Category Archives: Mumbai

Yearning for school – Part 2

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The other day, GG and I were checking out various junior colleges where she may be interested and we came across the house system there. She was very happy on seeing this since secondary schools here have now abolished the house system and it’s more interclass competitions.

So I started talking to her about the houses in my school and that talk is the root behind today’s post. I have written previously about my alma mater and thought this is a good time to share more about my school.

In the secondary section, we were all divided into four houses. Our house names were very unique in that unlike the traditional house names which consisted of Indian freedom fighters or names of flowers or something else, our house names consisted of names of ancient Persian princesses. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before, but my school is a Parsi school and was quite steeped into the Parsi culture. We used to be quite proud of our houses and were extremely competitive about it. This used to peak during sports day, more about it later.

As mentioned, our houses were named after ancient Persian princesses – green house is named Shernaaz, blue house is Purandokth, red house is Godarfried and yellow house is Faranakh

We were also very democratic in nature, with the entire secondary school voting democratically (just like in an election) to get our Head Girls, Junior Head Girls, House Captains and Vice Captains. If I remember correctly, grade five was not allowed to vote for the head girl, but when I was in grade five, we were allowed to vote for our house captains. For the head girls, the finalists had to give speeches in the school hall to the entire secondary school and also campaign with posters across the secondary school. On the voting day, we all queued up, according to class and cast our votes with one ballot for the head girl and one for the junior head girl. The votes use to be counted in the presence of the principal and winner in each category would be declared as winners. The two runner-ups would then be selected as the assistant head girls in their category.

For house captains, the process was slightly more casual. One day at the beginning of the year, each house would assemble in a pre-determined spot and teachers would start asking for students to either nominate their choices or ask students to self nominate themselves. Once they got a pre-determined number of students in each category – Captain and Vice Captain, they would hold elections.

The elections would be by show of hands and when the teacher who heads the house announces the name of each person, we would raise our hands and a head count taken. Then the winners announced and cheers and commiserations. It used to be a very fun atmosphere, especially since the periods after lunch would become free due to elections. When I was in grade five, I remember one of my classmates had a sister in grade nine and the class was just next to ours. So that class came to our class and literally brainwash us to vote for students in their class for Vice Captain and this trick worked! A few years later, teachers got wind of what the seniors were up to and stopped grade five students from voting. You only voted when you were in grade six and had some idea of the house system and the prominent girls there who may become house leaders.

Our rivalry and competitiveness really came to fore during our sports day. This would usually be held on a Sunday at a sports ground not too far from our school. While the primary and kindergarten students could sit with their parents in another section, secondary students had to sit according to their houses. So when the events started, everyone in the houses section would start cheering and booing. Points from each event would be added up and the house that scored the most points (from events on the sports day plus tournaments of indoor sports like chess, carrom, badminton etc. which would have already been calculated) would have the chance to lead the march past. In my years in school (including in primary school), my house did not lead the march past on only one occasion! And that was because that year something very unprecedented happened. Three houses had the exact same points and they had to toss to see which house would lead the march past and who would follow. Red house won the toss that year and my house, which was the green house was second! We were so disappointed that year. We would also practice for the march past for a couple of months before the sports day and this meant all those of us who were in the march past contingent (around 30 girls from grade five to grade ten) would practise after lunch and miss lessons which were also a bonus to us!

It was really fun writing this post and looking back in time when the most important thing was thinking about school and friends. I wish I could go back to those innocent times.

What are your favourite memories of school?

Travel: Interesting Mumbai Attractions and Experiences

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I have a serious case of writers’ block and just can’t think of anything to write. So I was browsing the net to see if I can find some inspiration when I came across this list about my hometown Mumbai. This is a list of the top attractions in Mumbai if you want to know.

Some of these places are old favourites, and some of them are places where I have never been earlier. This list is a good starting point for me to use when I next go to Mumbai and take BB & GG around to play tourist.

