Troublesome trio Gen next!

Well I know I haven’t penned for a long time about the troublesome trio. I had written in my earlier post that Neets had got married.

I guess the next generation of the troublesome trio is in the making. Neets was the first one to start on the next generation. Well I guess it is because she is still the only one amongst us to have entered matrimony. She had a baby girl on the 3rd of October and thereby I hope starts the next generation of the trio. It was while watching the movie Wake up Sid that Mariya and I got the call. Though I was watching the only sad scene in the movie I was smiling to myself in the theatre. I just cannot wait for it to be December so that I can see that little angel. And to think I got back to Mumbai from Cochin just last week.

Pssst… when I had seen a very pregnant Neets last week I had predicted to Mariya that Neets was sure to have a baby girl. Well looks like I was bang right.

Friendship Day....

Friendship day during school reminds me of Neet, Mariya and myself weeks before friendship day making friendship bands with wool of different colors. The weekend gathering at trinity corner used to be avoided when friendship day used to be near. Instead we used to sit at our home with our bundle of wool trying out different patterns in the bands being created by us.

On friendship day Neet used to come home in the morning to go to church along with us as was usual on Sunday’s and be the first one always to tie us the friendship band as Mariya and I always forgot about it. I still don’t know how both Mariya and I used to forget that it was friendship day and how every single year Neet used to be the first one to tie it on both our hands.

The whole week after the friendship day used to be celebrated as friendship week at school and for the whole week friendship band used to be tied across. And the bands were not removed until the end of the week .There was also the process of counting as to how many band each of us had got and who had got the most number of bands?

The person who suffered the most during this week had to be my Mom, who in addition to getting us ready for school had the additional job of tying the friendship bands on each of our hands...... :)

Weirdo....

A favorite pastime one summer vacations among all of us kids in the colony was cycling, most of us had our individual cycles and used to cycle in full speed in the colony lane. The younger lot who did not have cycles used to play the traffic police giving direction to us and so on. This pastime ensured that none of the uncles or aunties in the colony could walk down or come out with their vehicles when we were on the cycling spree. Not so frequently our parents fed up of the racket made by us would allow us to go out on the road (that is beyond the colony lanes kind of the busier road). Eventually so as to aviod being nuisance we moved into the church grounds to cycle. The church is a very old one almost a 100 years old which has lots of spare ground filled with trees making it shady even during the peak afternoons thus it being transformed into our new cycling path.

One evening when we were cycling in the church grounds there came a guy who was passing through the church compounds, it is a shortcut used by many. He seeing us kids play came by and asked one of the younger ones as to where do we stay. Seeing that he was speaking to the younger ones all of us who were cycling came to where he was speaking. Neets younger sister Geet who has never said truth in her life till then informed us that the man was a drunkard who was not from the neighborhood and was asking them where we lived. She said she was scared and asked us not to tell the truth saying that he might come in the night and may rob us and go (idiots that we are we believed it). We said to him that all of us kids (round to 10 of us)belonged to two families living in an area far away from where we were playing and that we had come to a relatives place on the other side of the church. He started asking us our names and we made up names and told him and we watched him till he left the place and even trailed him to make sure he left that area. To tell you the truth we were scared and the rest of the evening was spend in discussing about the guy and what would have happened if we had told the truth.

We have church family get together every first Sundays evenings in one of the families houses. In one such church family get together soon after guess to our surprise whom we ran into? The same guy whom Geet had told was the drunkard and was from some faraway place. He was a new person to the neighborhood an advocate a new member to the church. And during the entire get together he gave us odd looks because we were calling each other different names (obviously we had given him wrong names) and we who belonged to another part of the city were being introduced as sons and daughters belonging to different families in the neighborhood. I am sure he would have been thinking whether he was weird or were the kids weird. I am sure the reason for this is Geet the liar. Even today when we see this guy in church or on the road we giggle among ourselves remembering the day we all had turned weirdoes :)

Summer vacations!!!!

We three the "Troublesome Trio" had the best childhood days anybody could have dreamed of. Onam, Christmas and summer breaks were eagerly looked forward to.........the first reason being no classes and second being loads of fun and play in the colony. The Onam vacation was filled with days full of games.........some time putting up floral carpets in one of our houses. Christmas was dedicated to the choir practices for X'mas and New Year mass...hence mainly in the church and the rest of the time practicing these song so the X'mas vacation was dedicated to these.

