March 11, 2006
Opingo Batingo
This appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to the 10th wedding anniversary of a close school friend. While mingling with some other friends who were there, I suddenly had the wind blown out of me by a big thump on my back. I turned around and found another old school friend, with his index finger raised, mouthing the word “Opingo”.
We must be the only two over-40 relics still playing this game. It started in Don Bosco and we’ve carried it through college and graduate school, till the present.. For those who came in late (a la the Ghost Who Walks), it is a very simple game, played for the sole purpose of inflicting pain by hitting the other person as hard as possible. In brief, if you stand, you have to raise your index finger and say “Opingo” and if you sit, you have to put up your index and middle fingers and say “Batingo”. If you don’t, the person with whom you are playing the game has the right to hit you.
It is somewhat like “statue”, but honestly, “statue” is an amazingly silly game, which works only on the premise that the other person will follow your command. If he/she refuses to, there is not a damn thing you can do. Here if the other person does not say “Opingo” or “Batingo”, you can hit him/her. Hard! Wow!
Probably the closest game to this was “Apadhubi”. In this game, you took a rubber ball and just hit whoever was nearest you with as much force as possible. As simple as that. It was a great game to vent out your anger, angst and energy. Square-ball and dodge-ball came a close second, the aim again being to hit someone as hard as possible with the ball and to get that person out. I still remember playing square-ball in my building compound and hitting a young girl on her chest when we were both I guess around 10-12 years old. She started crying and I kept laughing. No wonder, we are from Mars and girls…forget Venus, they used to be from another universe in those days.
Obviously the next thing to say would be “where have these good old days gone”, “children today don’t play…they only watch television or are on the PC…”. These are such clichés as well. Though my kids love to watch their movies and television (restricted to weekends), they are now part of a gang of kids, that is constantly out in the compounds of the buildings in our block, playing the usual games that kids do (icespice, catching cook, kicking the ball, cycling). Plus they play in Don Bosco in the evenings, attend basketball coaching and have become karate brown belts.
Not only them, there is always someone or the other in the gully playing cricket, while others play football or basketball in the school grounds, and some land up in the nearby gyms.
My kids may never land up playing “Apadhubi” or lagori, or gilli-danda, but they still are outdoors for a good amount of time. My take? Television and PCs are so ubiquitous that they are just becoming another set of tools for entertainment, taken as matter of fact by the current generation of kids. It is in fact our generation that seems to be addicted, most likely because we didn’t have these gadgets when we were growing up.
Or maybe this is all just a Matunga thing!
Posted by bhavinj at 01:52 AM | Comments (2)
December 26, 2005
80 batch reunion
This piece appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.
One of the benefits of contributing to “Writer’s Bloc” is of suddenly being contactable publicly. A few weeks ago, Mohun, an old school-mate, emailed me and we touched base after almost a decade. A couple of non-committed Sundays later, he just dropped in home and along with Krishnan, who lives nearby in the same “gulli”, we gup-shupped through the morning.
Earlier this year, I went to Ashdin’s wedding, probably the last of my school friends to get married, where I ran into Cedric, who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years. Cedric now lives in Bangkok and eventually later this year, we actually landed up visiting him and having a great time.
Last week, Cedric was in town and Mohun was dying to meet up with some of the others of our Don Bosco batch of 80, who meet up every once in a while. With a minimum of fuss, around 15 of us met up last week.
Irrespective of where we initially decide to meet, eventually, we always land up at just one place, Rasna Punjab. Rasna has been around for donkeys years and serves better-than-average Punjabi food with reasonably cheap booze. Though highly under-rated compared to the other restaurants in Matunga, it gives us a lot of rope and accommodates the din we create, with all our cussing and shouting, fending off with ease, complaints from the nearby tables.
A meeting of school-friends is almost always about nostalgia. Remembering all the crazy and wild things that we had all done during school, catching up on what everyone is doing now and remembering and bitching about those who aren’t around. The school, the Matunga environs and the people concerned…all evoke extremely strong memories and sometimes, strong emotions as well, along with some baggage that you’d have thought would have been off-loaded a long time back over the last twenty-five years.
One such baggage that we have all offloaded is of being SSC students. I still remember how ICSE kids used to have this la-di-la, superior attitude even in those days, which apparently has gotten even worse. Now, looking back, I think that was actually a good thing; the hunger to “show them”, combined with the rounded-education from a top ten school, I am sure, played no small part in driving us to where we are today.
