My “now” song: Yesterday once more

Do you ever have a song, an idea, a storyline, or an image stuck in your head? And it just refuses to go away? For some time at least? I have this with music—it could be a song, an instrumental piece, a jingle, etc. This becomes my “now’”song, and the “nowness”  (pardon my English here) could be for any length of time.

My now song is “Yesterday once more” by The Carpenters from their 1973 album Now & Then and written by Richard Carpenter and John Bettis.

Along with the heat and humidity, the summer brings on nostalgia for me. Of summers spent with my maternal grandparents in Mumbai. Of golden mangoes, chilled sugarcane juice and bhelpuri. Of cricket and hide & seek with cousins and friends. Of Pallankuzhi and stories with Paati. Of reading story books in the hot afternoons. Of listening to the radio and singing along . . .

I was thinking about all this while travelling to work by bus today morning. And almost on cue, as if approving of my nostalgic thoughts, a co-passenger’s mobile phone rang. Can you guess what the ringtone was? Yesterday once more.

So what nostalgic memories (and songs) do you associate with summers? Tell, tell

Mumbai Lens: The Shoe House

This blog post was featured in the “Around the Blog” section of the DNA newspaper published on February 27, 2012 (pg.6).

I did my first 4 years of schooling in Mumbai and without fail the annual school picnic followed the same pattern—a visit to the Byculla Zoo, followed by lunch in the grounds there; then a quick visit to the Gateway of India; and finally a drive along the Marine Drive to the Kamala Nehru Park at Malabar Hill. This is part that we kids would be waiting for—a romp in the grounds and a visit to the Shoe House in the Park (and not necessarily in that order).

The Shoe House, which is supposedly inspired by the nursery rhyme “The Old Woman who Lived in the Shoe”, was the star attraction for us. A larger than life shoe-shaped house, painted a bright yellow with red shoe laces, a red roof and red chimney—it was every kid’s dream house. We would climb the narrow stairs in twos and threes to the balcony and wave out to the other classmates and feel that the Shoe House and the world belonged to us ! Ah the thrill and joy that little climb gave us.

The Shoe House at Kamala Nehru Park, Mumbai

Nostalgia time: The 2011 ISH alumni reunion in Mumbai

I have always wondered about alumni reunions, you know. Particularly since I have never attended one in spite of having studied in 8 schools, one college, and two universities. To be honest, I have never felt the need to as I have been in touch with special friends from school/college/university. Besides, I have found many of my batchmates over the years, courtesy Facebook.

At least that is what I told myself. Whenever I heard people talking about going to alumni meets or read accounts of alumni meets, I always felt a twinge of envy.

I no longer feel that twinge as I finally attended my first alumni reunion the day before yesterday. It was not an alumni reunion of any of the school/college/university I had studied in; rather, it was of a place I had stayed in—the International Students House (ISH), London. The alumni reunion is special as ISH is probably the only organisation in the world, outside of an educational institution, to have an alumni association.

When I received the email invite a few weeks back, I instantly went into a rewind mode to the year spent at ISH in London.