I grew up in a middle-class family and just the other day I was telling my son how we had just a few toys when we were growing up, as we could not afford too many toys. But we still had a good life because we had so many kids to play with. The apartment complex that I lived in had 22 kids in my age group and everyday we used to come back from school, do our homework and just run down to play. That is all we knew and thats what kids here miss. They miss the company of other kids as everybody is working and by the time the parents pick up their kids from the daycare, the day is over. So even though we had a middle-class upbringing and didn,t have much, we still had a lot of fun. We enjoyed every moment of our lives and there was so much silliness and running around that we did.
I am the youngest in the family and have three older siblings, and the age difference between me and my oldest sibling is 10 years. So I was literally the baby of the family. My sisters and I started learning kathak from a very young age. My momâ's artistic interests were passed down to us. She was interested in art, used to learn singing and wanted to learn dancing when she was growing up, but her times were very different. It was not considered good to learn dance, especially for a girl from a Maharashtrian family. In fact, it was a complete no-no; one was allowed to learn singing but not dancing. It was like you can become a Lata Mangeshkar, but you cannot dance.
We used to live in Andheri in Mumbai and I did my schooling at the Divine Child High School. Later, I joined Parle College. Being the baby of the family, I was always over protected. When I joined college, I did not even know how to travel by public transport as I had always travelled with my elder sister. Once, I travelled alone in a crowded bus and the conductor was right in the front of the bus. So when my bus stop came, I got off without buying my ticket. To my luck, there was a TC standing right in front of me when I got off. I started crying and told him I could not get my ticket as the bus was crowded. He was understanding and let me go.
Comments
Post a Comment