I still remember the thrill of running away every time one of us broke a glass while playing cricket. Every single evening the whole complex was buzzing with activity. There was noise, chaos and every inch of space was used to play either the regular or self Invented games.
Injuries were something to be proud off. Fights and arguments were fierce but quickly forgotten. To ultimately resolve an argument there was one sincerely Honest person whom all of us trusted. He was the big guy and he never lied. All accepted his decision and only after he gave his verdict the game would continue.
Those were days when there was no Internet, no cable tv, no fast food joints, no mobile phones and no coaching classes. Those were days when the building compounds were considered to be a heaven for all resident children. All sorts of games were played, right from Cricket to lagori, from tennis(with a plastic ball and both hands as the racket)to goti, from football and badminton to langdi and ofcourse cant gorget games like chor police, poison medicine, land and water etc.
5 pm onwards was the official play time. During school days 5 pm was magical time. An hour before one suddenly became extra studios and would be seen with books silently convincing the parents that all is perfect at the academic front. If you were sick that day, at around 5 PM you would start feeling better.
The only way the session would end was with loud Impatient cries of angry parents from their respective balconies or kitchen windows calling us back home. Back home was some regular nagging, some good food and then we would watch some really classy and fantastic TV serials like "Ye jo hai zindagi", Nukkad, Hum log etc.
Nobody hid behind their main doors and plonked themselves in front of their own TV sets. I harldy watched a cricket match in my own house. Important cricket matches often resulted into building get togethers. Zindagi was vibrant in every single nukkad and there was a lot of Hum ness between Logs.
Here I would like to introduce you to a rare brand of English language. The English we spoke was a direct translation of Hindi. A few examples...
Coming then come fast. What to do re, he is like that only. Then what (instead of "ofcourse"). Morning morning dont eat my head. Gone mad or what. Anyways your fathers what goes?(this we never said. but I could not resist the temptation of adding it here.)
Now its for you to figure out the original Hindi sentences.
JaiGurudev
Rashmin
Injuries were something to be proud off. Fights and arguments were fierce but quickly forgotten. To ultimately resolve an argument there was one sincerely Honest person whom all of us trusted. He was the big guy and he never lied. All accepted his decision and only after he gave his verdict the game would continue.
Those were days when there was no Internet, no cable tv, no fast food joints, no mobile phones and no coaching classes. Those were days when the building compounds were considered to be a heaven for all resident children. All sorts of games were played, right from Cricket to lagori, from tennis(with a plastic ball and both hands as the racket)to goti, from football and badminton to langdi and ofcourse cant gorget games like chor police, poison medicine, land and water etc.
5 pm onwards was the official play time. During school days 5 pm was magical time. An hour before one suddenly became extra studios and would be seen with books silently convincing the parents that all is perfect at the academic front. If you were sick that day, at around 5 PM you would start feeling better.
The only way the session would end was with loud Impatient cries of angry parents from their respective balconies or kitchen windows calling us back home. Back home was some regular nagging, some good food and then we would watch some really classy and fantastic TV serials like "Ye jo hai zindagi", Nukkad, Hum log etc.
Nobody hid behind their main doors and plonked themselves in front of their own TV sets. I harldy watched a cricket match in my own house. Important cricket matches often resulted into building get togethers. Zindagi was vibrant in every single nukkad and there was a lot of Hum ness between Logs.
Here I would like to introduce you to a rare brand of English language. The English we spoke was a direct translation of Hindi. A few examples...
Coming then come fast. What to do re, he is like that only. Then what (instead of "ofcourse"). Morning morning dont eat my head. Gone mad or what. Anyways your fathers what goes?(this we never said. but I could not resist the temptation of adding it here.)
Now its for you to figure out the original Hindi sentences.
JaiGurudev
Rashmin
Posts
32 comments:
Anonymous said...
Wowie......... That's A really nice post!! :) I still remember playing from 5 pm to 8.30 in the night! Making a lot of noise.. troubling neighbours,getting hurt, running as fast as we can to get away from scoldings!! WOWIE!!!!!!!!
Jai Gurudev!
Abhay Karnataki said...
mast maja madi.
now a days 5 pm has become similar kind of timeline for me, since I go to some yesplus somewhere! :)
My English was "speak as it is written types".
The first word in your blog title, I saw it first sometime on some restaurant, and read it as rende-zu-vow-s! Everyone in car kept laughing!
Dictionary was di-kti-o-na-ry
and National was Na-ti-o-na-l!
Floyd said...
Rashmin , the corporate voice and accent trainers use the term "Indianisms" to describe the rare brand of englis you wrote about.
Anandi Vora said...
Hey Rashmin.. You Reminded me those golden days. I belong to the same era of Nukkad, circus and Quiz time with Siddharth Basu.. You reminded me of those priceless moments..
Alongwith this comes a concern which is bothering me since a long time. I remember, our school trips used to be at temples many times.. I spent those school holidays like janashtami etc. with family performing small rituals. Over a period of time, this also vanished. Thanks to the Nuclear families.. I wonder what cultural values are the parents of todays generation going impart in their children? or the answer would be something like www.karwachauth.com ???
Jai Gurudev
Basit said...
Hilarious post Rashmin....Reminds me of those childhood days in Mumbai...
Faith Lasts said...
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this one!
*there was one sincerely Honest person
Here I was reminded of me :-)
*Anyways your fathers what goes?
apostrophe bhaiya apostrophe ! Makes a lot of difference ;-)
Jai Gurudev
Love
atmarati avirodhena said...
lol my god!! rashmin you are fantastic !! mind blowing post :) instantly took me back to the good ol days :) we used to play gallery like there s no tomorrow:)
lots of love
tanu
sreelatha said...
