Filed under: Behind the screen..., Down the memory lane..., Family..., I Love..., uuphh yeh life!!! — chapters @ 2:25 PM
Few months back, I had written a post about my hometown and few people I grew up with – Nostalgia, named it was.
Today, it is time to add some more of my memories to this blog.
The family, that stayed in our block, just below S’s house, was much more than a family to me too. My mother tells that, when I was few days old, she used to take me to their house and everybody in their house took care of me like a new member to their house. I literally grew up as a member of their family. There were Mama, Mausa, D-bhai, T-nana and Nana. They have been knowing me since I was 1 day old. I have grown up with all of them around me. It was like a ritual to visit their house at-least once a day.
I remember T-nana, getting married; I was in class 4 probably. Then after 0ne or two years, Goodly was born and I still remember, how small and soft she was. When she grew up enough to babble, she called me ‘Mausi’ 
… For the very first time somebody as sweet as her called me ‘Mausi’.
I was very close to T-nana from he beginning. I used to be very shy and obidient child back then… (not anymore 
). So T-nana used to take me to her friends’ places, and sometimes to the nearby markets. After she got married Nana became my favorite. I used to stick to her… She is 7/8 years older to me and she is like my elder sister.
Then Laadly, the second baby of T-nana was born, but by that time I was busy studying and due to some stupid reason, my involvement with that lovely family had been reduced. Then D-bhai got married. And then they moved out to their own house after Mausa got retired.
I still talk to Nana over phone sometimes. She has not got married and stays with her parents. So when the last time I was talking to her, she told me that T-nana, Goodly and Laadly are coming for new year. So I decided to go to their place during my new year Bhubaneswar visit. And I went…
It was after so many years that I saw T-nana, and her daughters. The Goodly who crowned me as a ‘Mausi’ for the first time is now a class 9th student. Yes, that many years have passed. She is almost half a feet taller than me.. well, that does not give much credit to her… thanks to my height… or the lack of it
What I wanted to write is that, the warmth is still there. I mean I still feel like a part of their family. I still cherish the ease with which I hug Mama… (I never called T-nana’s mother aunty… I called her what her 3 children called her… ‘Mama’). Everybody is growing old, that includes me. Sometimes, it seems strange. There used to be a time when I could not eat if I did not go to their house. Then the interaction slowed and finally stopped. All of a sudden I went back to that phase of my life where I was still just a happy child…
I don’t know, when I will be meeting them again. But there will always a special place for all these people in my life.
Filed under: Behind the screen..., Down the memory lane..., I Love..., uuphh yeh life!!! — chapters @ 10:52 AM
Today I woke up at my usual time for the morning walk. Got dressed up and switched off the light in my room. Suddenly the room was dark. I checked the time, 5.50 AM. Even if I was 5 mins late as compared to my usual time, it was not dawn till now. Strange. My window has glass shields, so my room also becomes lighted by that time. So I opened the balcony door and to my surprise, I found the thickest fog of this winter season up-to now. It was so thick that the buildings near to my flat were only partially visible and if you look little beyond them, then you will see nothing… just a white blanket of mist, spread for yards and yards ahead of you.
Mist in Kolkata
As I stood there at the balcony, the fog floated towards me. I could feel the chill as the tiny droplets got deposited on my bare hands. My nose was so cold that I started to have doubt about its existence. When I was younger, I used to get fascinated about this whole foggy thing. I used to stand by the window and let the cold breeze along with the mist touch my face. Most probably it was all those hindi movie scenes where the hero-heroine duo sing and dance in some badiyaan of Kashmir or Shimla, that made me to have this likeness for mist. My parents would come and scold me for standing there at the window as they were afraid that I would catch a cold… And I always did. But then, I used think that when I will grow older and stay alone somewhere in those high-altitude place then I will roam around in fog. Kids are so optimistic .
Can you see the coconut trees?
But today, when I am actually a grown up and staying alone (though not at any of those pure romantic places), I behaved like a grown up and did not go for the morning walk. Reason being the same, I may catch a cold and with that another reason, the security. Later I thought that along this road of growing up, I am losing so many things. I lost my childhood somewhere back there. It seemed as-if, I will just turn around and will see myself running in this fog all alone. I asked myself, did I gain anything at all (barring the extra pounds that I trying so hard to get off me) by this process of growing up? Answer was, Not much. So why did I grow up even? I never wanted this uncertainty in my life; Could have gone to the NeverLand and stayed there instead. I imagined, a cold morning and I wake up in NeverLand and see the fog in front of me. I would have collected jars and jars of fog so that I could enjoy with these fog in all those non-foggy days.
Two early risers as mysitfied as me
Life, I tell you, is so strange. When you are a small child, you can’t wait to grow up and once you grow up you want the childhood back. Today morning’s mist faded out slowly, but I don’t know when the mist that surrounds my life will fade off.
Filed under: Behind the screen..., Down the memory lane..., craps ..., uuphh yeh life!!! — chapters @ 3:06 PM
… When I grow one more year older once in every 365 days…
Filed under: Behind the screen..., Down the memory lane... — chapters @ 10:33 PM
You and I… In this beautiful world…
Yun Hi Chala Chal Rahi...
Filed under: Down the memory lane..., Friends... — chapters @ 1:38 PM
- Friends Are Forever
It was one of my friend’s marriage for which we had to go to Puri. Now this friend belongs to my daily “E-Khatti” group. We are 5 girls in that group and we came from the same engineering college, now working in different IT companies and staying different places. It is our practice to contribute to a chain mail that goes on almost every day. We share everything there… It may be a happy-n-good news or some problem anyone of us facing; or it may be just the frustration we are having in the offices or our latest crushes 
. Sometimes, we play antakshari… (Ahem… yes, we are that illogical to play antakshari on chain mails!!!) The topic always changes, from weird to weirdest, but from the last 3 and half years, our “E-Khatti” rocks.
So when the first member ($heetu) from this group got married, that too in Puri, everybody went to attend it. We (me, Raju, Shalu, and Sur) went to Puri. There we had a blast. The guest house, which $heetu had arranged for us, had a long corridor facing the sea. Even the hotel where the wedding was going on was situated in front of the sea. We had a rocking time on the beach while $heetu was busy taking her marital vows.
We had a gala time wearing saree, where nobody from us knew how to wear the saree properly, but we tried and after 2 and half an hour we managed somehow to go to the reception with our sarees wrapped around us . Raju had used almost a dozen safety pins and she was unable to move 
. Anyhow, we were able to get many photos clicked with our sarees around us.
In the above picture, it’s Raju and me, taking a pleasant look at the sea. After so many days of waiting and planning, we were finally there and enjoyed to the full. We also took a vow that; we will try our best to come to Puri together whenever we get a chance. It was such a reviving trip for me and it will be engraved there in my thoughts till we meet again at Puri. With the hope of meeting again and that too at Puri, we came back to Bhubaneswar and the next day I took my train to Kolkata. Throughout the journey, while I was sleeping on the upper berth of B1 coach of Puri-Howrah Express, my soul was back there at the sea beach and I know it will be there till some more time.
