Five years of college – fun, frolic and friends. One year of work – office, Mumbai madness and friends. Notice the commonality? After college, life changed sure…but some aspects were still reassuringly the same. Everyday, I had the luxury of being able to come back home to the same faces I had grown to know so well and love over the past so many years. It was like coming home to family. There was stability in that change. Then suddenly, I quit and moved out, and life has changed again. Only this time more definitely, finally and irrevocably. Of course, new places remain to be seen, new experiences to be had and additional friends to be made. But before I run off to begin the rest of my life, I thought I’d take a while to recall the best moments of this last one year. A countdown of sorts of the 5 most enduring memories of my year at Mumbai:
Domestic Life: Though hostel was communal, we had the luxury of single rooms and thus, the ability to shut out the world at will. So I had always wondered whether five years of life like that had spoiled me completely and rendered me incapable of sharing living quarters. That question was definitely answered when Bombay real estate prices being the way they were meant that three of us had to share a two bedroom flat. Sharing a house, setting it up, putting ‘systems’ in place which would work ‘automatically’ without daily mental and physical effort on our part, and maintaining them with all their myriad problems proved surprisingly difficult and also just as much fun. So living with the family is my Mumbai Memory # 5.
Mumbai monsoons: Last year, we din’t experience the Mumbai monsoons so much outside as we did inside. So coming home one rainy Saturday, (coincidentally, in the very day we had gotten our flat registered) to find our flat flooded, then spending the next hour/hour and a half trying to rid ourselves of the inch deep water all around, and then laughing over all the hassle, makes up my Mumbai Memory #4.
Tea and Toast: Well, the point of my Mumbai sojourn was to join the Banyan Tree Community, and I did spend a lot of time there. So inevitably one of my memories is of the BTC. For a while, a colleague and I had this ritual of ‘early morning’ tea at the office. We would begin our day with a walk to the pantry to get ourselves some tea and then chat with all fellow first years on our way back. Unfortunately, we both soon got too busy to spend even those first fifteen minutes fooling around and the tradition ended. But right about then, my cubie mate introduced me and a bunch of us to the heaven that was Zunka-Bhakar’s cheese toast. And suddenly we had ourselves a brand new morning ritual. So everyday, whoever amongst us got into office first, would order us these white bread, dripping with cheese and butter, wholly unhealthy but sinfully tasty cheese toasts. Even blue blooded founding partners and health conscious equity partners were in on the secret and though they berated us daily and told us how we would all die within the next week for what we were doing to our bodies, their hearts too were in those cheese toasts. So the perfect beginning to so many of my BTC mornings is my Mumbai Memory #3.
House: The medical series. My roommate introduced me to it and from the first episode on, I was hooked! So much so that for a while even in office, I would catch myself thinking of the last case we saw and wonder how the inimitable, irritating, yet wonderful Dr. House would deal with the newest conspiracy against him in the hospital! Those were still the times when all of us would get back home in time for dinner and thus we would have the time for atleast one episode before we closed shop for the night. I watched just the one season – the first one and loved every moment of it – as much the company as the series itself. Then, as usual, we got too busy for Dr. House and this tradition ended. This is however one series, which in my mind is linked inextricably with the company I had while watching it. Without that company, am pretty sure will never again watch the remainder of the series. So watching House with my roommate is my Mumbai Memory #2.
Friday Movies: But my best Mumbai memory is of the Friday Movie Routine. No so much the movies themselves as the process of planning for it. Nearly every single week, we would come up with a shortlist of movies that were to be released / currently running that we wanted to watch. Then would begin the debate about which one to actually watch. Diligent research of newspaper, internet, speculative and word of mouth reviews for almost each film and spirited debate would precede the actual decision. Then would come the ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘with who all’ questions and research on what option would best take into account all permutations and combinations. Were we going to include others or was it just to be a ‘family affair’? And ofcourse wither dinner? Had we informed Anita before hand? Would we be wasting good dinner at home or was the home cooked dinner of the expendable kind? Many such complex questions later, we would actually land at the movie (usually PVR, Phoenix, night show). This tradition continued till the very end. Despite office pressures (at worst the movie plan would get shifted to Saturday), through the rush of LLM applications, and all other myriad household chores. Thus, for being the one thing that we looked forward to almost every week, for being the one thing all of us would always make time for, and for being so very much fun (both in the planning and in the execution), the Friday Movie Ritual is my Mumbai Memory #1.
Honourable mentions: Bun maska, Kulfi, and the five mins of nightly chatting sessions we used to have after the TV was switched off and the computers shut down, just before we headed to our respective beds, did not make the top five, but they definitely deserve an honourable mention. I enjoyed them as much as my top five and will miss them just as much.
