Audio and Video

I was posting this song "Lovebug" on facebook today and it struck me, how much those late 70s n early 80s pop songs have bonded us cousins together as a family. Of course, when it comes to songs, we must not forget their players or the people who got the songs to us in the first place too!
Now, where would we be without our age old electronics? Back then, the early 80s were the nascent stages of the great electronic revolution of India. We all started out with Black and White televisions - our Bharat Electronic TV at NN played only 2 channels, that too with a good deal of thumping on the top and the sides. It had a dial to change channels, there were numbers from 1 to 10 (why, I still don't know when only 1 would work and 2 was at the most a very, very fuzzy picture of 1). The one in Sahakar was better...Keep in touch with Dyanora..la la la laaa.. (ok, it's Dyanora tv but I still cannot say just Dyanora, I have to say the entire punch line, somethings just don't leave your brain). That too had dials instead of buttons to change channels and volume. Of course, Chitta's place at Andheri had the same Dyanora, while Periappa had the same Bharat Electronic Tv.
Our tape recorder, was Philips, that small thingy you saw in the 70s movies, single cassette deck, one red button for record, one blue for stop (weird na?) and white buttons for play, forward and rewind. We had fun with that thing, once we recorded over Amma's bhajan casette, all of us singing off key voices mein the song from Mr. India (na maangu sona chandi, hum maange maafi didi). Boy, my mom had a shock when she played that bhajan cassette (imagine Krishna Krishna Mukunda Janardana, Krishna Govinda..Na Mangu Sona Chandi!!!!). It served us well, till we eventually discarded it and got that Dubai return Votra crap for sometime, which kept looping the cassette tape inside..Eventually we became experts aat unwinding the tape with a pencil and sticking it back inside again to play. Then we got the Karaoke machine, and had fun times with it (Rajan mama is Hemant Kumar reincarnated, I swear).
At Sahakar, who can forget the DECK!! Sony...I still believe that even professional systems don't hold a candle to that thing! Mama would play "Hey Mickey" in it and you could hear it all the way upto the main gate...plus the effects were just awesome! Some of our best song memories are in that one...Roll Jackie Roll, Highway Bus, Santa Maria and of course the Laughing Song, LoveBug and Love to Love Baby (which now I think we censor from our kids, back then our parents made it sound like someone was doing a rather difficult potty, so we kids never realised what it was in reality). There was a Sony smaller boombox, again a Dubai return thing which went to Marol eventually.
When the color tv revolution came, all of us got the same model simultaneously, Videocon in baby Attai's Periappa's and our place and Sony in Chitta and Sahakar places. I forget which one was there in Marol, I think it was a Dubai return model, not sure, Vidya or Sandy can throw some light there.
Then came the VCPs (Video cassette players) and VCRs (Video cassette recorders), who can forget endless re-runs of Tom n Jerry, Kidsongs and Jamai Raja (yups, Archie and Vidya were huge fans of this movie) at Sahakar. In those days, only one house had the goodies, that's how parents controlled tv viewing in kids. Now we have too many gadgets in all houses, but then again times are different now.

I think our dad was technologically advanced atleast where computers were concerned, still remember the good ol x386 machine, only DOS, Windows 3.1, Pacman and Bricks in that one. All we did was play Pacman and Bricks. And it had that 5.1/4 inch floppy drive, you ACTUALLY had to LOCK the floppy in for it to read!!! We got a x486 and then an assembled Pentium soon enough. FYI - the assembled type model with the extra large back still exists in my office, when I walked in the first time 3.5 yrs ago, I felt I had gone back in time!
Even internet was text only browser in those days, all we could do was chat, nothing else, till the assembled thing came, then we had that mtnl dialup connection (how many people remember the sound? My mind still replays it when I lose the connection occasionally at work and have to reconnect back).
Alright, I am rambling now, but what I really want is for my dear cousins to put in their memories here too of all the good music and movies and times we had with our devices...

Waiting to hear from you guys,
Siya

P.S:- Special mention here for Gautam, our cassette king! Every Rakhi, he would gift us latest audio cassettes of popular Hindi/English movies/songs...he was and still is the bestest brother on Rakhi days ever!!

Hand me downs and Hand me ups...

