Down the nostalgia road....

Post moms surgery, staying at their place a few days was opportunity to go down nostalgia road. In fact so many roads....so many triggers for stories from yore.

Some really interesting ones were from dads postings at remote places.

Dad being a Geologist, had several unusual and adventurous kind of postings...dam sites for foundation work and jungles for mineral mapping. The ones I have distinct memory from are Srisailam where we lived for four years, and Seetharampuram, again a four year posting, where we did vacation stays.

Srisailam holds some of my fondest memories ever...a phase that also had a large influence on my love for small town....anything rural and rustic... and not surprising as that was at the really young age of 8 to 12, when experience seems to get imbibed whole.

A casually triggered chat, but one I wanted captured :

Me: So how did the transfer to Srisailam come about? How did you feel about it ?

Dad: I was already working on the Srisailam dam foundation, you all were living here, in Hyderabad, in Mehdipatnam. I used to travel every opportunity I got and be as much as possible in Hyderabad.

One day over a dinner my boss asked why I go off so much to Hyderabad, and though I tried telling him it was work, someone else said it was because of family being in Hyd. He asked if I'd be willing to shift them, and they would take on all the arrangements, including quarters and a cook and everything. I straight away said yes.

Very same week they sent a truck home, packed up everything and we moved, at a speed which was like an evacuation.

Me: Ma, did you have any apprehensions? were you even consulted in this... small town.. our education.. leaving friends... anything?

Ma: I don't remember, but thinking back I feel I didn't have the maturity to do my own thinking. It was like, 'we've been transferred, so we move'.... And I was okay to living anywhere, I was anyways not doing anything. (she started work only after we moved back to Hyd)

Dad: In fact your school principal, Holy Mary High School, she tried a lot telling us to not move saying we were in a good school, why risk education...but I wasn't willing to listen, not because I was clear, but because I also didn't have the maturity to think that we might be making a mistake.

Me: I'm so glad both of you didn't think, I think I learnt more from my stay in Srisailam than any education, whatever good school could have given me. I also loved my school in Srisailam, Lutheran Convent, as small and sweet. Also gave me opportunity to be head girl :)

What comes to memory from life there? I remember you both used to go play shuttle, so many visits to camp office, visiting the dam, including inside the dam, going to the temple on the opposite flank, trips to Hyderabad in a Jeep, picnics at paaladhara panchadhaara waterfalls ......

Dad: I really liked our stay there too. I'm also glad we all moved. I enjoyed my work, I had comfortable timings. Go in the morning, come home for lunch, nap in the afternoon,  again go in the evenings, and come back at night.

Mom: Me too...It was a lovely life there. No TV, no relatives,  but good friends, Yashoda aunty, I am still in touch with because we formed such close relationships there. We used to go play shuttle during weekends.

Dad: There was only one theatre for the whole village, and we used to occasionally go there to watch movies.

Me: I remember a lovely garden, a stone wall, a sand pit in the garden.

Mom: Yes, daddy got a large sandpit made for you, half the garden he converted with a tipper full of sand. Every morning as soon as you got up you would go straight to the sand pit to play. You've spent a lot of time in it. You once saw a snake coming in through the wall as you were playing, and you just sat and watched it slither away. You weren't scared of snakes at all.

Me: I recall going down to the dam once when the went into floods.

Dad: Yes, you remember that? We were at the dam in the evening, some days I used to take you just to see how the dam was getting built, and as we were there, the waters rose and overflowed the foundation weir. It was a fascinating sight.

Me: I remember that, in fact there were others telling you to move us, but you allowed us to watch from really close, that's why I can recall the excitement even now.

Ma, you remember when I did a whole big function for my doll? Full marriage and all?

Mom: Vaguely ....

Me: Ayyo, vaguely aa? It was the marriage of my doll with another friends doll. Hussain, our driver and I went to the market to buy clothes for the doll, got them stitched, then bought lots of other stuff, including kumkum bharinis to give everyone. I myself embroidered their clothes. We had so many of our friends come, including your friends and daddy's. So much fun it was.

Mom: Yes, we had no TV or radio then, all entertainment was what we created, so I can imagine you doing it like that. One thing we would all do is read.

Me: Yes, each time daddy would come from Hyderabad he would bring me Enid Blytons. It was so exciting. I had them all catalogued and all...I had a small library by the time I was 10.

Looks like reading was a fancy even before I could read :)

 Praveen and me at the dam site foundation

With neighbours and friends ....thought it was a cute picture

L to R, Matheen, Mobeen, Me and Anita (Anita was my first best friend, who'd come from Hyd to spend vacation with me .... someone I'm still in touch with :)

 Our quarters there, back then

The very same house, still very there, when we went to visit in 2009

And the most amazing thing was that when we walked in and introduced ourselves, saying we lived there thirty odd years back, the lady knew of daddy, recognized him and had such wonderful things to say about him. She was a junior clerk back then. A wonderful way to end that recall.

Will save Seetharampuram for another post :)