Alwal Tales, A Trip Down Memory Lane - part 7 of 10
Armstrong, Sunil, Satish, and I all submitted to a mostly circumstantial, newly-sprung 'change' as the 1990s gave way to the dread and distraction of the 2000s, one by one, unpredictably: its solid, monopolising, indifferent hold on our way of life wouldn't let go, and it seemed it refused to let us be, or so we felt.
As the explosion of this thing called 'change' entered our lives, we experienced a palpable sense of dread, distraction, and uncertainty about what the future would bring. Not that we weren't prepared or lacked the tools necessary to meet the challenges of the future, whatever it entailed. We had professional degrees, the right convictions, and just enough in our common sense tank to find our place awash in the sun. But we found it difficult to acknowledge the flood of 'change' (and time) that we suddenly began observing everywhere and strained immensely to embrace that which was coming.
We didn't want 'change,' and the reason solely was: we didn't want it so soon in our lives as, I think, we were naturally inclined to be overly cautious about anything that makes you feel 'the dread of the unfamiliar' or 'to make or become different' or 'alter' or 'transitions' or 'change.' Like a barbarian, the 'change' stood at the gate demanding we enter. Didn't it?
In the end, change found us.
By degrees, everything changed as a result. Although we knew that the direction of our lives was changing for the better, we still believed that the decade to come would be largely reminiscent of the 1990s, which we loved so much. But we were mistaken, though. We had no choice but to comply and accept the changes coming our way. Change found us. No matter how much we wanted to cling to the life we were used to, the beloved decade we grew so fond of had changed. The 1990s were, unfortunately, very different from what the 2000s were beginning to show.
For this unwanted changeover, a new decade—of a new millennial century, no less—had to begin. The 1990s, which we had great nostalgia for, was a magnificent decade that never ceased to exist and never left us ever, even though we underwent significant change and went along with the times that came. Now we can see how horrible the world has gotten by looking at the 2000s and later years.
Today, all we have left are the memories of our continuing friendship, which we will treasure forever, no matter where we go to work or perform our tasks, live our new lives, or fulfil our responsibilities as parents or family men. We acknowledge that reality and the impossibility of returning to the past. After all, who can go back in time? No one. Except when we recall our memories in a dream, we catch a fleeting glimpse of our past life; that's all. Time cannot go back in time; it only knows how to advance itself forward without as much as giving a second thought to its action. We've, I reckon, changed with the times, albeit with a lot of agonising wavering on our part; it was inevitable that we'd somehow adapt to the forward momentum of the times in which we were living or the onward rush of a seemingly fanciful tomorrow that is coming.
(Humankind's irrational fantasies are driving us into an apocalyptic landscape of artificially-induced, tech-laden destiny that we'd never get accustomed to while the spectre of global warming obliterates everything we cherish on this adored planet. Little wonder that in the far, far future, this universe will end with a whimper.)
While I'm not sure I've changed in the sense that the world sees, Armstrong and Satish have managed to move with the times. And that's a good thing: I reckon being practical about the future is the way forward. Everything changes with time or with time everything changes, and it has always been the case for eons. Fortunately, these days, we talk to each other from time to time and try to recall our old days irretrievably lost in the times past. That is how things stand between us while we live with the dramatic transformation of the world around us: change, whatever the word connotes. The change will happen, no matter what we say about it or do; change will maraud.
And so the days of celebrating our friendship at the dhabas are over. After 2000/1, the dhabas ceased to be in our scheme of things. We never went back to a dhaba on the Medchal highway. Those days are long gone, fading into the twilight evenings of our past when everything was brighter, greener, and more beautiful. But, as I cling to the memories of the distant past, I pretend they haven't gone away, at least not from my heart.
In my mind, I keep replaying the early years of our friendship, hearing the familiar voices of my close friends, and picturing the tableaus of the scenes of our growing up years back in the 1990s. I am grateful that I still have all my memories; I haven't stopped thinking about them. I reminisce as a storyteller would.
(To be continued…)
By Arindam Moulick
Dedicated to my beloved friends: Armstrong, Satish, and Sunil.
Alwal Tales, A Trip Down Memory Lane - part 6 of 10
I recall very well the year: 1990, when I first met Sunil in the classroom of the college where we both took the undergraduate program of Science and Armstrong Commerce; Satish had gone to another institution that offered a Commerce curriculum.
An anecdotal narrative…
Sunil and I just so happened to be seated next to each other in the classroom, and when we introduced ourselves, we were surprised that we had never met, even though we lived in the same part of the town and took the same bus to college. By a happy coincidence, Armstrong had also enrolled in the same college and frequently ran into us in the long corridors or during recess on the college grounds. After the first year, Sunil, beset by a Gordian Knot of problems, would rarely go to college with Armstrong and me on the same bus.