Well, hello peeps, I am back with another mia familia post...this one is about the ubiquitous hand me downs that we all grew up on as kids. 

Well, the rule of our entire family (esp the maternal side), was that the older ones got the new stuff and later it got passed to the ones down the line. This made the older ones (esp me, as I was the oldest) kind of smug about the "new" stuff we got. Of course, one realizes much later that the younger ones have it much better later in life, the older ones are the guinea pig on whom parents experiment and learn the fine art of parenting better. But, anyways, sticking to the topic now..I actually liked the hand me downs and even wanted them, which I got occasionally from the Viswanath side of the family. But the age gaps were very wide between me and the next oldest person (Girish was 2 yrs older but studied in a different board in a different city and Vinod was 4 yrs ahead of me). The only hand me downs (HMDs) I got were clothes occasionally from Sudha (Girish's older sister). 

In the Narayan side, with clothes, Myself, Sandy and Shilpu were the proverbial 3 musketeers. We got the exact same clothes in 3 different colors. The logic was that we could exchange and Sandy's and mine would get passed to Shilpu eventually, so lucky pig got 3 sets in 3 different colors instead of just one set (you see here how parents hoodwink the eldest one? Make them feel special but actually they are being royally shortchanged??)
Anyways, there was a time when for Virmani Mama's wedding reception, Shilpu and Sandy got the exact same red fan like pleated dress (which btw holds the distinction of the most passed on outfit, even Vinoo wore it once as a baby and we got pics clicked of him...such a cutie he was then!!). I got a white pleated outfit with a red coat, which I wasn't too happy about because the other two were officially a team and I wasn't :-( but then again, the adults brainwashed me into thinking I was the Queen and all! Of course, once the pics came out, I did look like the Queen (he he he...).  Clothes also went in reverse order (Archana is gonna kill me for this), after Archu went to Bangkok, a lot of her t-shirts came to Vidya as she was thinner in those days. Our parents pathologically bought oversized outfits for us in those days, otherwise you would grow out of it too soon. of course, you would look all weird and baggy but style wasn't high on anyone's minds then. Today, Anagha's clothes are passed to Tanisha in the same reverse order!

Hand me down books have their fun moments. I remember passing on books to Sandy and in one of the textbooks I had tick marked with red ball point pen at the end of every chapter and written "very good", "excellent" and all. Sandy was quite bugged because of this. She, in turn would draw eyes all over the text books, this would come to Shilpu, who would complete the face (Sandy, Shilpu and Archu are the family artists). By the time the book would reach Vidya, it would have all sorts of scrawling and drawings and remarks on boring teachers and fat teachers and smelly teachers and goodness knows what not...maximum remarks in history textbooks I think (our teachers should really re-think that subject) and also hindi textbooks (considering that hindi teachers were generally fat and smelly and wore sleeveless blouses showing off sumo wrestler arms for some strange reason). I still love old books and still buy them from old bookstores. Especially the ones with scrawlings, they give a glimpse into people's minds at that time.

The best hand me down was a doll which Shilpu had, a Russian type face dressed in Santa's suit for some reason. Shilpu named it "Laali", I felt it was more "Paapi Gudiya" (after a horror movie about a similar looking posssessed doll). Anyways, she was eerily attached to it and eventually, it changed hands to Vidya and then Archana. Archu actually made it a real Paapi Gudiya. She had blacked out one eye with sketch pens and drawn all sorts of voodoo sketches on the forehead and face (the only drawable part made of plastic and rubber, rest of the doll was stuffed with foam). It would give creeps even during the day! Some other toys were preserved, 2 dolls which we had named Julie and Lucy, a police van which made sounds, water toys from Sweden, video games (pocket scramble and rain shower) from UK and numerous Bangkok toys which made their way to Vikas-Vidya too! There was also a Superman outfit belonging to Shilpu which Aditi also wore (Sandy and Vidya's cousin)

Today's parents have lot of pride issues, our parents just thought about saving money and using it wisely for the future. They originated the concept of recycling. Today, we talk about recycling so many things, but we don't recycle the simple things like clothes or books or toys for that matter. 

Well, that's all for now, its a rather long post..please feel free to put your comments on this post about your experiences too. taa taaa!!
 

Legendary vehicles and their even more legendary drivers...