I’ve spoken many times about my birthplace and hometown of Mumbai before. The financial capital of India, and one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country (before the word was even a word), Mumbai is fast-paced, and some may even say a cold city. But it’s a city like no other. I may go anywhere in the world, live across continents, but Mumbai will always hold a very special place in my heart. Like someone once said, “Mumbai is a city, but Bombay is an emotion”. Old-timers still call the city Bombay, we still can’t get Mumbai as easily in our lips as Bombay, even though the name change was way back in 1995!

So anyway on to the attractions and experiences which make this city so special.

Kala Ghoda

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Kala Ghoda which means black horse in Hindi is where the biggest cultural festival of the year takes place. The entire main street is taken over by stalls selling art and craft work, and prime performance venues are booked for plays, workshops and other events. The street is also lined with art installations, food stalls and street performers. If you are in Mumbai when it’s not festival time (which happens in February), you can still stroll along this area to see the neo-colonial and classic British architecture. I love walking here on Sundays when it is quite empty of the crowds which happen during a weekday because this is the heart of the city’s business centre. Walk along PM Road from CST station to Kala Ghoda and soak in the atmosphere of colonial British Bombay.

Marine Drive

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The Queen’s Necklace as it’s fondly called is a 3.5 kilometre stretch in south Mumbai which turns into a major hangout spot during the evenings. It is called the Queens’s Necklace because, if viewed at night from an elevated point anywhere along the drive, the street lights resemble a string of pearls in a necklace. There’s a great view of the Mumbai skyline from Marine Drive and if you happen to be in Mumbai during the monsoon season, make sure you head there during the rains. The crashing waves make it so much fun!

Elephanta Caves

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A small island two km off the shore of Mumbai in the Arabian Sea, Elephanta Caves, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site is an hour-long ferry ride away from Gateway of India. The complex consists of five Shaivite caves and a few Buddhist stupa mounds that may be dating to the 2nd century BCE, as well as a small group of two Buddhist caves with water tanks. It is divided into wings and the ‘Trimurti’ or the three-headed sculpture is one of the most important sculptures there. This cave structure has some of the world’s best rock-cut sculptures and most of the carvings here depict stories from Hindu mythology. Watch out for the monkeys though, they can be something of a nuisance on the island. The caves are closed on Mondays and possibly during the monsoon season.

Chor Bazaar

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Tucked away in the depths of South Mumbai, Chor Bazaar or Thieves Market is famous as the underbelly of the city. More of a flea market today, it is a good place to search for random goods like automobile parts, furniture, old Bollywood paraphernalia, gramophone records and a bunch of other vintage stuff. What you find depends on your ability to unearth some classics from the eclectic souveniers abounding there. Haggling comes quite naturally to these shop owners so you can get away with pretty decent bargains. This market stretches out on Mutton Street, and the shops are open from 11 am to 7:30 pm.

Bandra Worli Sealink

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The Bandra-Worli sea-link is truly a modern-day architectural marvel, that helps the choked traffic of Bombay by diverting a large part of it on a high-speed, six-lane expressway over the sea. It’s clean, it’s fast, no stopping, no two-wheelers, no people on foot, no photography. Driving down the sea-link can only be described as exhilarating. In this city of overcrowded houses, with stuck traffic and loud honking all around, a drive down this road can be the highlight of your day. Drive down this road, or get into a metered taxi and enjoy 6–7 minutes of pure, clean air as you drive above the deep Arabian Sea. It’s even better when you have the a view of the orange sky as the sun rises or sets, or the lit-up skyline of Mumbai, the city that never sleeps.

Flamingos at Sewri

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Sewri, a station on the Central Railway Harbor Line, and one of the original seven islands of Bombay has a vast expanse of mangrove mudflats that are a protected ecology. Every October onwards, until February, thousands of pink flamingoes descend upon the seas of Mumbai in Sewri, along with other rare birds like the Egret. Head to Sewri on a weekend, and watch a rare phenomena take place in front of you in one of the most unlikely of places- Mumbai, the city of cars and buildings and taller buildings.

Khotachiwadi

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A small heritage village tucked away in Girgaon, Khotachiwadi has the prettiest old style Portuguese houses in South Mumbai. They are mostly constructed out of wood, have small verandahs, and even tiny backyards. Unfortunately, a lot of these houses have been torn down in the past to make way for new constructions and now only a handful of them are still standing, so if you are in Mumbai, make sure you see these houses before they are all gone.

Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum

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The oldest museum in Mumbai, the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum houses artefacts and finds related to the cultural history of the city. Among the most interesting displays are old maps of Bombay harbour, dioramas of different parts of the city, and an old but complete warrior’s suit of chainmail.

Growing up in Mumbai

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Matunga – for any Tambrahm in Mumbai, especially those of a certain age, the very word evokes the feel of home. Sometimes called ‘Mini Madras’, Matunga in what would be some where in the centre of what is the original city (as opposed to the suburbs) was probably the first place the initial immigrants, young, eager, bright and wide-eyed, came to from Dadar station when their trains from the south arrived in Mumbai all ready to conquer the world, with an introduction to perhaps, if they are lucky, to a relative (distant or otherwise), or maybe someone from the same village they belonged to, or even a relative’s relative!

While I am not sure if this is 100% accurate, from what I’ve heard from my parents and grandparents, most young Tamil Brahmin boys and men started arriving in Mumbai (or Bombay as it was called then) somewhere in the early forties, some years before India would finally throw off the yoke of British dominance and become independent.

Both sets of my grandparents arrived in Bombay somewhere in the early to mid-forties, luckier than most as both my grandfathers had an older brother already settled in the city, in Matunga as it were! If I were to probably measure the distance my paternal and maternal grandparents live away from each other, when they first arrived in the city, it should probably be a maximum of 1 km.

Matunga is the heart of the Tamil Brahmin community in Bombay and as such the roads are filled with the sights and sounds of temple bells and the smells of filter coffee and delicious food!

Temples like Bhajana Samaj, Astika Samaj and Sankara Math, shops like Mysore Concerns, Giri Stores and the row of flower sellers in the road outside the post office along with the vegetable sellers who have carts close-by are all hallmarks of the Tamil Brahmin community in Matunga! Who can forget the Ram Navami and Navaratri celebrations in Bhajana Samaj, the Diwali sweets that always were sold in the hall in Sankara Matt, the banana leaf sold by the vegetable vendors during any major festival, the gaggle of priests, outside the temples, the sound of the temple bells and sugarcane stalks just before Pongal?

When their families grew, both sets of my grandparents moved from their family homes and out of Matunga. But they both didn’t’ pull the umbilical cord too much and move far away. Both of them moved another kilometer away from Matunga in opposite directions actually, and that was where my parents were brought up.

So growing up, we lived in another area which was a fifteen minute walk from Matunga, which was in the periphery of our lives, without actually living there. We used to go to Matunga for literally everything and my mum still goes there atleast two to three times a week for her weekly ‘fix’. This area in Bombay is the lifeline for the community and even today when other mini Matungas have sprung up across the city and suburbs – like Chembur, Chedda Nagar, Bangur Nagar, Mulund, Dombivili, Vashi, etc you can still people who have moved away from Matunga come here on weekends to catch-up with family and friends, eat at childhood haunts and buy essentials which you don’t get anywhere else in the city.

Growing up, there was always this disconnect – we were Tamilians, but without the accent which is usually caricatured in movies and television and always had questions on why we needed to wear a bindi on our forehead or flowers in our hair. In my and my sister’s case, it was compounded by the fact we didn’t go to the school that most of our Brahmin friends and relatives went to (which was a school run by a Tamil trust where the language was taught as a second language)!

