Toto Comes Home

Its been almost 5 weeks since I have been in Bangalore. In the past 5 weeks I have experienced everything from extremes of joy, oodles of frustration, moments of boredom, bouts of indigestion, hints of anger and impatience. All that I have come to terms with, this one is about nostalgia.

For those who have seen the movie Cinema Paradiso might recall the emotions and experiences of the gray haired Salvatore (Toto) when he returns to Giancarldo after some 30 years to attend the funeral of his dear friend and mentor Alfredo. Looking at the places and people after being away for such a long time drowns Salvatore in a sea of nostalgia.

Now I had been away from Bangalore for a little under 3 years since my last visit and it wasn't to attend a funeral, though a funeral is the main event of this story. I grew up in a quiet residential locality called SGN Layout. It was all of one street with brightly coloured brick houses lining both sides of the street. All the kids on the street were part of one giant gang of mischievous kids who played and fought with each other. We played cricket, flew kites, played with tops, broke windows, chewed sugar cane, ate chilly spiced mangoes and guavas from the street vendors and did everything else we weren't supposed to be doing. There were two people on that street all the kids were terrified of. The towering personality of Ghowri Bhai who seemed as tall as the midday sun and the fierce looking eyes of my Dad known by the name Dyna Mite (a take on his initials D.M). The reign of terror of these two elders of the street had everyone gripped in fever, especially when we were found to be loitering on the street when there was homework to be done or when we had done miserably in our exams. All the parents were thankful to these two vangaurds of the street who were responsible ensuring all the homework that had to be done got done! The whole street was like one big family where we ate and played where ever the doors were open.

It was here that I spent some of my best years, a worry free child, pampered and full of energy and creativity. I had my group of close friends, notably Nayeem and Aslam. There were others little kids who were part of the junior miscreants club who we generally snubbed and bullied, just as we were snubbed and bullied by the senior miscreants club. Some of the best times were in the summer when the skies in India are filled with hundreds of colourful kites fluttering in the brisk summer breeze. To a casual observer, the scene would seem very calm and serene, but the terraces of the houses where these kites were been flown there were grim battlefields. These battles were for supremacy of the skies, to see who would have the last kite left flying. Yes, kite fighting is a very serious past time. The kites are made with thin colourful paper and light cane. The key to winning any kite fight was in the thread or 'manja'. The manja was made with thin but strong sewing thread coated with a thin lacquer and dusted with fine powered glass to make the manja bite! The objective of the game was to cut the manja of the other kite by making the kites cross paths while flying. The weaker manja would be cut by the one with more bite. Ofcourse there were lot of other tricks to this trade, like the right time to tighten the thread and when to let it loose. The joy of watching a fluttering kite lose its place in the sky and fade away in the horizon was pretty intense and often short lived as the boys of the next terrace would launch a sneak attack. This was just one of the many activities and pastime we reveled in.

Last week, I was at the funeral of a relative of one of our close family friends who lived across the street from our house. Walking into the home where the body was placed for viewing, I was instantly taken back to those years spent at SGN layout. We had moved out of the locality in 1992 to another part of the town. Now some 14 years later, I look at all those faces that gathered at the funeral, my friends, my neighbours, the elders and the young kids. The faces had changed so much and yet they were all the same people I knew. The little kids were all grown up, some of them were married, the elders from the locality had a lot more wrinkles and gray hair, yet their memories were as fresh in my memory as wet paint on a metal gate. I met Nayeem after all these years and we reminiscence all those years past, and all the things we did together. In a few minutes I saw a face of Ghowri Bhai, looking a lot frailer, yet his personality would still send a chill down my spine. I feared this man more than anybody on the street. I met him with a smile and hug, and his firm hands held mine and in his signature gruff voice he muttered something about how I was taller than he was. The rest of the people from the old neighbourhood all were pleasantly surprised to see me after so many years. The sombre mood of the funeral was interspersed with little moments of delight when I went around meeting all my old friends and neighbours. I could see the genuine affection and amazement in their eyes on seeing that little naughty kid from the neighbourhood, now all grown up, 6 feet tall and an weighing an undisclosed number of kilogrammes.

Toto had finally come home...