Jai Gurudev..
Hi Rashmin,
This was an anamnesis to my childhood days.So very similar.(Except that I did not play much sports).Would like to share an experience. I remember in those days there was no repeat telecast of the Epic-Mahabharata.If we happened to miss on an episode, we would have to search for a video cassette at all rental cassette shops.:)Half the neighbours would then gather at my home to see the recorded episode. Video Cassette Player (VCP)was just making an advent to Indian homes in the mid 80's .
Regards,
sreelatha
suman said...
Thanks for reminding the good old days back. Who can forget pakda-pakdi, Aba-Dubee(get hurt badly with plastic ball :-)), lingodcha(i dont remember how to spell) and of course Tup(one of the best).
The noise of friends playing outside was just irresistable. And if for some reason you are not allowed to go out and play, watching them play from the balcony was also a great feeling.
And for the hindi sentences, i remember some -
Aa raha hai toh Jaldi aa.
kya kar sakta hai? Wo Aisa Ich hai!
Subhe subhe dimakh mat kha!
Pagal ho gaya hai kya?
Kiske baap ka kya jata hai? :-))
Anonymous said...
oh my god!!what a post!i actually imagined and remembered my early childhood days...i wuld like to add that sometimes i wuld run away with my friends to other buildings and then my parents wuld come searching for me in all possible places.and then they wuld yell like crazy!!now things have changed in the sense that i run off to banglore ashram to do an advance couse or maybe some festival like navratri,and my parents dont go searching for me when they realise i m not in hostel,they just know that i ll be in ashram,but they still yell like crazy!!!!i have changed but they have not;-)
Anonymous said...
hehe haha...
Anonymous said...
Lovely post... brought a smile and a few laughs and of course sweet memories:-)). I was brought up in a small town in TN but could completely relate to what you are saying. Evenings were always spent on the road with friends until it became really dark. And yes watching all those Hindi serials from Doordarshan becos we did not have local broadcasts really improved my Hindi. And for Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi all kids would gather at my home and whether one understood or not, we would keep laughing!! And playing cricket always involved the ball landing in the sewage system and with no second thoughts we would put our hands into it, wash our hands and ball with half a cup of water and continue playing. So much for immunity!!!
Harsha Vardhan M.V said...
morning morning dont eat my head!
lol
very funny post
Anonymous said...
but bhaiya, "Gone mad or what" is somethiong that i and lot of others still use....is that phrase linguistically incorrect?????
Anupam Gupta said...
HAHAHA!!!too good.....the last one was awesome...
God i miss those days...when you dint have to languish behind closed doors and wonder why everyone has gone so far away.....
am gonna write a post about this tonite...i think its time to revive my blog...
Thanx bhaiya..
vishesh said...
nice one bhaiyya
words are not enough to describe the beauty of your post and the images it conjures up ... this post kind of makes ur chest expand from inside ... :) ... don know what im saying, don know what to say !!!
This post carries a quiet beauty, serenity and charm with it, quite unlike the other posts we see on blogs generally !! It carries quite a lot of innocence too !! :)
Vijay said...
Wah, that was just plain unadulterated & uninhibited fun. You made me go 10-15 years down memory lane. Jai guru dev
vinitaa said...
ya so true... looking at u could never imagine u had such a fertile brain... wow... keep going man ...frm size zero to hero... u r becoming of mine( ha ha ..good eng rite..)
vinita
Anonymous said...
let me add one more ...
"like that or what?"
which is the effective translation for "aisa kya?"
Vikrant Naik said...
hehe...nice one...particularly the last english wala...here's one more..english wala
anyway, just wanted to say..
"please put more posts no....you are not posting only" :)
Unknown said...
leave it up to you to find out small sentences which we would have missed as direct translation.....
total fun and nostalgic post. remember my langi n swing n badminton days..summers were carrom n chess or ludos, business days....
Anonymous said...
Lovely post...5pm official sports time..very true..from 4:45 onwards I wud keep glaring at the clock and as soon as the clock strikes 5:00 sharp, would just run ...many a times without even wearning chappals..
Mansee's Point Of View! said...
how true...lovely nostalgic post...(a cliche by now ;-). It transfered me to the golden days!!
Jai Gurudev!
Unknown said...
cool post lil poo
but where are the photos?!
i would love to see how runty u looked at this time :)
Ayurveda Basket said...
please put more posts
Rintu said...
Beauty :-)
Yogesh Goel said...
everything is so very true..
practically as far as i can guess these moments have happened in everyone's life...
great nostalgic bringing friend..
keep them coming...
tke cre
b well..
Yogesh
yogeshgoel.blogspot.com
Anonymous said...
Wow ! really nice :-)
Unknown said...
Yeah I miss those days. I hardly am back home when the sun is out. I don't even get to see the kids playing on the streets till 7 pm.(I don't think they do anymore).
The life of kids is much more comlicated these days. Tutions, computer games, lots more studies, more competition, music classes, swimming classes, art classes... I think the child has no time to bring out it's own creativity. The mind is becming a garbage dump.
Too bad.
Anonymous said...
VADHADIWASACHYA HARDIK SHUBHECHHYA
THODYA ADHICH :)
Anonymous said...
hey been very long ... where r u ... u shud communicate to us via this blog
WONDERLA said...
hahahah
:)
sooooooo true...
but i really loved
ur father what goes.....
hw u thought of it??
REally superb!!