Well, the Viswanath family is all set to take a road trip, so I thought I might pay homage to all the road trips we took in childhood days in our family vehicles. Most of our family owned scooters (vespa) in those days, but there were some cars with amazing load carrying capacities too! So I list them out in award format..

1. The car that could carry the most load

My Periappa had the Duker Fiat (more popularly known as "Dukker Fiat" (Dukker actually means Pig in Marathi, why this car was pronunced as Dukker is beyond me, because as far as I know, pigs find it difficult to carry their own loads, forget that of others). Aaaanyywaays, the Duker model has front doors that open from right to left, instead of the left to right, and the back doors open the usual way, left to right. This car while seemingly innocent and rather old man looking (because of the top, which resembled an old man's bald head), could carry upto 12 people alongwith another 3-4 bags of luggage while the actual capacity was only 5!! This was our default car for picnics when the whole family got together in summer hols. Could fit 3 well grown, heavyweight adults in front and another 4 adults in the back. Each adult would have a kid or a bag on their lap, so one can imagine the load here. And it would chug up the Maheshwari udayan flyover with ease, I think all of us howling Mannubhai Motorchali Pom-Pom-Pom at the top of our off key voices was motivation for the engine to get to the destination faster!! Periappa was great with the car of course, very good and patient with all of us and drove the car like a seasoned pro.

2. Yeh dosi hum nahi todenge...hamara sidecar scooter

Vijay super Max 2..that was our first scooter. Appa bought it in Pune and it had a sidecar which resembled a rocket!! The scooter was a big hit, though I really wonder how Appa managed to balance the thing. Every kid in the family wanted to be in the sidecar!! Some memorable moments include being chased at midnight on Dockyard road by stray dogs who rivalled the scooters speed...Dad drove as fast as possible and Shilpu and I were huddling in the scooters mouth area as far as possible to get away from the dogs! My fright was that it would seperate like it did in Sholay and the dogs would get us...but of course, the scooter was more powerful than that and we managed to get away without a scratch. The fear of stray dogs still remains....
Another memory is riding through Aarey colony to Picnic spot, all of us kids Vidya, Sandhya, Archu, Shilpu and me in the Sidecar scooter, Virmani mama and Rajan Mama following in their respective single scooters. We kept scaring Vidya about leopards and panthers and finally she got off and went to Rajan mama;s scooter. Archu, of course wanted to wrestle with the panther!

3. Most entertaining driver

Rajan mama gets this award, unanimously I think. Most of my childhood, I remember him cursing freely at errant truck drivers and BEST bus guys. His language was funny though, none of the ugly cuss words, but weird ones like "Haajam". He's also got Manni's sense of humor, so its damn interesting when he drives. One outstanding memory was recent, only 2 years old, when he kept up a steady banter with Anandan chittappa so that Chittappa would not doze off in the front seat (Chittappa could sleep anywhere, I mean ANYWHERE - sitting, standing, lying down, watching tv, travelling in a local train...). Also remember him muttering to a boy and girl getting cozy in the middle of the road on a scooter that perhaps the rising prices and lack of Udipi restaurants are making them hang out in the middle of the road, blocking other drivers O_O. And yes, I cannot forget him giving nasty looks to a car which pulled up a centimetre before his in the signal and it turned out to be someone they knew from VG :-D

4. Safest driver award

Periappa, Vinod,Virmani Mama. All 3 get this award. You know your in safe hands esp with Vinod because he won't look at any place but the road while driving. Periappa and Mama are more seasoned, so they look here and there but handle crowded vehicles with aplomb!

5. Heart in your mouth driver

Any guesses who this would be?

6. Special mention for the ladies

Yes we have women who drive too. Mahalakshmi mami who is one of the first ladies of our family to handle the wheel and manual gears in big bad Mumbai, Sandy who has been driving in Bangalore (I swear you deserve a spl award for this), Shilpu who has been driving in the United States with Anagha in tow (i know what its like to drive with a screeching kid in the car seat).

My own car driving memories are far and few, I caused more accidents I think. Like when Appa and the driver who was teaching me kept yelling "brake brake" when we were nearing the signal and I hit the accelerator instead! Or when I knocked off the car's front headlight grille and stuck it back with fevicol so Appa wouldn't know (it fell off when he knocked the car against the gate later, much later, that's when I realised fevicol ka jod really majboot hai). Later in the US, driving was easy, till Saurav came, then I had to keep pulling over, initially because he would howl, later because he would unhook himself from the carseat and come in front...

