NRC Colony Diwali Days…..

One of the best vacations of our school days used to be the Diwali vacation.

Diwali holidays, though short, used to awaited like an Olympic gold medal that india had been waiting for many years… I distinctly remember those childhood days when we used to build Killa in my garden. Making a Killa used to be a collaborative effort. We – Sangeeta, Saaru, Chirag, snehal, avinash, parulben and myself used to make sure that our Killa was the strongest.

Killa making used to start with first getting the bricks from somewhere. That ‘somewhere’ could be other’s garden, kachrapatti, etc. That was followed by thinking about the spacing inside the Killa. Undar kitna sipaahi rakhna ye socho. Bahar se kaisa dikhna chaiye ye socho. Mixing the appropriate amount of “matti” and “paani” used to be a decider in the strength of the Killa. Then came the decision as to kitna sipaahi laana hai, kaunsa colour ka laana hai, kidhar kidhar khada rakhana hai sipaahi ko… adjoining a Killa used to be a small pond …

The joy that used to surface on our faces was incomparable. I guess making a Killa as per your expectations used to be a big thing! Now I wonder what small small things used to make us proud of ourselves! Another memorable thing was to go around the colony to see how good and attractive others’ Killas were!

Those were days when I, in my gallery and Saaru and Sangi, in their gallery, used to keep chitchatting while exploding laxmi bomb, lavangi, etc. Anaar, chakri, rocket, sound-bomb, sootli bomb fodne mein bahut maja aata tha..! igniting a rocket at early age used to be a sign of bravery! Kids used to like hearing statements like “ baccha hai , fir bhi darta nahi ..mann naa padega”..!! and the same was applicable to sootli bombs. Igniting Sootli bombs used to be another testimony to the fact that you were brave!

Playing dabba-ice-pice used to be a pleasure. And not to forget chor police. Wo roll ka chota chota dabba jeb mein rakhna… wo actual lagnewale pistol lena,….!

How can I forget the “Sursuri”! The best thing I liked in diwali fataka celebration used to be making the tree in my garden sparkle with a number of lit “Sursuris”. Jagmagaataa hua tree!!

Another thing that is worth recollecting is eating diwali sweets and chivdaa and poori… not to forget the exchanging of ‘Thaali’ with all the people you liked very much. My mom used to warn me every time I went to give a Thaali to others -“ aamaa thi khaato nahi”.. . :)…I was a foodie! So such instructions were necessary. Chori tab pakdi jaati jab White steps pe ‘Karanji’ ka discussion ho aur koi mummy ko pooche “kya manisha, ye time karanji nahi banaya tune?” And then mummy used to realize that those transmission losses were caused by me!!! :)…

Baaki sab aunties ne kya banaya hai wo khaane mein bahut majaa aata tha. Dear Vatsala aunty ki ”chawal ki kheer” mein kuch alag hi maja tha! Yesterday I had been to Saaru and Sangi’s home and it was so sweet of aunty to make “chawal ki kheer’ for me  :)…

NRC colony – Navraatri and Dusshera

I left colony somewhere in 2001… and 8 years have passed by since I have last played Garbaa or Dandiyaa or Heench in Navratri. The simple reason for this is that I have spent atleast 15 Navratris on the CN Garbaa Ground and I could FEEL the vibes coming out of that ground… be it those days when we, as kids, use to just run around playing Chor Police around the CN 6, Parking Lot, other CN buildings and the Substation and so on and so forth…

I used to love Navratri for a few reasons. Being a gujurati, it had to be my default MOST Favorite festivalJ. A more powerful reason than this was the variety of PRASAD that we used to have in those 9 days. I loved the CRUSHED GROUNDNUT + SUGAR wala Prasad. I used to be crazyyyyyyy for that Prasad. Suppose Bhatt uncle gave this Prasad to the people standing near the Main road, I used to make sure that I also sneak into the crowd over there…then I used to sense ki Bhatt Uncle kahan jayenge.. the most of the times I used to make out ki uncle kaunse group of people ki taraf jayenge, I used to run to that group of people to get Prasad once more!!!.. I guess AMBA mata didn’t like my greediness and cursed me that I will never lose weight, however hard I try to lose weight!!!

I enjoyed playing Garbaa and all.. Ritesh Upadhyay was a pleasure to be watched. He and Tappaj used to play like crazy. The extra gravitational force on my body prevented me from hopping like grasshoppers… (while playing Heench, it pays to be hopping like a Grasshopper..!). The last reason was the party that we used to have on the last day of Navratri. We have used to have Pav Bhaaji or Paani poori, or Bhel or some delicious thing on the last day in the CN 6 ka Mahaila Mandal Room.!!! (Tikku miss ke baaju wala room.)

