Amma's Bombay memories

    This time Iam presenting you some glimpses of childhood years my mother spent in Bombay decades back. Enjoy.

 Hello friends, 

           If I were given a chance to turn the clock backwards,  I would love to revisit my childhood years that I spent in Bombay (Mumbai now) during 1950s to early 1960s.  Since my father had a transferable job in Telephones department,  we frequently shifted from one place to another.   I still consider my childhood years that I spent in Bombay as precious,  formative years. Our residence was in Jansukh Nivas, Kandivali. All our houses were single storeyed. During those days , the toilet facilities were common to the group of residents and naturaĺly they were away from our homes and less convenient. There were not even taps in the toilets and we had carry our own bucket of water. One frightening incident I remember even today was a natural calamity. In our next compound, separated by a boundary wall, a fierce  lightning struck the three coconut trees which burnt the upper portions to ashes leaving those trunks standing bare. Since we had gone out,  we were lucky to have escaped the wrath of nature!

          My neighbours were a mix of Gujarathis,  Punjabis,  Biharis,  Marathis,  Sindhis and Tamil Brahmins.   Of course,  during those days privacy was not at all an issue like today. We were all like one big family. My mother was addressed as 'Kamla ki maa'.  Every morning, when we opened our front door, 'Iyer Saab,  good morning ' was the friendly  greeting from the opposite Ojha Saab uncle.  His son Baba and me  used to walk and go to see films in the nearby Meena Talkies. We were just 6 to 7 years old!      I also remember going to a couple of cinema shootings in a white building which was surrounded by garden and vast areas of lawns. My other friends were Bharathi,  Kusumbala,  Poornima, Ramesh Narayanan. We used to play games like ' chor aur police,  marble games( gotti), carrom board, hopscotch, 7 tiles,  card games like rummy,  do teen paanch ( 2 3 5) , 28 and a variety of other card games.   At the house of my Marathi friend, Poornima,  a dance master used to come  and I, along with her, learnt the steps of the song Nain so nain naahi mila from the film Jhanak jhanak paayal baaje.  Poornima's mother used to lovingly give us Marathi delicacies. We used to exchange our food items like Mysore paak,  homemade fryums,  idli-sambar and they were hot favourites with our neighbours. My first taste of aaloo paraatha and thick curds was when I attended my Punjabi friend  Kusumbala's  uncle's wedding which I cherish forever.  Once my mother had to go to Pune to take care of my aunt who was sick. I was under the care of Ramesh Narayanan's parents. Ramesh's mother used to pamper me with good food and hot Ovaltine drink (like horlicks,  Boost) in silver tumbler.  Ramesh and I went to the same school which was  'Fathima something' in Malad.  We used to go to school by electric train. In those days it was less crowded and the journey was comfortable and enjoyable.  One favourite snack we used to buy near the railway crossing was a packet of crisp potato wafers costing 25 paisa or naya paisa. I remember those potato wafers were uniformly crisp and cream in colour. 

              My school headmistress was Miss D'Cruz who was a Goan Christian. In our school canteen we used to get a unique combination of soft and white bread sandwich  with juicy coconut chutney as spread which iam sure most of you would not have heard of. Marathi and Gujarati were optional languages out of which I chose Gujarathi. Of course, I have forgotten Gujarati.  I still remember that for scoring good marks in a subject,  I received a story book as a prize which I was quite proud of. The comedian Mehamood 's brother was my senior in that school. During our school days, we were taken to famous Minerva theatres which was far away from our school. I remember watching two famous English movies , Ben Hur and Ten Commandments.  I was in that school upto the 5th standard.

          Since there were 35 to 40 houses in Jansukh Nivas,  many vendors used to bring eatables at our doorstep . Each house used to face each other without any boundary walls. My favourites among the snacks were Bhel puri,   khulfi,  special type of crushed channa ( brown chickpeas) tempered with salt, chilli powder,  lemon juice, corriander leaves. The vendor who brought Bhel puri used to position himself in the middle of 2 houses  and the way used to make the snack was a delight to watch with anticipation.  I remember that channawala singing "Channa jor garam babu,  mein laya mazedaar channa jor  garam." He might have borrowed it from a film of those days. During the days of Navrathri and Deepawali,  we used to go to houses greeting 'Saal Mubarak' to get our share of dried fruits which was attractively arranged on a plate covered with eye catching lacy crochet patterned cloth. 

        We were known as 'Madrasis ' among our friends as generally South Indians are addressed by North Indians like that. As a child, it was a matter of pride that I spoke Hindi fluently and I used to show off to my South Indian guests  by talking non stop  in Hindi  to my little sister. One of my favourite radio programmes which I regularly used to listen to was Binaaca Geet Maala by Ameen Sayani. 

 We shifted to Trivandrum from Bombay and i continued with rest of the education. But memories of Bombay years were something which I keep revisiting off and on like ornaments stored in a locker. Thanks for reading this treasure of memories and hope you all enjoyed this time travel with me.

Love,

Kamala. 

As narrated by my mom and edited by me.

  Dear mom, thank you so much for bringing out those precious days in your childhood and giving a glimpse of life lived decades back.

Deepa.