These days, I’ve often found myself thinking of childhood summers spent in Pune, or Poona as it was called back then. As contrived as it sounds, life in Pune was indeed fairly idyllic compared to that in Mumbai, where I spent holidays mostly attending a smattering of summer camps or cycling around my neighborhood without abandon. Pune represented a welcome change of pace, even if it didn’t suppress activity.
A litany of uncles, aunts, cousins, and other auxiliary relatives were spread across the city. But, the center of all summer-time happenings, was my grandparent’s apartment, located smack in the middle of Koregaon Park, referred to as KP by locals. KP was and still is, a fashionable area of the city. It owed much of its earlier charm to an Osho ashram and it’s multicultural habitants. Businesses sprang up to cater to their foreign needs. Along with the accompaniments of a city whiskers away from an economic burst, this made KP a city within another. My grandparents lived in a single apartment along with two of my uncles and their families. That house felt like a house inside one too. Each room adopted the personality of the family that lived in it. Every summer, the home burst at the seams, its boundaries always porous and hyper-elastic.
Anytime a festival neared, the many uncles, aunts, and all their children descended upon my grandparent’s house and converted it into a melting pot of activity. My grandmother was massively fond of cooking and she expertly marshaled the troops in the kitchen, often taking over duties. My grandfather, on the other hand, made sure that there was always an adult available to drive the posse of children to a nearby park. And off we went, as much to gorge on candy floss as to get a ride in the open-top Jeep that would ferry us to and fro from Bund garden.
In 2006, my grandmother passed away. The family lost its strong-willed matriarch. By that time, one of my uncles had also moved out and we had already begun to spend summers in Pune bouncing around from one house to another - many vacations rolled into one. Without my grandmother’s trademark enthusiasm, festivals were much more muted. Soon, my bereaved grandfather sold the house and moved out with my eldest uncle. This bookmarked the end of my childhood in more ways than one.
The last time I met my grandfather, much had changed. Familial dynamics had shifted and grudges weren’t uncommon. Many of my cousins had grown up and left the city. I was a starry-eyed student on route to embarking on my Ph.D. journey. He made plain the next few years of relative destitution that awaited me and said, “How much more will you study? When will you earn some money and send it over to your mother?”
When he passed away last year, I remembered the time when he gave me a hundred rupee note, probably as a pat on the back for doing well at school, and I got myself an abridged version of “The Hound of Baskervilles”. But, most fondly, I remembered the many instances when I was at home in Pune, and a kulfi cart arrived in the morning like clockwork. He would empty the pockets of his white pyjama every time and give us the haul. And, we would race down and get ourselves some kulfi. It’s taste belied interpretation and it was worth a lot more than a two rupee coin. If I had to gauge how much has changed since my glorious summers in Pune, I’d say it’s the difference between that kulfi and the blood orange sorbet I ate last week.
You might be wondering what prompted this admittedly long nostalgic dive and it’s a remarkable little movie called Gamak Ghar. In it, a large family, not unlike my own, gathers in a house in a Bihari village. We see change bought by the forward-pointing arrow of time. Over thirty years, the family evolves and mutates and the house stands as is, a silent spectator to the vagaries of time and people. Every frame in the movie is a painting (I don’t say that lightly) and it’s impeccably crafted mise en scène is a strong function of time. In an hour and a half, you travel across a generation and are left with a very specific tinge of nostalgia, tinted with fondness, but mostly colored with realization - houses will in all probability outlive you, but homes may just not.
I haven’t been to KP in a long time. Maybe this time when I am back in India, I’ll make the trip. Maybe, that apartment isn’t there anymore. Or maybe, it stands occupied by another family, who are on their very own journey of change. I am sure, I’ll hardly recognize the KP of 2020. I’ll walk down to the nearest store and buy one of those branded imitations of kulfi. And, I’ll pretend it cost only two rupees.
The stunning trailer for Gamak Ghar is here and the movie is streaming here. I promise you it’s well worth your time and money.
Here are some recommendations for the week -
Kota Factory is an incredible TVF show centered around the lives of a few IIT aspirants going through the coaching grind in Kota. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t done the JEE prep yourself, the show is a lovely paean to the uncertainties that accompany teen-age.
The Guardian published a wonderful piece - ‘The butcher's shop that lasted 300 years (give or take)’ on a butcher shop and it’s tryst to stay relevant in an ever-changing world. It fits perfectly with this week’s theme and as far as long reads go, writing doesn’t get better than this. Samanth Subramanian’s piece on Jimmy Anderson - ‘Over and over and over again: Jimmy Anderson keeps on running’ is as much about the English bowler as it is about the art of fast bowling, cricket during CoVID, and pure sportsmanship. (Note: Many articles behind a paywall can be read in full when saved using the Pocket app)
If you are thinking about giving Indian literature in languages other than English a chance, might I suggest Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar. The subject of siblings falling in love with the same person is tackled with genuine warmth and brevity.
I loved these two tracks from the American post-rock band This Will Destroy You - Threads and The Mighty Rio Grande. Random factoid: The latter track is employed to amazing effect in the Brad Pitt starrer Moneyball.
Micheal Lewis goes down history lane in trying to decipher how and why Mcdonalds’s world-famous fries have changed over time. Listen to his podcast episode - ‘McDonald’s Broke My Heart’.
Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a potpourri of random thoughts littered with recommendations galore. If you liked reading it, do consider subscribing and sharing it with friends.
Follow me on Twitter here. For more of my writing, a portfolio of published work is here.