Feel free to comment here on any stories you would have about your family cars or scooters or bikes or...you get the point...vehicles..

Fascination of Tam-Brahms with Molagootals..

A few weeks ago, we were discussing our family's favorite food and unanimously we arrived at the proverbial "Keerai Molaagootal". This is a dal and spinach concoction, with coconut based masala, a staple of every Palakkad household. In our homes, it gets made atleast twice a week in Spinach season. In the days of the yore (meaning when I wasn't even born or in villages I have never set foot in), apparently, this used to be made with different types of spinach. I have seen only Palak and sometimes Chowli. Regardless, its our favorite comfort food.
Palakkad cuisine is full of such Molagootals. Some people call them Kootan too, but I think Kootan refers to the Sambaar type gravy too. Well, everyone has their own special way of making this thing. Jemmai's was mostly watery and full of the stems of Palak or Chowli. Manni's was the best, thick and yummie, seasoned just right. But of course, its difficult to measure up to Manni's cooking, she was the ultimate in Kerala style cooking. My own mother's always had more spinach than dal and still does. Somehow, mine also ends being the same. Back in the US, this was the best thing to make when you craved home food as spinach is so easily available everywhere. Other types of molagootals are ones made with gourds and root veggies like safed bhopla, yellow bhopla, fresh yellow bhopla (light yellow in color), vallirikkai, dudhi etc. Bhopla means Suran, its actually a Marathi-Hindi word, derived from Mumbai. otherwise, these veggies are elavan, matthan, pachcha matthan, chenai. Molagootal is in every Tam-Brahms blood, I had a friend who lived next to Hema Malini (actress) in Juhu and said only his mom and Hema Malini bought Elavan-Mathan-Chenai-Vayakkai (raw banana) for molagootal from the vegetable seller!! Apparently, Hema Malini still comes to Hyperciti Malad to buy all these veggies on Monday mornings.
One of the best Cabbage Molagootals is Baby Attai's. I still ask her to make that when I go to visit. Somehow, she turns the boring cabbage molagootal into something delicious and spicy, always!
There are other "koyambus" too, like vettal koyambu, thengai aracha koyambu etc. Manni's thengai aracha koyambu is legendary as always.
While my grandmothers were great Palakkad cooks, people like Andheri Chitti and Mahalakshmi Mami, bought the Maharashtrian and North Indian tastes to our food and Jyoti Mami, the exotica (for us mutter paneer was exotica, mind you). Still a big fan of Mahalakshmi mami's ragda pattice and Jyoti Mami's fruit trufle.
Today's children want all continental food. My own daughter will only eat the likes of broccoli, sweet corn, mushrooms, baby corns etc. Sandhya made appams with egg batter (Manni would be turning in her grave at the thought of the appam kaaral being contaminated with egg :D), it was yummie and the kid who normally runs away from appams ate this happily. But, thank goodness for small mercies, Saurav is still a big fan of typical Palakkad food and his favorite is still Keerai Molagootal......

Note: - I went to an Iyengar Tamil house and they called Rasam - Saathamadu...i was like wtf???????

Shanmukhananda Hall

Jemmai is my paternal grandmother, she was the sweetest person in the world, never remember her ever scolding me! Always took our side in any fight and would sneak and get us ice-cream sticks from Tequila bar. Her one favorite pastime was to go to all the Tamil plays and kaccheris (music concerts) in Shanmukhananda Hall, Tamil movies in Aurora Theatre or video in Pappu Maami's house. Pappu Maami was our neighbour in NN. She got named Pappu Maami after her youngest son (whose real name I still don't know but only know him as Pappu!). She had a mother living with her, an old old lady whom we called "Chinnaa Paati". I presume, it was supposed to mean "small paati" as chinna in tamil means small. She was in no way small though, I always felt she was the tallest paati in the world. Mostly because she was always with Jemmai, who at 4 feet 9 inches was quite short. Both of them gave real meaning to the words "two of a kind". I rather think them as the "Lambooji-Tinguji" of NN. Both only wore 9 yards sarees, in similar colors and prints. Chinna paati was whitewash white and Jemmai was the opposite! So, they were like day and night, literally. But the opposites end there. Likes and tastes, very very same!! 

