“So where do you live in Mumbai”
“Andheri, umm actually Goregaon”
That has been my usual response off late. It takes me several moments to readjust and recollect that we no longer live in Andheri. And it’s a big adjustment. My concept of back home has disappeared, as I have only a faint idea of how my new home looks like, and the familiar place which has lent itself to a million memories has now changed hands to its new owner. Its surreal, especially when you haven’t seen that shift happen, and are sitting thousands of miles away, only hearing that your folks have shifted base, and sold the place I have for my entire lifetime called, home.
A year after my birth in Calcutta my parents moved to Mumbai, around 1980. We began living in Haji Ali, and one of my earliest memories is of me looking at the people visiting the holy place. Soon after my father was provided the Andheri flat as a corporate apartment. A few years later we moved to Goregaon yet in a couple of years we came back to the Andheri apartment. The next time we moved it was to Mahim, however the apartment at Andheri beckoned us constantly. Finally Papa bought the Andheri apartment, and since 1988 onwards, that became our permanent residence, our home.
I woke to the sounds of trains passing by carrying the early morning rush of office goers. Mom would know just by the sound, which train was supposed to be going to Delhi or Surat. Dad would have his friends come over every so often and discuss everything from politics to the industry news. The late night card games with Jayu’s parents, the amazing Maharashtrian food at Sau’s place, the incessant whistle by the guys when the called each other, and the never ending games played in the evenings, be it exams or not. The Christmas parties, the badminton and carom matches, the holi festivities only topped by the Diwali fireworks, it was one party after another.
I will not attempt to write more about the good times, lest I never stop writing. The next time I go to Mumbai, it won’t be a short ride home, definitely not 10 minutes along the familiar road. The now cool and spunky (though crowded!) Andheri is no longer home. Not in the real sense at least. As for in my mind, feelings associated with some things, never change, I guess.
