Seshadri's Musings

More Karol Bagh memories… Sometimes, during the walk with my friends, our other friends too would join in for the walk.   There was S Nari (Narayanan actually), who also mostly used to come with us.   He is now in Canada.   There was also Badri, who also is in Canada now!!   I remember an incident when Badri was with us during the walk.   There was this toy seller who was selling toys and he was demonstrating some of the toys to get people attracted to it, so that he can sell it to them.   He was demonstrating a toy which was a pair of boxers.   He had used rubber bands to bind them together and then when he released them by putting them down, both the boxers seem to be fighting with each other and continuously falling down and moving here and there together.   There was a crowd around this toy vendor and everyone was fixated on the toy as to how the fight was going on.   I and my friends too stopped to see this spectacle.   Since there was a crowd (about 15-20 people) around the t

I spent the first 18 years of my life in Karol Bagh in New Delhi.   17 years in one house and a year in another one.   There are lot of memories associated with that place.   I am just jotting here what all is coming to me, from those memories 😊 . I spent 17 years in block no 5 and 1 year in block 17A, both were quite nearby.   My school was some 15 minutes’ walk from my house and I used to walk to school with my brother and cousins on a daily basis. During those days, after coming back from school, I and my friends would meet and walk on Ajmal Khan Road.   The school would end at about 415pm.   I would be back at home by 430pm.   My mother would have made some snacks.   I will have the snack and then will finish some portion of homework, if not all.   At about 530pm I will meet my friends and we will spend some 1-1.5 hours roaming in Ajmal Khan Road, from Pusa Road to Original Road, with Arya Samaj Road coming in between 😊 .   3 of my friends were quite regular – Sashi, Hari and

My grandfather (father’s father) had 5 sons and a daughter.    That meant I had a deluge of cousins, growing up.   Except for one uncle, who chose to reside in South India, all the others lived in Delhi.   My grandmother (mother’s mother) also had 7 sisters and 2 brothers, excluding herself.   So, that gave me a lot of uncles and aunts, a few of them, even younger to me!!   And when these uncles/aunts had kids, you can imagine the scenario.   Now I have cousins right from a 13-year-old to 60+ year old 😊 !! This blog is about my cousins with whom I grew up in Delhi.   Since my father and one of his brothers lived together, there were already 2 of my cousins staying in the same house as mine, in addition to my brother. There was one more uncle who was staying in another block in the same area, which added one more tally to my cousin list.   There was one more uncle living in another area, which increased the tally by 3 more.   My aunt was also living in Delhi and that added the cous

This is about my younger cousin sister, who is more like a daughter 😊 , due to the vast age difference between us.   She had come to stay with us in Delhi when she was about 3-4 years old.   Her parents had agreed to have her stay with us and had gone back to Chennai.   She was very possessive of me during that time.   I like kids and somehow am able to entertain them by spending more time with them.   She will let me play with other kids as long as I also play with her the same game and that too at that time itself 😊 !!   No postponing!! In our house in Delhi that time, we had three rooms.   First one was the hall, the 2 nd one was where I used to sleep and in the third room, my parents used to sleep with my cousin.   The hall had the main door and then a very small verandah.   In this verandah was the boundary wall and an iron gate about 3 feet from the main door.   Now whenever someone used to come to our house, we will know someone is coming, as the latch in the iron gate ma