The long lazy summer breaks were ones eagerly looked forward to.... getting up early so that we could play shuttle before it became too sunny......visiting the houses in the colony after that ...... climbing walls and mango trees ....... plucking the unripe mangoes and having them with salt on the terraces.... ripen mangoes when they were available. Lunch’s in one of the houses in the colony........cycling, small picnics in places near our colony....... pickle tasting sessions(Neets mom used to put delicious pickles and we saw to it that they did not last more a day or two) birthdays, evening get together .....Oh those carefree days when the only tension was when will we be called back home :)

There used to be lazy days as well when we used to end up sitting in one of our homes talking nineteen to a dozen and emptying the kitchen of the home we ended up being......

I still remember one of the vacation not long after we shifted into the colony all the kids in the colony were bored and hence came up with an idea of helping the aunties and uncles in the colony...... we planned to get the daily grocery what they required every day from the nearby supermarket... of course we expected a fees of Rs2 (cheap nah but think of it divided between like 5 of us) for every delivery made... the sweet uncles and aunties that they are they used to give us a daily order of milk and bread just to humor us... we even had this initiative named 'We Help'..... we who were lazy when our mom used to ask us to go for errands were ready to get grocery for the whole of the colony.....remembering those days brings a smile on my face ... what all we end up doing when we are kids.....

These vacations hold nostalgic memories of both happiness and sadness.......these are memories which are treasured in my heart and bring back a smile whenever remembered fondly.

Introduction to the Troublesome Trio

I have added a new label 'troublesome trio' to the already existing labels. Now let me introduce you to the trio... first and the youngest is Mariya who also happens to be my sis who is three years younger to me....the second and the middle one is Neet who is two years younger to me... the third and the eldest of this trio is myself Anne...

We became friends when our family moved into the colony.... though we call it a colony it was not really designed to be a colony....... the manner in which the hous got constructed lead it to becoming a natural colony.....the straight lane leading into the colony led to the church compounds and from where it forked to the left and the right where they meet dead ends and thus the colony being created of closely knit group of ten families.... the three of us were ones who in age were similar with just an age gap of two or three years amongst us ..... the rest of the kids in the colony were either younger or elder to us.. and the remaining who were in our age slot were boys... added to this we were together as part of the choir....leading the three of us to getting together scheming plans against the rest of them ;)

Friday evening after class and weekends in the colony were fun... in the initial years when we had moved into the colony the people in the colony and believers going to the church had a hard time walking down our lane...... as we used to play cricket, football, rugby and all possible games and created great racket.... as we started going on to higher classes these game filled Fridays slowly turned out to more peaceful Fridays when the three of us would stand at the "Trinity corner" that is what we had named the point where the straight lane leading into the colony forked out into three.......the corner where it forked there is a lamp post which was christened as 'the Trinity Corner' by the three of us. It was these Friday and weekend meetings along with the choir practices that strengthened our bond

The three of us had our usual meeting at the Trinity corner till we, that is my family shifted back to Mumbai five years back :( Even today on Friday evening and weekends when I am free I long to go back to the old days and have our meetings at the Trinity corner where we used to talk for hours on end on God alone knows what all subjects......... and kept on talking there till our moms gave three warning until finally they had to come to literally drag us home :)

We have grown so close over the years that we feel that Neet is also my sis ....... so much so that when I went to Bangalore to pursue my degree I told my friends there that I have two sisters younger to me Neet and Mariya....... and it continued to be told like that till the day she got married :)

Christmas in Kochi after 5 years !!!!! :) :(

Christmas of childhood in Kochi was the tension of whether we that is Neet, Mariya my sister and myself in the choir would be able to sing well or not for the midnight mass. The days preceding the day of Christmas after the school closes for Christmas vacation was spent in the church practicing for the choir on Christmas day midnight mass. The church would be a place of great activity with the youth members from the church setting up the crib, the Christmas tree and the light and audio arrangement for the nativity play which takes place during the mass. Christmas this time was a nostalgia of all these memories.... the choir practices where we had so much of fun, the thrill we got after having finished the mass and parishioners congratulating us on having sung well....the sipping of hot ginger tea at night before the mass so that our voices came out loud and clear...the sleepiness we had to fight off when the priest gave the sermons.....mostly it was the thrill we got when we sang the songs which we had been practicing for days and literally singing every waking moment till the Christmas mass.

This time too like old time Neet, Mariya and myself attended the mass together......just like the good old days the only difference being there was new set of young girls as part of the choir singing instead of the three of us. :) And we went and congratulated them after the mass as we knew that these would be the beautiful memories of Christmas for them in the years to come.

At times like these I always wonder why did I have to grow up..... :) :(