Growing up also we were quite insular. I would say this with the benefit of hindsight. Every Tamilan I knew at that point in time was a Brahmin – either from one of the districts of Tamil Nadu or from Palakkad (from Kerala who are called Kerala Iyers or Palakkad Brahmins). Where we stayed, while not in Matunga, was in fact another Tamil conclave, with almost all the 30-40 buildings in the area having a sizeable Tambrahm population each. My building had 19 flats and with the exception of 2-3, every flat was a Tambrahm flat! This was pretty much the case (the percentages being slightly more or less, with some exceptions) for the other buildings in the street I lived in. Even in school, my friends who were Tamil were Brahmins. In fact, coming to Singapore with its vast Tamil population was actually a culture shock to me as I had never seen so many people from so many Tamil communities and the temples were the biggest shock – I had not heard of all the different Gods that were worshipped there (all the temples I visited prior to this were my community temples or the other temples in Mumbai)

Since most of the community emigrated to Bombay around 60-80 years back, the dialect of Tamil, we speak is completely different from what is spoken by the community in places like Chennai and Singapore. Bombay Tambrahms have retained the words and cadence of their speech from all those years while communities in Singapore and Chennai have adopted more of the local language. So the Tamil we speak may actually seem strange to those who don’t speak like this! S used to tell me that they used to be made fun of in school when they spoke Brahmin Tamil, which is why his Tamil sounds more like how it is in movies while mine is the one they make fun of in movies!

Writing this post has made me so nostalgic. I think the next time I go to Mumbai, I will try and capture all the sights and sounds of the city so that every time I miss Mumbai, I have these to see and hear! Also this post has made me realise I need to pen down more about my life, so that GG and BB know what that was like….

Memories: My First Day of School

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I was struggling for something to write today when I came upon this prompt – the first school memory. I have a really rich memory of my first day in school and thought of writing it down before I get real old and forget it!

This is also apt as this India trip, I am going to take my kids down and show them my school, which I have never done before – shame on me right!

In Mumbai, we start school either in Nursery (age 3) or Junior KG at age 4. When I was three years old, my sister was an infant and so I was not sent to school then. However, I remember pestering my family to be sent to school and probably thinking my mum will have some peace with me away for a couple of hours a day, I was sent to the school next to my house for a ear. This school put me in a class one year above my age which worked to my favour later. My father studied in another school which was literally 50 steps away from our home, but my mum was adamant that she wanted to send us to my school, which was a girls school and which other children in my building went. This was against my grand parents wishes who wanted us to go to the school my dad, uncle, aunt and assorted cousins went to, especially as the school was a Tamil school and the school my mum had zoomed on in was a Parsi school! Anyway, my mum got her way and I was soon taken to the school for an interview. I don’t really have any memory about the interview, but according to my parents I aced it and got admission not only in my school, but in another convent girls school nearby. Usually for Junior KG, the children are interviewed with things like name, what is this (insert object), alphabets, numbers etc. Since I had already done a year of this class, it was a breeze for me!

Also, when we were studying, we’d enter the school in kindergarten (Nursery or Jr. KG) and only leave after grade 10 which is the equivalent of the O levels. So most of my classmates have known each other from the time we were 3 or 4 years old, which make for very old friendships!

The first day of school in my memory is noisy! Some of the children came in from the nursery, but most joined with me. I remember a particular friend who cried non-stop for almost a week before she settled down. I also remember my neighbour who was in grade one when I started school would come down during recess to make sure I ate what was in my snack box! I mostly remember my teacher – Mrs S. She was already old at that time, maybe close to retirement (really and not from the perspective of a four year old! She had white hair) but was such a gentle and sweet lady! She made sure all the children learnt their three R’s and was so soft spoken that we still remember her, so so many years later!

School used to be half day for the kindergarten class and we would be dismissed at lunch for the primary and secondary sections and I remember queuing up for the bus, holding the bottom part of the uniform of the girl in front of me!

My school changed the kindergarten or the Infant department as it used to be called uniform some years back. When I was there, everyone, from the littlest infant to the school head girl, all wore the same uniform – the only difference being the shirt collar. In kindergarten and primary, it used to be a peter pan collar while secondary used to be shirt collar. Oh and the Friday uniform too – in my school in term 2 or the term after the Diwali holidays, we wore a special uniform on Fridays. Infant and Primary students used to wear something like a dress or frock and Secondary students wear their school uniform shirt with a white skirt. We didn’t wear it in term 1 as that term coincided with the monsoons in Mumbai and imagine wearing white and getting wet and dirty in the rains!

