so when i told the biker “this trip i want to spend quality time with ammi, so no intrusions”, he appeared a tad bit disappointed, but he knows that political correctness was never my forte, he agreed, i conspired :)
`the build-up, the surprise, the shock, the 2.00 a.m. knock
`chotu smiling everytime i sang “dhundu mai dhundu mere brother ki dulhan”
`nothing like ghar ka khana and nothing ever like ammi ke haath ka khana
`still fitting in to your old pjs and bade bhaiyya very confidently stealing away your very old very oversized very holey very comfy tee
`chotu sabotaging my drawers/my shelves/ my space which very explicitly warns ‘no admission without permission’ so very audaciously
`ammi still holding on to my old fav kurtas (in which i can just not fit in anymore)
`cleaning the very dear bookshelf which i have built on over the years and sitting amongst murakami, chekhov, dylan, marx, dostoevsky :)
`buying a pirated dvd after much bargaining (clad in complete hijab – luccha maulana syndrome, yeah i know) and watching a full on bollywood flick with bade bhaiyya and chotu (we all love sallu bhai)
`sleeping beyond wake-up hours and defying the very concept of time, no alarms, no snoozes, no conf calls, no presentation, no deliverables, no algorithms, no early morning tube, no excel s/s, no investor meets
`as per the deal with the biker, a getaway from everyone at panchgani for a week - the misal, the poha, the sabudana khichdi - the chicken tandoori, jaffer bhai's biryani, the manchurian with naan and crime patrol - the plan to escape to goa :)
`relatives so nosy; yet so indispensably lovely :)
`language you have grown up with, can relate to and recognize with constantly in the background - simply ethereal
`the chicken thai curry for the in-laws (appreciation galore, shusheel bahu after all *acting coy and doing the dupatta thingy* ;)) and paneer kadhai/paneer-alu-matar for bros (and chotu commenting on the parboiled potatoes "aalu bhaag raha hai" - criticising bros, after all *blowing punches his way* :) )
`the man in store just round the corner smiling over, the kind of warm and sincere ones you saw in clark gable classics
`dark and dusty lanes which the biker can ride through with his eyes closed, a city we know more by the night and identify with through the day
`people asking unapologetically with the childish grin on “koi good news” “koi khush khabari” as if they are entitled to know so (i don’t know when they included this ‘piece of information’ in the rti act :) ), without a slightest sense of trespassing someone’s’ privacy. most of the times these are nice people, at the most i can call them silly, simply products of our society with all its intrinsic individual quirks
`the little girl in neighbourhood asking me “aap kahaan gayab the didi”, i like her, her name is fruity and cos of that i like her even more
`the cousin trying to calculate the exchange rate differences and missing out on the number of zeroes
`those afternoon siestas with ammi under the favourite razaai, feeling the breathe, the momentum and the rhythm; so unlike from the one i dwelled in, a world away from people with an agenda, the business mindedness, the selfish gene, the crafty ways, i reach out and feel the closeness and confess ‘yeah, this is mine!’
wish i could capture these moments on my camera (just for myself and not for some fb/whatsapp/bbm display, just mine, yeah i am selfish that way)
`the worn-out wooden tasbih, the housekeys corner, the known smells, the garam masala cabinet, the extra push to open the door, those late night mehfil, the cry for ‘meetha’ after dinner, the comfort of shalwar-kameez, the janamaaz on chowki, the south indian aunty asking “kabhi aaya, kabhi jaayega, mister kahan hai” in one breath, the ‘ting’ of the elevator that heralds the entry and the doorbell that seals it, bade bhaiyya ensuring the fruit rack is always full with kacche amrud, ammi cooking damaadji’s fav dish every single night, the self-invited damaadji at every single dinner (biker, we have never met a damaad so unpretentious, we like you, i do), filtering through the numerous rishtas for chotu (he is a dude mashaAllah), chotu saying “hum apna motor khud laayenge”, badiammi’s achaar, khaala’s daawat, chai mai dooba ke biscuit, paaya at breakfast (courtesy b&b at panchgani), the ten rupee coin...
...and the rains
all this and more gave an expression to my ‘happiness for the known’
they said happiness is actually a sequence of shots and not just one big grand climax, i didn’t get it then
i get it now
so despite all logic, all practicalities, all evidence, all sensibilities, all rationalism, a small tear very fearlessly trickles down the cheek every time i reach the ‘departure’ terminal
when all that you wanted
and all that you had
don't seem so much
for you to hold on to
for you to belong to
there is always something to go back to and i confess that i will always be me and it will always be bombay :)
***utterly disappointed with a friend’s father commenting blatantly “india is going nowhere and there is no future here for kids like you” wondering how can one simply give up on a whole country, a whole freaking country and an elderly gentleman at that...the evergrowing perception that getting out is the only way forward is utterly false, how far can one really run from home :(