Another sweet thing that I can recollect is the visit to company in Dusshera. I guess it was only this day that the Gates of NRC were open to anyone who was interested in having a tour of the NRC Company. In 26 years of existence on this planet, I happened to visit the company just once. I went with my father. Ritesh Upadhyay accompanied me. Actually speaking, I didn’t understand much about the machines or anything in those days. It was just that I was proud of the fact that my dad knew so much about machines. He was in Nylon Plant then. Other co-workers used to look at me when I accompanied my dad and I used to strut while touring the whole company. Even though my dad wasn’t among the top bosses of the company I used to feel proud when someone referred to me as “Ambalia ka Beta”. I am sure that, up there in Heaven, my dad must be missing these wonderful days in colony, as much as we miss him today.

My dear NRC colony…..

“NRC colony is, NRC colony was and NRC colony will always be the best colony I have ever lived and I will ever live in my life….”

I am sure that there would be hundreds of NRCites who would echo my feelings… and I am not exaggerating what I have said in the first line.
My life in NRC colony began when I was 3 months old. It all started with a stint in R.S. 11, followed by stint in E.N. and finally RS 5/18/1.
Having spent 18 years in NRC colony, I feel very nostalgic when I happen to visit NRC.
I don’t remember the days at R.S. 11, E.N.; for the simple reason that I was too young to remember all those moments. Few days ago I happened to take a look the birthday pics of mine when I was 1 year old... it was amazing experience seeing myself dressed in some striped brown t-shirt and brown shorts! In those pictures were : Nilesh bhai, Deveshbhai, Dharaiyaa Bapuji and Bhabhu, Pinki Ben, Parimal uncle and many others who were kind enough to grace that occasion.
To the uninitiated, NRC stands for National Rayon Corporation. The company had its own colony which was self sufficient in every sense. The colony had
1) Kindergarten school in the dormitory… I am sure every chotu NRCite must have played, cried, filled liquid in bottles, drawn dogs and cats with crayon or chalks, fought over pencil, showed off fancy water bottle, etc. in those KG years..
2) School called as the NRC colony school.
3) A bigggggggggggggg school ground…I don’t think any school in Mumbai has as big a playground as does NRC!!
4) Hotel – kanchanganga
5) Hospital (I still remember the days when we had a health checkup campaign and we were told to cough with our pants down!!!... that was one day we giggled a lot…!)
6) A sports club – with TT, carrom, billiards, cards, gym in the basement.
7) A stage where shows were held.
8) 2 badminton courts in the school hall.
9) A movie theater in the form of school hall… I still remember the name of the movie that was first played – RISING SUN. (I am talking of year around 1992)
10) A river – Ulhas nadi. … Patwardhan uncle taught me swimming in that river… there used to be many who used to go to swim in that river; a few that I can recollect – Sameer Lahande, Sandip Borkar, Saptarishi Duttta, Chirag Dave..
11) The unforgettable KATTA… generations of boys, girls, aunties and uncles will remember the KATTA… when our NRC colony is redeveloped by some builder, the only request to that builder would be not to destroy the KATTA… KATTA wasn’t just a structure made up of concrete and stones... there are so many emotions, memories, feelings attached to that KATTA… only KATTA lovers would understand that!!!
12) Raswanti – the ganna juice center!
13) The TAPRIs beside Raswanti… I am sure that many generations of smokers must have graduated from those TAPRIs J…
14) There used to be a Petrol pump….i don’t know why it was taken off.
15) The Cycle Stand in front of the company main gate… I am sure that every family of NRC colony must have, once in lifetime, placed a cycle in that cycle stand!!... I used to park my “street cat” in the cycle stand if ever I had some work in GATE!
16) The unforgettable GATE!!!!!... the bazaar for all NRCites!!... I am sure a non-NRCite would surely get baffled if I were to say “ mein GATE jaa raha hun bhaaji lene!!”… who on earth sells bhaaji on a gate? J…
17) The GARBA grounds- one near CN and the other one in EN… every NRCite must have tried shaking a leg during garba..
18) Phulenagar – many of my good frnds used to and still stay there…
19) The greenery that blessed our dear NRC colony…after moving out of NRC colony I have never ever came across a colony with so many trees…
20) The Ayappa festival that is held in the 1^st week of jan… everyone still yearns to see the Ayappa festival. Watching an elephant parade around the whole colony was a spectacle to sore eyes. And needless to say that the 10-15 minutes of fireworks at the end of the Ayappa festival festival that every NRCite will remember till his/her last breath!
21) Ramashankar ka ice-cream and kulfi…. I still remember the days when he used to sell a cone at rs.2.00 and I used to go crazzzzzzzzzzy after his ice-cream and kulfi… there was one ice-cream wala who tried to capture Ramashankar’s market; but to no avail!!.. Ramashankar is Ramashankar!!!.... no competition boss!!... Baskin Robbins, Kwailty, etc should take lessons from him!…
22) The beloved teachers of the NRC school…
23) The peon from primary school – Bhosale..!! I still remember the days when he used to be called every other day because this classmate of mine used to puke a lot .!!!
24) The doctors: There were a few famous ones like Dr. Sanghani in RS, Dr. Dixit in Phulenagar, Dr.Jaya Parekh at Gate, etc. All NRCites must have had got their asses pricked by their needles!!!
This is the link to pics of NRC colony….
http://picasaweb.google.com/dipenambalia/NRCColony#