The sad part though is that, this year marks 25 years since we left school and we forgot to celebrate this anniversary. Forgot…just like that! We’ve decided to do one now, but Mehul is so pessimistic, he thinks that not more than 50 people (25 couples) will turn up for a reunion. I am overly optimistic, and am sure that at least 125 ex-students will turn up (wives extra), my argument being that even if you didn’t like the school or your friends, you would come to a reunion at least once in 10-15 years. At least out of curiosity, if nothing else, to see how everyone else was doing, how the teachers were and whether Matunga and the school environs had changed or not changed or whatever. We finally laid a bet and come Dec 16, 2006, we’ll know who wins. And I know that Mehul wouldn’t really like to win this bet.
Posted by bhavinj at 05:47 PM | Comments (2)
October 11, 2005
ABC to PhD
This was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
Quiz Question: In which part of Mumbai, do you get four major institutions, meeting at one crossroad? Answer: Matunga.
Don Bosco, Khalsa College, VJTI and UDCT, all meet at a cross-road, which would deserve its own two-page spread, in any coffee-table book on famous cross-roads in India.
Before I proceed, its high time I added one more term to our vocabulary. “Greater Matunga”. Greater Matunga is the area from just before the Dadar circle, all the way upto Sion circle, with Matunga in the centre, encompassing parts of Wadala, Dadar and Sion. Not only do these areas have a connected history, they all share the same Matunga mentality.
Since I work in Girgaum, a large number of my colleagues believe I live somewhere in South Mumbai and express surprise at my knowledge of Matunga and the Greater Matunga area. But honestly, if you’ve lived your entire educational life in this area, if “Dadar to Sion” was your entire world for 21 years, wouldn’t you know the roads, the shops, the theatres, the gardens, the paanwallas, the doodhwala bhaiyyas, the railway stations, track crossings, the lover’s lanes, the speed-breakers and the traffic signal timings like the back of your hand?
And the funny thing is, it is actually possible to live your entire life in this area, without having to move out at all, except for social and entertainment purposes. You can live in the Greater Matunga area, go to school here as well as to junior college and if it happens, as it did in my case, even to a post-graduate college in this part of the world. Two major engineering institutes (UDCT and VJTI) and the second best medical college in the city (LTMMC, part of Sion Hospital) are to be found in this area, among other institutes of higher learning.
It must have been the cheap availability of land in the past that led to so many educational institutions starting in this area. The Greater Matunga area has a disproportionate number of schools and colleges, compared to the population that resides here. Starting with J B Vachha beyond Five Gardens, past St. Joseph’s and Auxilium, all the way upto Our Lady of Good Counsel in Sion, schools in this area comes in all shapes, sizes and budgets.
Upto about 10-15 years ago, kids would come from outside Matunga, to study in the Matunga schools. However, in the last decade or so, there has been a dramatic turn-around, where, despite the large number of schools in this area, a good number of kids go outside Matunga, to schools like Bombay Scottish, AVM, Dhirubhai Ambani, some even traveling all the way upto Mazgaon to St. Mary’s. The reason? One word…ICSE.
There is just one ICSE school in Matunga…Shishuvan. The rest are all SSC schools and today with SSC schools being considered inferior to ICSE schools, the so-called, well-heeled and connected Matungaens, follow the herd to the ICSE schools outside the area. To the extent that kids last year, were uprooted from many Matunga schools and put in a new school in Mahim, just beyond Bombay Scottish, despite this school being absolutely new, with no background, no track record and no history whatsoever.
However, when ICSE boys refuse to date SSC girls (the latest one from the rumor mills), and may in the future refuse to marry them as well, can you really blame parents for wanting the ICSE label for their children?
Posted by bhavinj at 07:14 PM | Comments (2)
August 04, 2005
Rain-Soaked Memories
This appears in today's Mumbai Mirror.
It is so ironic that what sustains life can treacherously take it away as well. And yet, amidst all the chaos and misery that has been wrought by the rains over the last week, run memories of fun times as well.
Until I finished my PG, I didn’t move out of the Bosco, Ruia, Sion area. The focal point during each rainy season, was (and still is), the regular water-logging of the Gandhi Market area, which would cut-off King’s Circle and the rest of South and Central Mumbai from Sion and the Eastern suburbs. There were gangs of boys who would line the roads knowing fully well that the “delcos” in the Premier Padminis would eventually get wet, and the cars would stall, and they would be able to make some money pushing the cars through the water to the nearest mechanic. And surprise, surprise…the mechanics would be waiting just beyond the waters!
