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That thing about Mumbai

1.The Ganesh Chathurthi festival that made Shantivan come alive - The Mumbai philosophy - "Ganesh isn't just God, he's a superstar!"

2.The bollywood quizzes (who fought with Salman Khan), the insane questions (Am I mature?), the different stories (largely Divya's own fabrications) that Divya and I shared @ office/on IP messenger!

3.Spreading pollution - The "Dostana factor" introduced at home and at SSI;

4.The assigning of names to every room-mate, and the immemorables with them:

Anu alais Draupadi : Have gone as far as we could go,in hymn & in search of a lost love ; rewriting a love story, only, one without an end;

Divya alais thalaivi (head) : Embarassing her at all our dine outs; embarassing her wherever we went - the best remembered being the train journey where a complete stranger seriously began advising her, telling her that she was in danger of becoming a psychopath;

The best movie we watched together : Chandni Chowk to China;

Bhavani, alais Krishna Bhavani for all the mature conversations we had, and for the mutual sympathy we shared every time Anu and Divya had their Socratic-like conversations; (If it interests you : Socratic, because Divya had a habit of asking questions for reasons quite unknown to her as well, and the usual conversations that followed with Anu went beyond common ground understanding);

Shakti : her association with Jorum (fever)and Jaundice; our parkview dinners together;

Neha : for the fun we had that Saturday night on Chowpatty beach; for her sporting nature when I pulled her leg on all Birthday parties midnight;

5.The inter-school meet : The first interaction with blind students -their dance, their singing, and the joy of realizing that life indeed is beautiful, even if you can't see. That sense of poetry that they instilled in me.

6.The train journeys back home - Tasting Mumbai at night/listening to music, kissing the wind sometimes sprinkled with rain at the footboard of the train;

7.Sundays @ Sion:

-Interacting with the kids, playing cows and bulls :)

-Betting with the students on who would win the IPL finals.

-The lunch sessions at Hanuman- eating (actually hogging) north indian delicacies (masala papad,paneer butter masala, dal tadka, butter nan...) and engaging in majorly ridiculous conversations;

-Hanging out at the movies, pulling each other's leg, and more;

8.The tea-time sessions, the Dostana factor (again!), the code resolving/blaming - the sarcastic wit that each of us displayed AGAINST each other @ office;

9.The walks back home with Jaya - talking shayari, and embarrasing her (as well);

10.The pani-puri foodstall, the sandwich aunty, and Amul cool uncle;

11.Playing card games in the early days of our stay with Anicham. The Borivali west hangouts.

12.The visits to Oberoi Mall - the food, the fun, and the shopping - living life "Queen Size"!

13.The wine effect - the infusion of high spirits caused by drum beats that rang through Shantivan for every other occasion;

14.The Virar-Borivali conflicts;

15.The stress-therapies;

16.The Inter-Maitree meet: Becoming a kid again - throwing water balloons, singing "If ur happy and u know it" together, dancing to all those 'make-me-feel-good tunes' with everyone else,competing with other teams in games like pass-the-bucket.Finally losing out to the PINK team,(I was in ORANGE), but something that stood for the best times of my life!

17.CSS_NET/CSS_MKT : The joy of opening the market just four seconds after the stated time (It never opened on time). The moments of turbulence when it didn't: when it got stuck at the opening stage,(and refused to give login) or when a new architectural change was introduced;

18.The dam-building at National park on Earth Day.

19.The birth of Adhaa, the dawn of realisation of the "Toss a Coin' principle, and the 'What if I die tomorrow" principle that brought me here, to the US.

Comments

Rohit Kumar said…
... and I am happy that you went ahead with that thing called "Your Dream" :)
Shunyata said…
Thanks Rohit! It really is liberating! :)...
By the way, ur blog entries are awesome!

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