These are the 3 videos on our dear NRC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYNhthYtOWk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99lWgl46MoM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e44NvvLts4

The original video that I made was a single video of 25 mins, but You Tube doesn’t allow videos more than 1o mins..so had to split in 3 parts.. I hope u like it…

I can never forget the days when I was in RS 5/18/1… its there that I spent most my childhood years. It’s there that I learnt playing cricket, dabba-icepice, raja-rani and macchi (these are games played with marbles), corner-corner, gulli-danda, chappi..etc.
I have played a lot of under-arm cricket in Arun Rajamani’s garden… Prashant joseph, Arun, Appa, Vijay, I and a few others have grown up playing in Arun’s garden.
The unforgettable katta was where we gained a lot of KNOWLEDGE!!!.
We have shared a lot of FIRSTS on the endearing katta. I have played a lot of cricket on the CN ground. I distinctly remember the days when, after almost every 1^st innings of cricket match, we used to rush to Maami’s house to drink water. Maami was such a kind lady…really… and another sources of water during the matches was the Sunil Chandelkar, Indranil Deshmukh, Sandip Borkar, bhooth banglaa…etc.
Then there were days when we used to play Holi… wearing the t-shirt you hated the most, so that even if you t-shirt experienced a ghastly death, which it used to be destined to, you wouldn’t have any problem!

I am also trying to compile all the memories of NRCites... please find the link for the sample PDF of the compilation called "Memoirs of NRCites"...

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B1jyiNagGvmDYzQ1NjQwYTQtOWM5YS00NWQ5LWIxYTItYTk0ZTZkMDcwYTk4&hl=en

If this idea of compilation appeals to you then kindly mail your memories to dipenambalia@gmail.com

while mailing pls keep the subject line : memoirs of NRCites- <YOUR FULL NAME>

I hope u like the concept... mail me if you have any queries... thanks..

