After climbing the foot over bridge as I came towards Amabrnath west, I waited for a moment to figure the steps going down and I looked above still fidgeting with my dabba kaliberry..I was shocked for a moment.... is it really where I was born, where I spent the best part of my life? the noise, hawkers, jammed bikes and car..it was too much to grasp in a minute's time, but normality soon sunk in when i couldnt find an auto for ordnance estate.....
Ofcourse finding an auto to go to WestClub is impossible, but as you make your way through ordnance estate, memories hit you so hard that you cant fathom that life has moved on so much. As i looked out of the auto to find Shah ka dukaan, the only shop where the entire ordnance wallas would go to buy notebook, stationary, gifts and other things, I realised that the shop was closed... the once throbbing shops where we all came most of the evenings to either buy a pencil or a notebook or a videogame, or to repair our cycles, to the monthly grocery or to the store to buy that birthday dress-it was the epicenter of our lives. Boys would wait for their girls to come by and friends would meet and chat.....that place has seen various heart break or make up.... A better look at the cooperative society building and I realised nothing is same anymore apart from the fact that the building is standing there......an old british building standing amidst the changing world...
The atta chakki on the left side of the road next to the police chowki, the infamous chowki where even a bulb does not light up or must have been stolen by the local boys, the empty cycle and scooter stand, the hooter from the factory echoing across the estate, the cold breeze, an old man cycling his way back home with his son siiting behind him, bunch of boys standing near the Canara Bank Atm-the one and only bank and atm of apna gaon,school playground with flags swarming the sky....the lonely streets....the street lights standing alone near class type trying to figure out why suddenly there is so much action at west club ...the otherwise least inhabited place in the estate.....
As i reached west club for my friendz brotherz wedding, I saw the same faces whom i had seen while growing up at Type III....Some failed to recognise some chose not to recognise, some warmly hugged and everyone was too engrossed in conversations.....
Then you try and locate people whom you would want to meet and then catching up with people whom you went to school with, and when you meet them after decades you realise that the warmth hasnt dried out yet and conversations keep rolling on, its acid all the way....
