journeys

so many lightyears ago i begun working on this film about my dad...so many years it took me to write proposal...i finally wrote one in a desperate attempt to kickmyownass back to the film. i even sent it to docedge - this annual circus where european ringmasters get to crack whip on an assortment of performers. i was thrilled to learn that my proposal was accepted n that i'd have to come to cal to srftii to pitch...er, sell...(you get the drift?)
tired of travelling so far n so often, i decided to train it to cal...the last time i took the train to cal was over 25yrs ago...it still takes thirty hours for the gitanjali to do it...but how much i loved it...realised how much i miss train travel...
where the bodymindsoul gets enough time to leave one place slowly n prepare for the next place...ofcourse, i didn't think so philosophically about it then when i booked the ticket...i just wanted some time to prepare for docedge...read write rewrite sleep eat music read sleep...this pyt trainee airhostess sitting opposite suprisingly wasn't much of a distraction.
i was going thru the newly carved states of chhatisgarh n jharkhand for the first time...stepped off onto the platform n kissed the earth kind of thing ;) things were more or less the same in the compartment...talking poilitics n cricket...sharing chiclet n oranges...but a lot more people on their mobile phones n mp3players...sometimes playing music so loudly, i had to keep pleading with them to turn it off...why don't they just carry earphones?!
nagpur came...and went...but i didn't get off...felt so strange...all my growing up years, we'd take the train to nagpore...the most keenly awaited winter holiday to the family home...that was "native place"...i was born here n so was my dad. aunt no more, house no more, trips no more :( for years when they'd ask me, ajay noronha, are you from goa? i'd say no, nagpore.

25years later...

it's been coming fast n furious...and more often...that feeling of having turned old...really old!...last night, the class of '84 all met up...what a fab idea! don bosco's was dabba batli to the others but that was where we cut our teeth (among other things ;)
that was where i met amal...in class two! like he loves to say - he knew me but i didn't know him!! but twentyfiveyears later, some names n faces camebackinaflash just like it was yesterday...rahul rege, who's mother came to school EVERYDAY with lunch! i even remember her face!...sameera oza, my 10thstd partner i forgot n got roundly abused for that...rajiv bhatia actually came! i had forgotten he even passed the 10th...
most, like me, had grown paunches n lost hair...but not samir shah, piyush majithiya, bhavin shah -
the rich kid in class with the fancy magnetic compass box n whole lead pencils (which i used to steal)...so many gujjus then...so many stockbrokers now! was happiest to meet ashish...we'd dart across the wall when hunger panged to shovel yum tepla n chhunda in the middle of a football game!
anantha had finally grown tall but looked just the same...but nareen was a curious case of benjamin panjabi...jitesh shetty - the school captain is now a very successful make-over doc in lokhandwala...but i missed rohit, his cousin n my partner who'd buy me homi's samosapao almost everyday only because i liked it so much but could not afford it...some things you just cannot "repay"...
but where were baldy, paadhrya, chick, lamb, paper, kaania...n so many others? :(