Behind Bipin Bhai’s house was this small place where Kaali had given birth to 7 puppies – Bruno, blacky, …. Other names I don’t recollect. We used to pamper them a lot. We used to make sure that they a decent amount of food everyday.
In those days even a Cycle used to be a luxury… We used to play pakda-pakdi on cycle. I distinctly remember the day when some 15 of us had ventured to go to Titwala on cycle. Elanchazian urf Babu, as usual, used to be the frontrunner…(I guess he must be wearing Rupa FrontLine…sabse aage …hahaha…bad joke!!). Elanchazian was known as the best cyclist of our colony. And yes, during that trip to Titwala, I had exchanged my street cat with Nikhil thombre’s cycle (I don’t recall the brand)… aur mere wajan se uska tyre puncture hua tha!!!
Also, worth remembering was the day when we had gone to the water cleaning station near the FAATAK. While climbing the slope from the river side, we were caught by policemen and were asked some stupid questions…
Not to forget the pipeline near the NPL/ FAATAK. We used to take Bhel, Mazaa, Pepsi, Chana, Shengdana, and Daal and used to relax on those pipelines… Sagar, Shantanu, Dollar, yogesh dhake, me, Deepak mane, etc used to like sitting there…
I sometimes wonder how silly one can get in those impressionable years!...For example, Rajamani Arun, as everyone knows, was a great scholar of our times. He was my idol in school. If at all anyone asked me, “Dipen, what do u want to become in life?” the first image that used to conjure in my mind was Arun’s. He had a fascination for writing with Ink pens. So even I started writing with Ink pens, thinking that even I would get very good marks as Arun used to get!!!...i started using Ink pens from 7^th std till I completed Engineering… how silly that was! But in those callow years, you tend to do things that needed no logic. You did things just because you believed them!... One more silly thing that I can think of was of exchanging pen with Dhanesh Nair. The reason here was that his writing speed used to be the best… Man!! He could write with crazy speed!... later on I realized – it’s not the pen, it is the guy who holds the pen who has the ability to make it write faster or slower!
Not to forget the Navratri Days!.. those 9 days used to be awaited like anything!... 2 names that pop up right of my head now are Ritesh Upadhyay and Tappaj. It was a pleasure to sore eyes watch them jump like grasshoppers while playing Garbaa, Dandiyaa, Heench…etc…! Even I tried to be a grasshopper, but the sheer gravitational force exerted by earth on me never made me turn into a grasshopper!!! And those were the times when you used to be dressed up in the your best attire, because you know SHE/HE would come to see Garbaa and you would not like to miss impressing her/him !!!! …
It’s so strange to see that in childhood days you don’t feel or have a gender bias. I mean, even a boy used to play which normally girls play… I remember making claypots, playing ghar-ghar with Sangeeta Thulsidas, Sarita Thulsidas, Snehal Halbe, my cousin-Parulben, Chirag Dave, Avinash Mishra, … it’s only when you start growing up you start feeling – “Che, ye to lakdiyon ka khel hai”… needless to say you must have enjoyed those small things…
The Diwali Days! Playing Chor-Police with those small, fake black color wala guns, making time bombs using a long sheet of paper and placing the bomb at one end of the paper which used to lit from the other end, alighting and bending the fulzhaadis and throwing them on a tree to create a spectacular view, alighting only Sutli Bombs or Rockets to show that you were no more a kid !!..etc….
One more important thing that I can recollect is the exchanging of sweets and namkeens with the families in the building and a few ones in other buildings too. I used to love Maide ka poori and Ghughraa/Karanji…!
In those raw years, you come across a few incidents that you remember for the rest of your life. And yes there is one incident that till today freaks me out. It was an incident which happened when I was 3 years old. One of my friends named Chirag had some work with an uncle who stayed in a building nearby. I accompanied Chirag. But instead of climbing the stairs till the top floor I thought of waiting downstairs. There was an open manhole. I started hopping over it… on the opposite ends of the diameter of the manhole… but suddenly I miscalculated my jump and I fell into the gutter and splash!!! The gutter was flowing like a wild river. Even a strong bison would have lost his control and would have flown with the flow of the rushing waters… but, maybe God wanted me to live till this day to narrate this incident to you all. I suddenly found a brace on which I placed my left leg and I started screaming my lungs out. And then APPA and Joseph Sir came and rescued me. But they couldn’t rescue my left slipper. L. I lost my left slipper to the ravaging gutter. I went home and needless to say my neighbors could hear sentences like ‘Sorry mumma… Really sorry” Or “nahiiiiiiiii…. Pleeeeej nay maar….” Or “I won’t ever go near a gutter…” And yes, I never dared to go near a gutter. I didn’t want to lose my life. And my left slipper!
I hope you liked my blog. It’s just that in every recounting of tales, we relate to those tales and feel “are ye to mere saath bhi hua hai”..!!!... I would urge every NRCite to mail me his/her such sweet memories so that I can compile them in the “Memoirs of NRCites”. As per my calculation, out of the 800 people that I have reached through orkut and facebook, at least 80 should care to mail me their tales and assuming that their tales are at least 8 pages each, we should have a PDF of 600 pages by the end of next 3 months. I wish to keep the PDF of “Memoirs of NRCite” ready by 31st December!!!..
Believe me, reading others’ tales is as much satisfying as recounting yours.
If you are convinced about the idea of having a compilation like “Memoirs of NRCites”, then please help me in spreading the word (to NRCites) about this compilation. If you have any doubt or queries, you can mail me at dipenambalia@gmail.com
Please take out time to recall those good old NRC days and mail me your sweet moments. Every moment shared is like a moment lived again. I could actually FEEL all the moments that I have described above. And I am sure that even you must have felt “Are ye to maine bhi kiya tha… mai bhi aisaa hi karti thi…. Even I have played dabba-icepice… even I have tried to impress her during Navraatri days….” Etc…!!
Recall a moment, recount a moment….relive those moments spent in the wonderful place called NRC colony!!!