“Besant Nagar” is a hangout place for almost everyone, but to my brother and I the entire area is a home where we grew up. 

It’s more of an emotion and as for me, I still deeply exist there even now though life has moved so far and so ahead of those days and from that memorable place.

Out of so many life changing decisions I have always made in my life, a number of it has been through what I saw in my dreams. And, I don’t remember even one of such dreams that has ever been sans our childhood home at Besant Nagar. Those dreams recalled things at the best of its accuracy of how our entire house would be, even with the very smell of a day or night.

From the very day of my crawling until my wedding it has been all the same place and it’s like the blood that runneth inside my veins…Lol

I don’t think there can be even one place in the whole locality where my feet would not have touched. Every footstep reminds me of an incident, every smell reminds me of a nostalgic memory.

There are so many significances the area can boast about, but the most prominent spot out of all is the Elliots Beach. Every time our relatives came home, the word “Beach” excited them, but to me it’s was just a part of us and it used to be a normal thing like morning and night. 

Nevertheless, the Elliot’s Beach to me can never be compared to any other famous beaches around the globe, for the personal time and some of the most beautiful experiences it gave to me.

The beach times with friends and family were the best. The early morning visits gave the most beautiful experience of Sun Rise while at the same time the deep blue stretch slowly unveiled the fishermen returning to the shore with a huge catch. The song of the fishermen as they retrieved the nets with the fishes as it jumped up and down to escape back to the waters while people waited to purchase the first and fresh catch from the sea.

Much more would be in store for the evening beach visitors as one got to be invited by the ‘Meen Kadai Akka’ like her own guests to be seated in red and blue shaky chairs that gave anyone a feel that he or she could fall off anytime as the chair tried hard to stand firm on the sand. Those fried fishes, prawns & squids when showered with the juice from the slices of lemon could never be bought even at the best restaurants in the city. One never pondered from where the water that was offered to wash the hands was taken! Who cared ?

The packed cotton candies, Ice creams, steamed groundnuts, Salt & Chilli powdered fresh mangoes, sundals, hotly served Bajji, freshly smoked Corn plant demanded not a bit of hygiene that one demands elsewhere. Every such second thoughts on hygiene got floored in front of the taste and fun time it offered in return ?

The Gun Shooting with the Balloons braided neatly on the board whispered to my head that a Shooter that the Olympic Selection Committee was looking for is exactly ‘Myself’ every time I hit the balloon rightly on its head.

The stone seater on the platform where the walkers rest, oldies giggle over a chat, young ones over a laughing spree and there I used to sit with few coins in my purse that I purposely brought to give it to the people who pass by asking for alms. The joy on their face and that gentle touch of them over my head to bless just had made my day so wonderful many many times. To those who came on crutches, I wished and imagined that I could touch their feet and it could grow to its fullest. I still wish I was able to do that.

The biggest fun was the Diwali night where many residents gather at the high raised spot at the platform where everyone lit their sky crackers all at once and the chain of it that the night sky adorned with the sound and light was truly a treat to the eyes for the sky gazers lying flat on the beach sand.

Nevertheless the New Year Eve that was renowned and still is for the infamous earsplitting bike horns, the shriek sound of the plastic trumpet, screams of the bikers saying “Happy New Year” as the clock struck 12. Wow, that was an overwhelming event that welcomed the brand New year.

Not a shop left unvisited, not a platform left untrodden, not a street left strolled, not an auto stand left unused, not a woman in the fish market left unbargained , not a thing been untried.

We lived in a Quarters that came as a blessing for my father being a Banker. Each house was simply a matter of less than 800 Square Ft, yet the joy and life that our home had was unspeakable and immeasurable.

Relatives kept thronging randomly irrespective of it being a week day or a weekend. Well, every weekend was a houseful one. Our neighbours who passed by our house had to trample over the crowded slippers at our door step. A 25-30 of them visited under the very same roof since our granny stayed with us. 

The sound of ever-silver tumblers exchanging the tea as they danced to beat its heat, the sound of snack packets being unpacked made us feel that even a sound could be delicious, the joyful laughter from the young to the old, our playing spree, the introductions made to the neighbours about each other. Wow, those are the best days of my life.