In school, we were guaranteed at least three holidays each rainy season, becase the school buses would not be able to bring in any of the kids from Sion. Since I stayed just a five minutes walk away, I would anyway walk to school to find out if it was a holiday and then call up my friends staying further away, telling them not to come (provided the phone lines were working, which they weren’t half the times). In today’s day and age, I guess I’d just SMS everyone in my phone-book. Which is actually how we’ve come to know about school closures this week anyway!
The first rains would always make us heady. Whether it was from the tar on the road outside the house or the mud in the school-grounds, the smell of fresh earth permeating the air, was giddily intoxicating. We would either land up playing “gully cricket” or football in the school-grounds, soaking wet, and then land up home for a hot bath and scolding.
And it was de rigeur to get our white socks, shoes and in the later years, our white pants, splattered by the wet mud, before the first morning period and then to swagger into class, like some heroes who had just vanquished Gabbar Singh. The teachers always let the “dirty” look pass during the rains…as long as the home-work was clean.
Memories! Of gingerly finding a route to Sion via Telang road and Bhaudaji road that would prevent my shoes from getting soaked. Of swimming past Shamukhananda Hall to reach my wife who was staying at her mother’s house, near Tamil Sangam, to deliver dry clothes for the next day. Of driving a Honda City through 2 feet of water, just to check whether the company claims of being able to do so were true (they were!).
The dinners of many families in Matunga have a direct connection with a water-logged Gandhi Market. In the morning after heavy rains at night, frantic efforts are made by the womenfolk, to find out from the “doodhwallah bhaiyyas” whether Gandhi Market is flooded or not, and if so, how high the water level is. Which tells them whether the cook and the “bai” from Dharavi and labour camp, etc. will be coming or not. Which decides how the rest of their day will go. Which decides what the family gets served for dinner!
Posted by bhavinj at 04:59 AM | Comments (2)
July 22, 2005
Girls and the All-Boys's School
This was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
“Sunita, I love you”. Someone, in class XD, had written out these words in chalk, on the outside wall, directly facing Khalsa College. Seven upset Sunitas landed up in the principal’s office that day. The whole division was hauled up, and I can’t remember whether anyone really owned up, but we all thought it was pretty cool!
We had our own pretty “Sunitas” in Don Bosco anyway. Each year’s annual day production saw a good number of “women” taking part, and it was only because you knew that it was an all-boys’ school, that you also knew that they were “boys”. How could you then blame Oedipus for following in love with his “mother” or the male lead who took his own time in “Taming the Shrew” or those who thought the belly-dancer was the best part of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.
The annual day productions have always been awesome. These days the politically correct thing to do is to have as many students on stage as possible, so that no one feels left out. Two decades ago, you made it onto stage, only if you were very good. If you weren’t cut out to act, you weren’t, and that was that!
We also had access to virtually any sport that you can think of (yes, even billiards and tennis!). And, come to think of it, we could have even had a mini-golf course. Though the school is known for winning hockey, football, basketball and sometimes cricket championships, our biggest passion was square-ball, in which we would have won even the world championships. Unfortunately, the game itself seems to have died down a decade or so ago…the current rage is something called handminton.
None of these extra-curricular activities however would have been happened, if it hadn’t been for our teachers and the priests. Most of them have since retired or passed away and I would love to list all of them, but I am allowed only 500 words. So here’s to them: “to all our teachers who made a difference, thank you! Take a bow!”
There is always an indescribable ethos that pervades every school with unwritten laws and behavioral patterns developed over decades, which students inadvertently imbibe. These, along with the peer group, apparently more than parental values (that’s what the child psychologists say these days), shape children. Though in junior college, most Boscoites are hormonally charged, libidinous animals, suddenly let loose from an all-boys cage, in later years, the “better” values start kicking in. These are what make us different and are probably why the vast majority of Boscoites do exceedingly well in life. Which is also why you wonder how parents can flock to new start-up schools, just because they are “different” or “ICSE” or whatever, when these schools still haven’t had the time to develop any character.
PS:
Another great institution along the fringes of Matunga, J B Vachha High School, lost its principal early this week. I came to know Mrs. Khorshed Bharucha, in her last few years and was impressed by her quiet dignity and courage in the face of what she had to endure. Though she had a great support system in the form of her students, friends and family, any lesser person would have crumbled and given up a long time ago. I know that words cannot in any way replace the loss that her family is facing, but we all share their sorrow. We will miss her!
