I should start with acknowledging my buddy Himu Don for our wonderful recent conversation of "those lovely ol' days" which has motivated me enough to work on this post which has been due for sometime now.
First, its time to set the mood for the note. Its pitch dark somewhere in the jungles of Kerala and a few remotely habituated areas in the rural areas of Maharashtra but light is basically shining in the streets and roads in the suburbs and the cities. Pune is one such city where even if its only alternate street lights that seem like burning the electricty, it is sufficient to light up the surroundings. The summer is in full effect and the temperatures are soaring beyond comprehension.
Now with the tone set, let me zoom in to the precise surroundings in just another society in the middle class dominated Kothrud area in Pune. With a total of 8 buildings incorporated into the society area, the construction is robust if not fancy and serves the purpose for which it was really built. There are 4 buildings F-1, F-2, F-3, F-4 which are a modest 1 BHK houses while in front of these buildings are 3 more buildings E-1, E-2, E-3 which are 2 BHK flats. The vacation time of summer means that the "TAVALKI PORA" ( read good for nothing boys) are spending the mornings till noon getting burnt playing cricket, the noons playing card games of the board game of BUSINESS (the one where you buy cards of cities and build hotels and houses and extort money from the other players) and the nights spent sleeping on the common terrace of E-2.
At most of the flats like E-3/6, F-2/3, E-2/10 etc., the minute hand in the clock is lazing over to the digit 10 while the hour hand holds fort at the digit 9. The time reads a little different at E-2/12 which as per the family tradition of the residents is a little ahead of time and is normally 20-30 minutes faster than the others. At the other flats mentioned at the start of this paragraph, the residents young and old are getting ready to go to bed and winding up the day with some show on TV which signals the end of another day spent in an otherwise mundane life story, but not at E-2/12. Infact as a matter of fact it literally and figuratively is a new dawn.
Let us cut straight to the apartment which can be referred to as TAPKIRWADI, the erstwhile scions of Alandi and presently the owners of the most happening place in our colony. The subjects include 2 boys, one entering the graduation college (A) and the other having completed a year of junior college (V), a girl who has just started working (T for Tai) and our most beloved KAKU (K) who is at the helm of affairs of this particular kingdom. The time as previosuly mentioned is around 10 in the night but there is not a thing in this house that even remotely makes an attempt to justify it. T is busy cutting vegetables to be cooked for dinner while K is engrossed in sorting out the rice clean and having it washed. V on the other hand is buzzing out some calculations of his accounts subject which pretty much actually resembles the buzzing of a bee while A is lost in some deep thought of the events of the day. At this very juncture, it is the sound of the door-bell that seems to create a stir in the TAPKIRWADI. Enter friends (F) of A and V who have finished their dinner and are dressed up in pretty ragged night clothes with a twinkle in their eyes.
This entry of the F seems more like the indication that K was waiting for as she suddenly seems to upshift gears and calls out asking the quantity of chapati that will suffice for A and V as T invariably is like a constant and never seems to dither from her standard quota while A and V in terms of appetite are more like the variables that we were first taught in algebra. Once this matter is put to bed, F suddenly seem to disappear and reappear within no time with the slight addition of their beddings which was absent prior to their disappearance. Apparently these beddings were stacked up in one of the inner rooms. With their beddings fetched, F seem to quietly settle down on the sofa set and the chairs in the hall for a brief duration of about 15 minutes. In this time duration, the wickets that fell earlier in the morning are hotly debated and the bowling action plan for the next day is formulated so that the batsmen wouldn't score much. IPL is a pretty recent thing. We were already at that level of expertise 10 years ago itself. No wonder the colony is called the wonderland. Along with this,the decision of who will go for toss is taken as it is the LUCKY one who will bring in the luck that will win the toss. Probabilities was still something that was restricted to the math books for all the participating numbers and was not a practical approach.
With the decisons made and gameplan deicided, the F move out to arrange the beds on the terrace whilst the resident family members get ready to have their dinner. The F seem to settle down on their respective slots on the terrace and set down the beds and sit down for a fast card game of Mongoose which normally takes around 30 minutes. The timing is so perfectly matched that the completion of the game in in sync with the completion of dinner at TAPKIRWADI. With the game completed and the clock striking 11 in the night, the F move down back to the residents of E-2/12 to usher in A and V. It is now that the true description as to why this particular house is a landmark will bear fruit. V is lazing around on one of the long sofas in the hall wondering if he had half a chapati too much and if he'd be losing the shape of his ultra curvy biceps and abs. In the passage from the hall to the bedroom, observing himself closely in the mirror by the wash-basin is A who seems like he has transformed himself from a student to a facial beauty expert and is taking all the necessary precautions to preserve that much celebrated handsome face. K meanwhile is sitting by the base of one of the chairs in the hall and is busy lapping up the re-telecast of her daily soap as she missed the normal episode which is scheduled at a more humane hour of 8 p.m. due to her matriarchal chores. The multi-tasking expert that she always has been, she is dabbling the TV watching along with reading the newspaper. At a time when the normal human population has undoubtedly slipped into the deepest slumber, K is lapping up the headlines, breaking news and other literary viewpoints of the day's newspaper with the only exception being that the day is almost about to end. It is a relief that T as mentioned above seems like the only constant and is getting ready to sleep in this otherwise exceptionally invigorated family.
Invariably, remarkedly dazzled by this sight every single night of the summer vacation yet never ceasing to amaze anyone from the gang of F, they all tugg along to have a well deserved sleep in the cool summer night breeze wondering if the inmates of E-2/12 suffer from an illusion or are living in a dream where they picture themselves living in Dubai as evidently their time-zone and lifestyle seems to be 2.5 hours behind that of what is around 00.00 hours IST of some day in May,2001.