When the relatives left, it did make us feel sad as children, but the feeling never lasted even for less than an hour because the entire locality was more of a family. 

We pleasantly studied in the school inside the campus which was our second home. The constant good news the campus school assured to us was, we just had to wake up 30 minutes before going to school. That was one of the greatest luxuries my brother and I fully utilised as given.

Maharaja Stores, Asian Hospital, Vishranthi, Tamil Nadu Stores, Cool Cats, Empire Fancy, Moon walk, Cascade, Words n Worths, Food World (then Spencers), road side shops of Oosi Mani and Paasi Manis’, Kalakshetra, Fab India, Murugan Idly, Dora Bag Mall, Santhosh Hospitals, Velankani Church, Fish market, Cozee, Pupils, Fashion Folks.. Every spot has a specific memory that is totally un-erasable.

On the other side is Vannanthurai which has the Bombay Bakery, Vantage Plaza, Mummy Daddy, Super Walk, the typewriting Class, Flour Grinding shop (the aroma of Masalas, Flour, Coffee still reverberates), Chicken Shops, Ashok Fancy, Youngmen Tailors, Seemati, Kavitha Cloth Centre, Wangs Beauty Parlor, Ponnusamy Hotel, Lee’s Chinese restaurant, Dr.Ramanaraj Clinic (a doctor who still stands to assure that a fever cannot last for more than a day after visiting him), Tea Shops…the never ending list goes on.

Miles walked To and Fro very little for something but much more for nothing. Yet those days knew not a word called Stress. Our long walks were purely for fitness/health and never for a stress buster or diversion and I simply don’t remember a day that required a walk for these.

Every time my brother and I visit our Reserve Bank Quarters, one thing that amazes us is the fact that the childhood in us is still so fresh and alive because it naturally exists deep inside.

I stood at the door step of our house and my heart truly ached a bit to even accept the fact that there is someone else living there. 

I wanted to peep inside to see the room where I played, where I slept, where we ate and rolled on the floor for a fit of laughter.

As the house presently belongs to someone else, the door was tightly closed and the windows had thick curtains that said without uttering a word that ‘I have been erased from the picture’. I ran up the stairs outside our then home, stood outside the thick Ivory coloured main door – as my memory enacted the beautiful olden days when I used to impatiently lean on the door for my mom to open it, after I pressed the bell so hard.

The spot which is the best to hide during a Hide & Seek, the turn which is the best to overtake a runner during those 1200-meter race, that under- tree Tamil class times and so much more just calls you addictively for a repeat ‘one more time can we do it all over again’.

During the May holidays, the grounds were always over crowded with 100s of children and the poorest lad would be the one who becomes the finder in the Hide & Seek game @Dabba as he would be the one who was expected to find all the 150 of them hiding anywhere be it inside a block, on the terrace or even at anyone’s house. On pretext of hiding, some of the coolest friends like my brother and I, would be having dinner too ?

The locality would be at its fullest beauty during the rainy season, when we used to make paper boats and waited to see whose boat travelled faster. The graceful Gulmohar trees swayed to the cold breeze showering its big orange flowers while another tree that produced beautiful white incensed flowers offered its portion making a grand carpet on the brown sand. The fragrance of the white flowers filled the air with so much pleasantness that not any aroma therapies could compete with.

I remembered those early morning walks at 5 AM that extravagantly offered an unadulterated fragrance of the beach. Those 60-minute brisk walk never a day failed to plead my friend and I to move over to the sand to allow our feet to kiss the blazing waters as the sun smiled at its best over the waters that waved gracefully assuring that a new day has arrived and there is hope beyond everything that was not really okay yesterday.

I recalled those beautiful memorable days as I sipped my morning tea and I truly felt ‘We never knew we were creating memories, we thought we were just having a lot of fun’

Out of so many things the world says to indulge in for keeping oneself young, I’d rather say “simply recall your happy memories” and assuredly I tell you, you can remain absolutely young. 

As I penned this, I was completely drenched with joy and an irresistible smile did unknowingly brighten my day.

Well, I wish the smile that I experienced could be yours too… Recall and Relive ❤️