Many do not know that I was born in Hyderabad, lived my kindergarten years in Nagpur (a city in Maharashtra), did most of my schooling in Hyderabad, graduated and worked in Mumbai and its 3 years now since I am based in Dubai! But most of my childhood was spent in Hyderabad, which is my mom’s maayeka or maternal home. We lived there with my nani or grandmother, mamus or uncles and khalas or aunties. That’s a picture of a perfect Indian joint family for me where there was no dearth of love and affection from people around us, including neighbors and their neighbors. Not for a single day was I made to feel alone at home though my mom taught at school whole day and dad worked in Bombay. He paid regular visits to us whenever he could squeeze time in between his busy schedules.
As I was saying, we lived in my grandmother’s house, let me also tell you about the wonderful days I spent with my lovely huge Indian family at Abbas Hussain Building. I have cherished every day of my life at this very beautiful p(a)lace so much so that sweet glorious memories of this period cling to my thoughts like a glue on all nostalgic days. There are numerous moments which deserves a mention and I’ll take time to list some of them below -
- We had amazing ice-cream parties on the terrace atleast once a year. We all loved and relished the fresh home-made ice cream churned from a sancha or ice cream maker by our beloved uncle – also the youngest brother of my mom.In those times and at that age, having a get together of the whole family, adults and kids alike, was the most happening party of the year!
- What kept us busy as kids were not school books or projects but learning Judo and Karate from one of our older cousins who was also a novice- just like us, watching movies (especially all parts of Demons repeatedly on every holiday) crammed up on a double bed under one blanket, listening to ghost stories from another cousin who boasted them to be true (and we believed her), making paper boats when it rained, playing different games on the terrace, making kites from newspapers, having fancy dress or drama competitions amongst the children and many more.
- Many of my Sunday memories are of waking up at my aunt’s house alongwith other cousins which was a few kilometers away from my grandmother’s house, watching favorite cartoons during breakfast time, all the women of the house preparing delicious lunch in my nani’s kitchen, kids playing cricket while the adults of the family watched a movie on the local cable together during afternoon nap time and dinners at a dhaba or small eateries serving local cuisine giving the feel of a village located on the outskirts of the city.
- Cricket was the most popular sport in the house! We’d get down to playing the game everyday even if that meant only 4 cousins willingly to come on the field. There were thousands of tube lights or bulbs in the compound broken and hundreds of balls that were lost to our neighbor.
- Most of us ran in different rooms when nani called to us because that would mean going across the road to a chemist or walking few steps from our building for some work. But completing her work would also get us a reward – a parle chocolate loved by all children in those times!
- My older sister and I studied in the same school and obviously traveled together. I would always despise coming back home alone if she had to stay after school. There was another cousin brother who would come to my rescue and give me a ride back on his newly bought modified Atlas bicycle. Trust me I loved that as much, but it happened ever so rarely!
- The same cousin who dropped me back home also turned into a barber one day when he gave a very unique (in his words) to other two cousins younger to me! Imagine the consequences and bashing he has had from the parents.
- We didn’t own a fancy car. My eldest uncle owned a fiat which had been used from my grandfather times. It was that old and my uncle never wanted to part ways because of the memories he had from his father’s times. That was the only car we had in a family for the longest time until other people in the family bought cars! Most of us would try to fit inside it and go for a long drive near necklace road or tank bund as it is popularly known.
- I love the way we celebrated all the festivals. Diwali, Sankaranti (kite flying) and Eid were our favorite. We’d watch over our neighbor’s house from the terrace for Lakshmi puja to get over and would burst the crackers as soon as they started. Sankaranti also saw some amazing competitions between them and us. Cutting kites, shouting over every victory, getting depressed over a defeat, a huge feast in the house would take us through the long day. Eid was the biggest affair of all – putting on new clothes and visiting every relative house for sheer khurma & a 5 rupee note was a delight. I miss all this now because it is nearly impossible to celebrate all these festivals with everyone based in different parts of the world.
This post was published on my earlier blog and was requested by my mom to include it here again.I am so glad I did because editing took me back to that wonderful phase of my life. It is dedicated to her for giving me such wonderful people to grow up with and a lovely childhood, the stories of which will be passed down to my children. There are so many things I may be missing here and can go on and on about everything that we did together as a joint family but that would make it unreadable.
It was actually difficult to break away from the close knitted love and settle where life has taken us now. But as life goes on ,we can be inspired to appreciate our whole life to do the best and achieve our dreams, to keep happy memories and learn from sad ones!