Posted by bhavinj at 06:48 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2000
Don Bosco, Matunga
I had gone to school last year, on an invitation from one of the teachers. It was an Annual Day function and the school had put up "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamboat", an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. It was an amazing performance and it was easy to forget that the average age of the actors was around 10 years and that this was an all-boys school. The boys who played the mothers, sisters and other female characters and especially the one who played the belly dancer, were all amazing. It took me back to the time when I was part of the chorus in Oedipus Rex and all the characters, including Oedipus' mother and fiancee, were played by us. No one would ever have been able to tell the absence of girls in the cast. And if you think that playing female roles leaves lasting scars on the psyche of the actors, forget it!
This incident got me thinking.
Which is the best school in Mumbai?
I accept the fact that for most people, the schools they went to, are usually the best. Looking back nostalgically through rose-tinted glasses and seeing the teachers, classrooms and fellow students through sepia-tinted memories, generally clouds out all the imperfections and drawbacks that the schools might have had. We think back longingly of supposedly carefree days, forgetting the weight of the schoolbags on our backs and land up thinking fondly of our friends and colleagues, though many of them were, and probably still are, perfect assholes.
Thinking about schooldays makes the best people mushy, forgetful and stupid.
So please go through this rationally!
Which is the only school in Mumbai that
- apart from doing well academically, consistently outperforms other schools in hockey, football and basketball!
- has the largest grounds of any school in Mumbai and has its own hockey, football and cricket pitches, basketball, volleyball and tennis courts, billiards, table-tennis, carrom and badminton facilities!
- actively trains you in elocution, debate and public speaking!
- produces musicals year after year with lavish production values and performances that could actually be taken downtown to the theatres!
- consistently produces over-achievers!
When I sit and rationally talk about these things, people who have studied in other schools get completely carried away and start calling me "dabba batli" or "buggered boy-school product" and eventually the argument degenerates into more name-calling. The women, especially if they have studied in the neighboring girl schools of Auxilium Convent or J B Vachha or have been to Khalsa College, which is across the road, also have choice expletives reserved for our supposed boorish behavior towards them.
Let me list the drawbacks of the school to put things in an even better perspective!
- it is an all-boys school!
- the students are overconfident and proud!
- the school has not produced any toppers in the SSC boards!
- the stress on studies is less than in other schools!
- there is an excessive Catholic environment!
Are "all-boys" school bad? Are co-ed schools better? I am not sure. The freedom, especially in the latter years of school, of not having to watch your step and words all the time because of the opposite sex, is probably worth the loss of not having the other sex around. And I think the same argument would work vis-à-vis all-girls schools and co-ed schools. The only difference between co-ed and non-co-ed schools may be that instead of fantasizing about each other, boys from all-boys schools and girls from all-girls schools often land up with crushes on their respective teachers. Is that such a big deal?
Overconfident and proud? If a school produces well-rounded individuals, with a good, balanced academic and extra-curricular education, is it to blame if the students generally outshine and outperform their peers and show a level of confidence, a notch higher than others? This is also probably the reason why the school does not produce a large number of toppers in the SSC boards; the accent is on an all-round education not just a repeated mugging of an idiotic syllabus. Is that bad?
Catholic overtones run through the school, as they would in any convent school. I knew "Our Father in Heaven", better than my Jain prayers, and I still quake a little in front of the "fathers" and "brothers", but beyond that I don't think my religious beliefs or non-beliefs have been particularly affected by the school. And this goes for most of my friends and colleagues.
Don Bosco, Matunga has an amazing location. It shares a four-way crossing with Khalsa College, a decent general-purpose college, VJTI, a premier engineering institute, and UDCT, probably the best chemical engineering college in India. Students have actually jumped from Bosco to Khalsa to VJTI or UDCT and then to the US.
Situated in two huge buildings, with a lovely church in between, space has never been a problem. This by itself should make a major difference in Mumbai when choosing schools. Though the number of students per class has gone up significantly, keeping pace with the general trend in the city, the classrooms are still not congested and individual teacher attention still exists.
What more can one ask for?
Why am I indulging in such overt jingoism? Because I am trying to convince my wife to send our son to Don Bosco, which is a three-minute walk away from home, rather than to a co-ed school, which is a 15 minutes drive away. Unfortunately she is from J B Vachha, a nearby all-girls school, and has a poor opinion of Boscoites, stemming from the days when they would stand outside her school and whistle at her and her friends. As if co-ed students are saints.
And eventually, she did marry me, didn't she!
Posted by bhavinj at 07:38 PM | Comments (6)