They both loved Shanmukhananda Hall, Jayalalitha, MGR, Sivaji Ganesan and Rajnikanth with a passion! Any play, good or bad, if playing in Shanmukhananda had to be viewed and reviewed. Any tamil movie in Aurora had to be seen. And I don't think anyone made this much use of the VCR as they did, with tamil movie watching. Now, we were good kids and all, but what is the best way for parents to get their pesky kids out of their hair on weekend evenings? Send them with their grandparents! And what is the best way to get out of going to watch inane movies and plays - patch your grandkids with your wife and let them go, so you can read paper at home (that was Jempa!). 

So, like it or not, we were Jemmai and Chinna Paati's eternal companions in their jaunts to Shanmukhananda or video watching. Chinna paati was weird, she never wore shoes! Walked barefoot to Shanmukhananda through the dirtiest roads and back...ugghhhh!! Most of the time, we had to sit on the floors unless both the grandmothers managed to fleece someone into giving up their seats for us. Our "bribe" was the bhajjis/batatawadas and Gold Spot/Mangola in the interval time. That was our big treat! Btw, I still say its fun to eat that junk food in theatres, much more than the fancy sandwiches and popcorns one gets now. 

One time, we had a rather bad play experience, couldn't understand a thing and on our way back, had to cross that big 4 lane highway with Jemmai and Chinna Paati in peak traffic! Sandy was also with us and she kept singing "Paati Namooonaaa" (referring to Chinnai Paati) and making us laugh uncontrollably, which didn;t contribute much to the road crossing effort. 

Jemmai, was cool though, she would always get us ice-creams and those little peppermint mittais in pink and white from irani hotels and kirana shops. I used to bug her for those plastic rings which she got for me without fail on every visit to Asthika Samaj. Earned me the label of "Modirakirukku" :-)

Chinna Paati was Kanjoos no.1, would shell a dime for anything! See, how the most opposite of people remain the best of friends till the very end. Jemmai and Chinna Paati were polar opposites of each other, in personality, looks and style, but yet, they were bonded by their unique love for theatre and MGR (I think when he died, they felt like they had lost a part of him, thanks to the hungama created then). Those memories will always stay, nowadays its near impossible to take the kids to Shanmukhananda. They were also the ones who always turned up for school annual days in that hall. Today, Tanisha's school program is always in a smaller auditorium in Borivili, which brings back memories of Shanmukhananda Hall.....

Naming the Grandparents

All of us have names you know, mostly chosen by our parents, unless you belong to the older Palakkad generation, where you basically had no choice, you got your grandfather's or grandmother's name. Of course, this would mean you have a rather long drawn name like Suriyanarayanan or Vaidhyanathan or Balambal or Thailambal (yep, that's my grandma's name). I think it is this factor that makes all the Palakkad grandmas never want to be called the standard "Paati". Come to think of it, most Iyer households have weird pet names for their grannies. While the poor grandpas get stuck with the geographical area they live in, grandmas are more innovative with their names. They manage to manipulate the grandkids into having some cool granny nicknames!

My paternal grandmother was "Jemmai". Derived from "Jayamani's Ammai", it somehow manage to become "Jemmai" by the time we got there. If she had lived any longer, the great grandkids would have definitely made her "Jems". My grandpa got "Jempa" (a change, but of course, he had no choice in the matter).

My maternal grandmother was lucky in a way. She got labelled "Manni" (meaning Bhabhi), thanks to her brothers in law and stayed that way for life. Even the great grandkids called her Manni. We did try to remodel it in between, but then found there's really no remodelling the word Manni, unless of course you put an accent to it and make it sound like the very Italian "Maanny". My grandfather is still Santacruz Thatha, even though he has long moved out of Santacruz and is now based in Goregoan since the past 10 years.

But the ass kicker is my mom's Chitti. She was called Andheri Chitti first, till her grandchildren came along. The first lot made it "Jaya-amma", shortened to "Jayama". Then came the NRI grandkid, who turned it to "Jammie". By then, Lot. No.1 of grandkids had hit college. Then they thought "Jammie" is too childish (the UK boy is all grown up, all of 9 yrs old now and he thinks the same way too.. go figure!!) and now she's the uber cool "JAMS"!!!!!