In the late 1990s, Sunil was already working as a medical representative for a pharmaceutical company that manufactured the Dolo brand of paracetamol pills. Flush with cash, Sunil and I shopped together throughout the years of '98 and '99 for new "dresses," meaning ready-made garments (mostly cloth material cut from rolls of fabric/thaan as we preferred bespoke tailoring) and new boots. Riding on my new Splendor, we went to a brand-new Vimal showroom in Liberty Plaza, owned by a former colleague who also seemed to be a friend good at entrepreneurial pursuits. We eagerly took his friend's word for it, and sure enough, the quality of what was on display to choose from was excellent, so we each purchased two shirt pieces and matching pants lengths. Our fashion sense was pure desi style!!
So, on my year-old motorcycle, we rode across the tank bund and turned left into the western part of the city, which was quite a distance from where we lived in the suburbs to the north. There wasn't much traffic on the roads at the time, so biking was a pleasant experience, especially since it was usually always windy on the Tank Bund road, bounding the heart-shaped lake. Satish couldn't be with us on this trip. (He was, of course, the most obsessive-compulsive shopper among us and always shopped till he dropped or until he was broke or bankrupt!) Friends forever... Shop together. He was a great lover of suiting and shirting, which he bought as unstitched pieces of spun fabric at the well-known cloth cum textile merchant: Silk Centre in Abids. Or cotton, polycotton, and even the affordable spun polyester, but rarely linen because it pinches your pocket too much: cut from big rolled-up thaans. We had similar choices for branded and non-branded clothing material: Raymond, Mayur, Siyaram's, Vimal, and Arvind Mills.
Although I usually preferred in-store shopping at stores like Anand/Subash/Radia, Armstrong loved the range of fabric material shown on the first level of a shop named Rocha, located on the inside lane of the road named after Mahatma Gandhi, MG Road, known famously as General Bazaar. Curiously, stores like these have nametagged 'Bazaar' in their names. Besides, there was always a dependable Cheap Jack, where Satish and I frequently purchased plaid or check shirting, particularly the 'cotton' variety that came with fascinating design patterns. He and I both were passionate about checks shirts, and Cheap Jack offered a wide selection. In the late '90s, it was common knowledge that if Cheap Jack didn't have the latest checks shirting material with them, you could forego buying it altogether because you wouldn't get it anywhere else.
****
As I write this account with a heavy heart and the knowledge that our years have been lost forever in the sands of time past, it pains me to say that all those happy days have disappeared and gone, year by year, layer by layer, ebbing into the furthest reaches of memory. There's nothing at all now of the old times. Everything has changed. Nothing is left. The most beautiful days of our lives are behind us. It's all over. Today, the daily grind of taking care of the family, fulfilling obligations, doing chores, and just getting on with life as usual. And I mourn. I mourn for Sunil and the friendship we had had.
More than two decades of Summer, Monsoon, Winter, and Spring have passed since Armstrong, Satish, Sunil, and I shopped together at the MG Road, roamed around Trishul Park, whiled away our summer evenings sitting side by side on the rocks, and telling stories and cracking jokes. Going to the Exhibition was something we looked forward to every year. Especially seeing 'English movies' at the Sangeet theatre was a source of shared friendly outing we enjoyed so much and have so many memories of seeing those Hollywood films there. Home Alone, Twins, Forrest Gump, The Silence of the Lambs, Sleeping With the Enemy, Kindergarten Cop, Back to the Future, Days of Thunder, The Abyss, Pretty Woman - and the list goes on and on, an endless list of movies we saw at the iconic Sangeet. And then our days of strolling, on the other side of the town, with plastic bags in hand through the lanes and bylanes, the alleyways, and side streets looking for new merchandise and when feeling famished gobbling up pani puris on the roadside was pure salvation. Oh! We were only able to gulp down ten golgappas at once!!
After he'd had his share, Armstrong would jest with us, "Bas? Ho gaya?!"
Sunil and I would respond, laughing, "Wah! Khud ki toh hawa tight hai!" while Satish gorged himself without a ceasefire!!
Then Armstrong would reply back, “Aouum aoum… Aur nahi toh kya... oum oum...?!!”
Gone are the good old days when a cup of irani chai and an egg puff at Paradise was a given. Or go to Universal Bakery and get a burger or hot dogs (garam kutte!) without worrying about calories or being fashionably health-conscious. Shopping was a lot of fun. A mountainous chocolate sponge slice of black forest pastry makes it oh-so-worth-it! Those days will never return.