I am getting real nostalgic about my alma mater while writing this post and am really eager to meet her as well as my friends from school! I am super excited to introduce her to BB, GG and my sister’s kids next week!

I hope you liked reading this post as much as I did writing it!! More from India….

The Night of Terror – An Unforgettable Day!

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I woke up, excited and happy on the morning of November 26, 2008. I was going to Mumbai later that evening on a Jet Airways flight, flying with BB & GG alone for the first time since they were born. They were 5 years old and were equally excited to be seeing their grandparents that evening.

Everything changed around 7 am when I got a message from my sister, who was in the States at that point, asking me if I was still going to Mumbai. I had no clue what was happening in Mumbai. I waited impatiently till a decent time to call my parents to find out more, and in the meantime rushed to work as I was supposed to be working half day that day. I went online and was shocked by what I read. Twitter, which was around two years old then had exploded with tweets on the situation!

What had happened was that 10 Pakistani members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant organisation, carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday, 26 November and lasted until Saturday, 29 November 2008, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308.

Eight of the attacks occurred in South Mumbai: at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (VT train station), the Oberoi Trident, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, (one of the worst places of the killings), Leopold Cafe, Cama Hospital, the Nariman House Jewish community centre, the Metro Cinema, and in a lane behind the Times of India building and St. Xavier’s College. There was also an explosion at Mazagaon, in Mumbai’s port area, and in a taxi at Vile Parle (close to the domestic airport). By the early morning of 28 November, all sites except for the Taj hotel had been secured by Mumbai Police and security forces. On 29 November, India’s National Security Guards (NSG) conducted ‘Operation Black Tornado’ to flush out the remaining attackers; it resulted in the deaths of the last remaining attackers at the Taj hotel and ending all fighting in the attacks.

Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker who was captured alive, later confessed upon interrogation that the attacks were conducted with the support of the Pakistan government’s intelligence agency, the ISI. Kasab was tried and later hanged in Yerwada jail in 2012.

S was on leave that day as he gets more leave than me. I quickly called him and spoke to him. My inlaws were scared of us travelling that evening and asked me to cancel the trip. I was torn – on one hand I didn’t want to risk the trip, on the other hand, I so desperately wanted to go home and meet my parents (I think at that point, it was a year since I had met them). I called the airline office in Singapore and was met with indifference. They seemed not to have any idea of what was happening in their head office city and told me they didn’t have directive from Mumbai (the head quarters of the airline). The flight will take off as scheduled was what I was told. My mother-in-law didn’t want me to travel, but I didn’t listen to her, saying since the flight was scheduled, we’ll go to the airport and decide then. I spent the whole day glued to the internet for any scraps of news that I could get. I told my parents that we are making the trip and to come to the airport to pick us up. Now that was a new problem – due to the trouble, the city was on curfew and there was no one willing to drive them to the airport. Finally around the time we left for the airport, my dad messaged me that they had finally found someone brave enough to drive his taxi to the airport and pick us up. One problem solved, loads more to go…

Praying to the entire pantheon of Gods in Indian Mythology, we left for the airport. We were one of the first ones to check-in. The mood was quite somber. There was a Channel News Asia crew near the check-in counter interviewing passengers brave (or mad) enough to fly to Mumbai. They were looking for Singaporeans against Indians and approached me to ask if I was willing to be interviewed. I did mention that I am not a local, but was told that I spoke like one, so could pass off as one! I was asked if I was scared of going to Mumbai while the shootings were going on and I remember replying that this was very far from the airport, and so the airport area should be safeish (is this even a word?)!

We flew into Mumbai and the airport was very somber and dull! Everyone working the shift was glued to the television screens which were showing live the places where the terrorists had held the hostages. None of the customs officers were really interested in looking at our luggage and we were out in record time. I was so relived to meet my parents and we quickly got into the taxi and drove home. At that point in time (this was before the new flyover which has dramatically shortened travel time from the airport to my home), the normal travel time between the airport to home was 45 – 60 mins. That day, we did the journey in 20 minutes! Once home, I heaved a big sigh of relief and then spent the next few days glued to the television….

This was the most unforgettable day in my life and a flight to remember…..