Nostalgia

Nostalgia or more simply put, a longing for "the good old days" seems to affect all of us due to different triggers. Music, Weather, Photographs, Phone calls, Travels are amongst many such triggers.

One such trigger for me happened to be "Cleaning". Yes, the mundane household activity that my beloved wife happens to think that I'm incapable of (cooking, planning romantic dinners, staying awake past midnight are other skills that she normally puts in this category). More about that another time, lets get back to what I was saying.

So today afternoon was spent, reminiscing about many events from the past and putting in place a mini library at home.

While rummaging through the box that had safeguarded these books I came across some amazing little things that reminded me of some fantastic times in Pune, Bombay & Barcelona (specific to the stuff I found). I remembered the people associated with these moments in time that I successfully froze in these objects & got busy sending the aforesaid folks a "hi, how are you ? look what I found " message on whatsapp.

So in chronological order, let me reminisce with you a few of these occasions -

So here is a pic of a tissue paper from Cafe Leopold in Bombay. It was my first time in Leopold & I badly wanted to go there after having read so much about it in Shantaram. The four signatures that you see on the paper are Chetan Shetty, Anirudh Krishnan, Ambujesh Yadav & myself. There was also a blogpost I had written about that day which you can read @ http://adityagn.blogspot.in/2009/02/football-cafes-and-movie.html



Another tissue paper, this time from the suburbs of Bandra. Toto's - the place with the Maruti Van that looks like it has crashed into the wall, plays some amazing music. This was a spontaneous trip with Chetan, Swathi & Prachi. Speaking of which, it is Prachi's birthday today & I sent her this as a gift. Nostalgia as a gift, interesting no ?



















This next one is a catalogue from the Monetary Museum in South Bombay. This was during a hot summer afternoon when Ambujesh & I just happened to chance upon this place & decided to walk in. We spent a good two hours there & were humbled by the quality exhibits on show. Bombay can do that you, surprises at every nook and cranny. If memory serves right, we went for a movie at Eros after that ? I don't remember the details though.

One of the better weekends during my days as a bachelor in Pune was going to NH7 before it was as big as it is today & of course the plays that were hosted here, which honestly were few and far in between. These are three tickets from the plays - " The Blue Mug" , "Death of a Salesman" & "Boy with a suitcase". Dilip Anand aka Pedro was the constant companion for all three, while my other two roomies : Himanshu & Pulkit joined for one of them. 

 My most favourite adventure so far. The single spontaneous backpacking trip to France & Spain. This is the bag that contained all the goodies that I bought at the FC Barcelona store at the Nou Camp.

Quite co-incidently, I was at a local South Indian store that sells everything that makes one miss stuff from Madras, Hyderabad or Bangalore. I found this copy of Gokulam, a children's magazine that I used to wait eagerly for every month. Stirred up so many memories of those days. Probably this magazine was the trigger to me developing the habit of writing.

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So I wish you have your nostalgia moments & smile. I hope that this post may have struck some chords with those of who you may relate to these pictures. Drop me a line and say you smiled and thought of me. 

Androgogy & Haircuts

Wow, again I find myself apologizing to this blog for my absence. But, I know it will understand. It has seen me visit a few times to see if the visitor counter was ticking & to my surprise it crossed 30k visits around a month ago. So for all the good people who keep wanting to know what I’m upto, I salute you ! *graciously bows*

While I’ve been away, I moved houses again. Not too far from where I was staying, but this location chops of 10 minutes on the commute for the Mrs.

I got to see my nephews after almost 3 years, and it was super fun to spend sometime with them in Hyderabad. They have gone back to the US & I think I should find a way to keep in touch. Perhaps through FaceTime or some such new tech.

Football hasn’t made a comeback yet, but I’ve been building some stamina, so hoping to find some opportunities to play soon.

So here is something new that I’ve been doing for a bit now, I’ve started taking some classes. Its more Androgogy than Pedagogy, because the target audience is normally older than me. I try to instill in them a sense of direction, understanding  how their work can impact the organizations on a more macro scale & of course I bring my brand of crazy exercises for experiential learning. Makes for interesting weekends periodically.

Travel this year has been a damp squib, had so many plans but none of them have materialized so far. Trying to work something in, during the second half of the year, so that the year end appraisal with the Mrs goes off well. *winks*.  Wanted to do a little bit of Eastern Europe, but looks like Greece is imploding so may not be the best of ideas. Chennai/Madras should happen more often since the sister has moved there with Teach For India. *secretly fantasizes about SCUBA diving at Pondy*

Invested in a Philips trimmer a few months ago.  The barber shop in my locality has a first come first served system & on most occasions is followed. This one occasion, one of the local politicos *read Goon* happened to stride in. The barber gave the chest hair flaunting  - orange paan based liquid spitting barbarian precedence for an oil massage. This enraged the lot of us who were waiting our turn, and I for one stormed out vowing to never come back. This triggered the aforementioned investment.

So now, the Mrs & I have started styling what is left of my mane. I have become an expert at the crew cut & sometimes try a buzz cut as well while she patiently gives the finishing touches to my *coughs* master strokes. Might consider doing a few trials on some other people soon too, perhaps might make a career of it in the near future ! Who knows ?

#nowreading – Lord of the Flies

#nowlistening – Lag Ja Gale by Studio Unplugged