is… That even the current apartment complex feels old and rundown with little amenities after we have stayed in Singapore… I can still stay there and Jainee really prefers to stay there… But I have been looking for a newer lifestyle living place in Mumbai which has a pool, tennis court and other things – which my Singapore condo has today… And I was like shit man… What is this journey…
When I was young, I was staying in a non-descript chawl and yet have such pleasent memories… Then gradually I moved to the most sought after society complex in that area and was super happy then… And now I want to change even that and buy a unit in a even more fancier condo in that suburb… And whilst I am planning to do that, it’s heart wrenching that the chawl’s now in a pathetic condition (even though the chawl was the poorest and i was now living a better lifestyle)… Because I am losing my connection with my past… A past that I cherished…
The flurry of emotions left me bewildered, perplexed and flummoxed… I walked towards my current home with my eyes welled up… Unsure of what I was feeling…
Inside VG... 