****
Although Sunil enjoyed shopping, he liked to do it frugally. Unlike Armstrong, Satish, and I, Sunil preferred to buy fabric materials in subtle, understated, mauve, mellow, or soft colours like cream and salad green, beige and blue, etc. Dark or deep colours were different from his taste. Tell that to Satish, and you might get odd looks from him! The only deep check fabrics with larger plaid squares Sunil ever bought were small or micro checks that might be slightly darker in tone and colour but not more. And the rest, as they say, is history.
As we passed Tank Bund that day, we decided to set aside some time to indulge our junk food cravings. Parking was a snap: it was a breeze compared to other watering holes, as there was quite a large parking area in front of the bakery. Traffic was hardly a bother until the early 2000s, unlike today's maddening vehicular rush that goes straight for the jugular vein of our existence and 24/7 traffic logjam at any given location in the city.
(It's heartbreaking to see bumper-to-bumper traffic congestion throughout this overpopulated, overcrowded, and congested city, emitting hazardous auto exhausts and unprecedented pollution concentration levels in the air. And road dust, smoke, and fumes are blowing at gale force. It's no longer much fun to be around.)
We post haste grabbed a chicken burger and a thums up at the well-known Universal Bakery, nestled just off the delightfully humming MG Road. Parklane, Paradise Circle, and MG Road - this triangle of shopping centres has everything from street shopping to upscale boutiques and is our favourite shopping destination in the city. They offered the best burgers in the whole of Hyderabad city. We had a fantastic day out.
‘chupke se, chupke se raat ki chadar tale
chand ki bhi aahat na ho, baadal ke peeche chale’
- a song by Gulzar
Sunil, poor guy, seemed to live in the seventh heaven for a brief period because he was so fixated on romancing a girl from the neighbourhood drugstore! He tried to flirt with the pharmacy girl, but ironically she never paid attention! Sunil never ceased being anxious about his non-existent 'affair' with the girl who showed no interest in him. He'd often say to us, "There's something about her" or “Aré main shaadi kar letu re!” even though he knew full well that his relationship with her was a mistake, was vastly different from the one he had in mind.
Interestingly, Sunil didn't approach her except on a few occasions when he crossed the street to her pharmacy to buy medicine. When an opportunity arose, he'd speak with her mother, who was almost always present at the shop with his 'love interest.' Although it's natural for any new lover like babu Sunil to ask the girl out (for a cup of tea... er... coffee!) or draw her into a conversation, he couldn't do either because he didn't have many options. Soon after, the girl's family sold their pharmacy to a young pharmacist who seemed eager to take advantage of the chance to make it into a successful medical business before permanently leaving town. Sure enough, when Sunil learned that they had left town, he became sick (and he gnawed off his nails to the nub in feverish delirium!) with the emotional memories of the girl who was never his, not once, not now, not ever. From what I could infer from his late infatuation, I think he could never forget her because he truly did love her, albeit one-sidedly it was. Nevertheless, a happily ever after for the two love birds was never in the cards. Sunil had to move on and get over her now that she was far gone into history before death took him away.
I remember Armstrong saying coolly to Sunil: "Sab thik ho jaye ga!" "Chalo, create your own closure and keep faith in yourself.”
Sunil mumbled something, to which Armstrong said, "Aré bhai saab... there are other pebbles on the beach. Hai ki nei?"
Satish and I wisecracked: "Sunil, woh nahin toh koi aur sahi. Chal ek ‘Dolo’ le le! Sab thik ho jata! Chal ab jaane de reh. Bol party kab dera?!!"
Giving dirty looks, Sunil moaned: "Aré meri woh chali gayi aur tum logon ko party chaiyye??"
We all laughed and said: “Aur nahi toh kya?!”
****
Sunil is survived by his wife and two children, who continue to live in a three-storey house he lovingly and ambitiously built. He demolished the old house that his father had built decades before to build a bigger and better one in its place. Sunil's married older sister, who always had so much affection and love for her brother, is the sole surviving member of the family. Some days whenever he wanted to go to his sister's house at Anandnagar, he'd ask me to accompany him, so after we finished attending our classes, we'd both go by catching a bus to Khairatabad's five-point crossing to reach his sister's place.
The short, lean, intelligent man with sharp black eyes, our buddy from our college days, has passed away.
May God grant peace to his soul.
(To be continued…)
By Arindam Moulick
Dedication: For Armstrong, Satish, and Sunil, three of my beloved friends from the unforgettable 1990s.