In the meanwhile, my mom has stuck to the more tame "Ammamma", though my niece has an accent so it sounds cool... my daughter doesn't call anyone by their tags, instead she uses pet names like "Chinku", "Laddoo", "Tinku", "Pappu" etc.. especially when she wants something done.. This generation of grandmother's seems to be sticking to the more traditional "Ammammma", "Thathi" or "Thatha", with the location tags though.. So, my nephews have names their grandfathers Bombay Thatha, Ghatkopar Thatha etc etc.

Anyone having more interesting grandparent names? I would love to hear from you about them on this blog....

Well, its adieu for now... and to all my fans, apologise for the massive delay in posting another blog.

Summer Vacations

Haaahhh!! it's summer finally in Mumbai..! Schools have closed, results are out and all izz well! Now, Tanisha and Saurav are both in summer camps and I am already freaking out about what is going to happen AFTER the camp gets over in May! 

Made me think, did our parents ever have this much worry about us during summer when we were kids? I mean, from what I remember, summers were always spent outside the house. Whether it was in Narottam Nivas or at Sahakar or at Ambika, we were always outdoors. Home was meant for eating, sleeping and in my case bathing (yep, I had an OCD with personal hygiene, every break at home, I would shower and change, had the bai of the house in a bad mood usually, always would complain about having too many clothes to wash from one person). Anyways, it was mostly spent outside. Somehow, there were always tons of kids playing outside anywhere we went. And funnily enough, the heat would never bother us. Come to think of it, the peak playtime was between 12 and 5pm (when the adults would want us out of the house, so they could wind up the kitchen and take their afternoon siestas, plus the bais would want us out of their hair too, nothing like a bunch of kids running around to disturb their jhaadoo-patta). 

What would one play, you might think. But as a child, the world is full of possibilities. And as a child, you have the knack of making even a boring thing, interesting. Most of the time in Narottam Nivas, it was either climbing on that tank, or a game of hide and seek, or afternoon ghost story sessions. 

In Sahakar, it was "Stop" (another form of hide n seek), can never forget the day Meghal fell in that A-2 3rd floor, slipped on the cement sacks meant for terrace work. Poor fellow, his glasses were on one step and he was on another, couldn't see without them. And we were, well, laughing , then Farooque came (was his den) and made us all "Stop" (first being Meghal, so it was his den later). 

If not Stop, it was playing dress up...ooooooo! This is gonna be nice...!! We loved doing this with Manni's best silk sarees, got firings for that later. And it was total girlie games, Saas-Bahu, Doctor-Doctor, Office-Office... shhhhhhhheeeeeshhh!! We would pretend to be North Indians (go figure, too much idli-dosa at home).!! Once Archana and Vidya arrived, they joined us with these games, we usually made them the "patients" ;-)

We were always behind C Building anyway at Sahakar. Sandy and Shilps had this "secret" hiding place, they kept it "secret" right till the time I got married, that's when they told me and I realised, it wasn't that big a secret at all!! 

And what can I say about Ambika, total tp!! There was this unbelievable gang of kids there and too many games.. too much fun!!! I think we picked up a lot of new games from there. Of course, Veensey and us loved dress up, sometimes we dragged Vinod Anna into this, but he was pretty reluctant (being a boy and all). 

Some memories linger, like Shilpu dressing up with that towel on her head, earned her the nickname "ummachi". Another is those weird song and dance sessions, my family thought it was fun to get all the kids to dance and sing one night in the summer. The entire clan would be at one place (Narottam Nivas) and we kids would go all out, practising and putting up a grand show. Sudha always danced to "Jimmy Jimmy" from Disco Dancer, the rest of us did some disco number that she would coach us on. And then there were the summer nights where we would play those quizzes with the adults, country names, connect the words and make a story etc. Lastly, who can forget the "Chowpatty Jayenge toh bhelpuri khaenge" din in Periappa's Duker Fiat... (I wonder if people thought we were weird, maybe they did who knows!). 

I think the adults were laid back then too, perhaps we could learn something from them... wot says?

Anyways, its time for me to get back to studies now. Ciao! 

Have a great summer everyone!!!