Tea time

I have no idea why this memory has stayed with me for years.

It's my grandpa and me going off to the local grocery to buy some biscuits for tea time.

Tea is to Indians, what coffee is to Americans

That's about it! I don't believe it was for something special - it's just one of those memories that has stayed with me.

I don't know why but my brain seems to have a lot of memories of tea time (around 4-6pm), especially tea-time in Mumbai.

"Chai mariya" - "Let's have tea" in Konkani - If you were to do a literal translation of those words in English, it would be "Lets beat up the tea!"

Typed in "broken teapot" in Google Images to make a funny joke and this is what filled my entire browser!

I think it may because of the afternoon siesta - you woke up after a nice lunch to the sound of the water boiling, the spoons clinking in the cups as the tea was prepared, the evening setting sun shone in the house and the sounds of crows cawing and a light breeze.

The smell of biscuits, like Parle-G and Krack Jacks, chakkali, nuts, banana chips and whatever the heck my grandma kept in her little plastic bucket.

All of it is awesome!

 Ah .... just typing those words have made me homesick!

Even though I am no longer living in Mumbai, tea time and the enjoying the setting sun is still something special!

Row, row, row the boat

Yeah, school's still open because our educators are heartless

When the monsoons hit the city of Bombay, you might as well claim God lied to Noah!

Torrents of rain hit the city, until your drowning in your own filth - oh and I am not exaggerating about the rain or the filth!

Just because it's filthy does not mean you can't enjoy yourself

Many have grown up with a stream close by to their house...

I did too - my stream was an open gutter filled with feces, urine and whatever the heck had turned the whole thing into a moving black stream of sludge!

It bubbled and gurgled and you might as well have thought it was some witches brew that got away to torment the souls of mortal men!

There was even a small bridge to cross across the stream (granted it was just a granite slab over the horror where dreams go to die and resurrect as nightmares!)

Ok, ok, I'm exaggerating! Yeah, no I'm not! It was disgusting!

So, you can kinda guess what happens when the monsoon showers hit the City, that obviously decided it had no need for town planners or a drainage system!

Rickshaw in all seasons, a water taxi during the monsoons

It's not the streets alone that floods - everything floods, including your house - and yes, definitely, my house!

It was quite a site to behold - you know it's coming, you can hear the pitter-patter of raindrops eventually sounding like God is personally throwing water balloons at your house!

But the great thing when you're only 5 years old is that all of this is irrelevant ... why? Because as far as you are concerned, your house has turned into a water park!

I marveled as the water came rushing into the house, I loved watching the yellow and grey torrent that whizzed past the hous,e with such speed that you could ride the damn thing!

In fact, I would have ridden the damn wave until I saw that the entire neighbourhood's turd-balls had beaten me to it!

It is quite a site to watch as people try to dodge the god-awful reality of floating crap! Your crap, their crap, everybody's crap!

But when you're 5, you don't have to dodge anything!

You're carried around in the arms of your elders, away from the gritty and moist world just underneath you.

Parenthood - doing it right!

All you gotta do at that age is stay dry, sit on a high chair or the bed and keep the hell out of every adult as they try and rescue the house from the God of Rain, who has blessed and cursed them at the same time, because gods can be like that!

And that's where my earliest memory comes in - all I had to do was stay dry!

As the waters began to rise in my house, I was sitting on a high chair singing the children's song "Row, row, row the boat" and holding some stick in my hand, that was of course my paddle!

I was watching  my grandparents desperately take buckets of water and pour it outside - for every bucket of water they threw out, three buckets of water came right back in.

And me? I kept singing and shaking that wooden chair - until I heard the crack .... and then came the crash!

Into the disgusting, likely plague-infected, water I went, arse first!

Luckily for me, I wasn't too badly injured.

That, of course, didn't stop my grandma from smacking me silly for breaking the chair and getting all wet!

I don't remember much after that but there is a hazy memory of my paternal grandfather coming over to pick me up and take me to their house, which was always dry during the monsoons - their house was on a slight elevation.

I wonder though if the two memories are connected or have I merged two separate incidents into one.

How could my paternal grandpa come over and pick me up? The floods would not allow him to do so

Were the phones working? Did my maternal grandma, after smacking me and drying me up on the bed, call him?

Who knows! All I know is, that song "Row, row, row the boat", is now firmly part of this memory!

              Three Michael McDonalds Sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" (w/ Jimmy Fallon & Justin Timberlake)                                                                      The Internet, where crazy sh*t like this exists!

 

 

The gumboots request!

As far as skin tone is concerned, I'm a thousand shades darker

I lived with my grandma and grandpa until the age of 6. My parents had left me with them as they lived abroad, working and making money to support the family.

I have two sisters - one sister was left with my paternal grandparents and the younger one was taken to stay with me mum and dad.

I remember walking in pouring showers, my black shoes and socks getting all wet as I left the school grounds and walking home with grandma.

It was then that I popped the question - I wanted gum boots like the other boys and asked if she could buy me some.

Her answer - Get your mama to buy you some when she comes to visit us in the summer.

I don't understand why that memory has stayed with me all these years. I must have been about 4 or 5 years of age and yet I remember that conversation like it happened only yesterday.

Was I hurt that she did not or could not buy me some gum boots for my soaking feet?

Was it a case of the lightbulb coming on - "Hey, she's right! I can ask my mother, whom I hardly see, for gum boots!"

Whatever the reason, that pouring rain, the soaking feet and possibly a grandma, that must have just been busy or pragmatic, the memory of that question stayed!

I never got those gum boots - guess I forgot to ask me mama for the boots, because who the hell remembers to ask for gumboots in the summer!

This is the kind of shenanigans I would be up to, had I got the boots