Bidding adieu to bazaar lanes (Munirka Part 5)

Right opposite the little triangular park with a pair of old and rusty see-saws was the house of the only other Christian family in the enclosure. They went to the same church as we did, St. Thomas, at Sector 2 R.K. Puram. They had a deep blue WagonR, an extended family and a son named Kevin. He was a part of the bunch of boys that made regular football attempts in the park.

We possessed a stuffed dog with snowy fur, called Kevin. We’d bought it at an ITBP fair in R.K. Puram as a gift for somebody, which was later replaced with something else. The white furry thing was then christened Kevin but was never really an important part of my sister’s and my extended doll family. Though we didn’t interact much with Kevin’s family, my sister and I decided that Kevin should never know that we had a stuffed dog called Kevin, because he would feel hurt. He never found out. 

Kevin’s mother was an outgoing lady. She would drive the car often and on the one Diwali that we were there, she burnt a fairly large quantity of crackers all by herself. I was, and still am an enthusiast for celebrating Diwali: not with crackers, but sticking more to the etymology of the festival, with lights. That year too, on Chhoti Diwali day, I managed to fish out the lights from the lower columns of the big showcase in the drawing room and set about fixing the zero-bulbs into their dodgy holders.

When I had put up the remedied light-bulb chain across the grille railing of the balcony, rewired the plug and managed a shifty connection to a switch board via an extension cord, I switched on my apparatus proudly. There was a loud bang and some smoke from the switch board. I took a book and used it to switch off the smoking plug-point. I didn’t dare to take off the plug though. There was no electricity in the house. With my experiment, I had managed to blow the inverter too. We couldn’t get an electrician for another two days because it was Diwali.

It wasn’t very hot at that time, so we could manage without fans. Ours was the only house plunged in complete darkness on Diwali night. The four of us crowded onto the balcony, lit some candles and watched the luminous engagements of our neighbours from there. That was the only Diwali that we had at Munirka.

One of the houses in the opposite building was occupied by Manocha Sir’s parents. Manocha Sir was considered a god-like Maths teacher. He used to live with his parents when he began his coaching in the colourful shed that still adorned their balcony. He had since moved to some posh South Delhi home. His coaching centre was in the Munirka market and at a convenient walking distance for me, though in the beginning I used to take my cycle to the place. One had to veer through tiny galis to get around the market.

On my way to tuition, I walked past many shops -- colorful and noisy and some of them even enticingly aromatic. One of my favourite discoveries was Hot Chips. It was a small shop run by two south Indians, selling everything in chips form. They had glass counters showcasing colourful divisions of chips of various kinds. They also had a big kadhai on the fire at all times, with some or the other species of the plant kingdom on its way to becoming a packet of chips. Their shop stood out because of its stark cleanliness in the usually dingy lane. Their product was always fresh and hygienically appealing.

Apart from the visual, auditory and olfactory experience, the market lanes served a visitor some tactile experience too. You had to have luck on your side to come out of the journey without a single drop of water falling on you from the air conditioners or from the washed clothes hanging from the balconies of houses that sat atop the shops.

Once you get to the market from my house, you walk down the main market road, before the end of which you make a left turn to the main gali which is wider than the other galis. When the retail shops in this gali start becoming sparse and shops that offered electronic services come into view and further when the buildings start appearing residential from top to bottom, somewhere there you take a right turn into another misshapen gali. On the right hand side of this gali stood the building which didn’t seem from the outside as one that could hold nearly a hundred and fifty people together.

“It’s a coaching centre, not a tuition”, Manocha Sir used to say, referring to his Excellent Coaching Centre. But rarely did people not studying there know this name. They only identified with the brand “Manocha”. He really was a genius with Maths. He was not only instrumental in people scoring very high marks in their exams, but also a true Maths lover. His only problem was self praise. But I will have to thank that self-praise for most of what I know about him.

He had on hire many teachers to help him with running the coaching centre. His fee was a little exorbitant in comparison to the rates of the neighbourhood, but it was more than worth it. I scored high in my Boards and my photo (a very bad one in black and white) had a space on the wall of his office, so Appu (who joined there later) informed me.

I never visited the place, nor saw my photo after leaving mid-way through my eleventh standard when we shifted to our house in Dwarka. This time too, like the previous one, I was not there to pack and shift. The eleventh standard excursion had me in its tow, which required that I leave home a day before the shifting was due. I gladly said good bye to the house that I was never quite fond of.