Memories of growing up with puchkas, gramophone and books

Summer vacations meant staying up all afternoon to practise pages and pages of cursive writing as part of our holiday homework. Siesta in our childhood days was a nightmare, or so we thought.

With parents out on work, this was the most productive period - chasing kites, stealthily going to the terrace, dipping fingers into grandma's jar of pickles, oil dripping down and leaving a pattern of blobs on the frock; mimicking the pedlar who sold old music systems radio, transistor, records:

"Purono radio, transistor, record, ghori gramaphoooonee."

The last word was left trailing till we picked it up, peeping from behind window shutters to see the bemused look of the man, trying to figure out which window had played a prank on him.

As he left, the echo of his gramaphone still ringing in our ears, it would be time for the cake man, who would walk from street to street, the J Saldhana-embossed black trunk riding on his head. With a Nehru topi, the elderly man would sell what were an Englishman's delicacies - cake and pastry would arrive with a Gandhian in starched white khadi kurta and dhoti.

His black tin trunk looked as unimpressive as irresistible. I remember stealing odd coins from my mother's purse so many times for that vanilla smell and taste of fresh cream, savouring it till the last crumb, licking the frothy white that formed a thin moustache above my upper lip, long after the confectioner had left.

If it was pastry one day, it would be a puchka and churmur treat the next, with dollops of tamarind sauce. Those were the days when the temptations of the forbidden world lay strewn in every pada, every street corner and the best part was that it was so cheap. A one rupee coin was enough to light up our eyes and moisten our tastebuds.

There was joy in watching Rajesh Khanna, Sharmila Tagore and Dream girl dancing about trees when the cinemawallah with his hexagonal mobile cinema hall uncovered the Pandora's box of the movie world for us.

For a rupee, we could see our favourite stars, Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Qutub Minar, Gandhiji and even the Royal Bengal tiger in the glow of mobile cinema.

This was the time when pictures of heroes and heroines were not splashed all over the place: on hoardings and flex banners, their secrets carefully tucked inside film magazines instead of being generously sprinkled across media.

I remember those scorching summer afternoons when cousins would huddle over a Stardust or a Nabokollol, relishing the stories of the stellar world, their love, marriage, hook ups - but never break-ups.

Evening was the time we were on our best behaviour, with our parents back home. The hawker, who sold spicy, hot Aloo Dum in a red gravy, was always given a miss. After all, parents could never dream of their children having, leave alone enjoying, street food.

If we had a tummy ache or diarrhoea, it was only because we hadn't washed our hands properly!

As the evening embraced the dark night, the pada would begin to sound melodious. A greying old man with a long beard would wind through the lanes and by-lanes of our neighbourhood, his head comfortably leaning on the curve of the violin he carried - strumming to "Yeh raat, yeh chand, Chandni kahaan..." 

The strings created the mysticism and magic of a moon blanched night on a rainy day.

His music would echo the hard realities of life, till it was time to call it a day.

When we would venture around padas, our favourite haunt was the Goalpark pavements that sold second-hand books. The dusty pavements had an incredible collection of Mills and Boon novels. For a whole week of escaping into a dream world in the chateau or villa with the proverbial TDH (tall, dark and handsome), we had to pay only five rupees.

The M&B years gave way to serious stuff - Hardy, Bronte sisters, Joyce and Graham Greene came along. No more phuchkas or ice cream. We would spend all our pocket money on the literary treasure troves.

The Goalpark pavements are intact, so are the hawkers. But those musty-smelling books are gone, for no one reads them or flips through their yellowing pages. Selling clothes and momos is considered far more profitable.

The cake man and his trunk no longer come calling. Confectionery outlets have cropped up in every nook. The puchkawallah doesn't come knocking anymore. You have Swiggy to cart lip-smacking goodies whenever you want. The gramophone is now an antique and the violin man has long been silenced.

Is this what growing up must feel like?