Knock Knock ... Nostalgia here ... 🌺🌿🌷🌹🌻💖

 WhatsApp par ek bahot puraaney dost ne photo bheji thi

Chaai ka cup haath meiN liye-liye hi maiN ne screen par click karaa , photo mere saamne khuli ... Aur uss ek pal meiN maiN barsoN piichhey chali gayi ... !!!

Like a cascade of goose bumpy moments , memories from another era , followed by an intense longing for those days , started streaming down incessantly filling my heart with love and eyes brimming with glimpses of flowers , grass , trees , breeze , smiles , dreams , saaris , bindis , jhumkas ... Cricket , tennis , badminton ... films , reading , singing ... Embroidery , stitching ... Picnics , outings , olives , wild berries , mountains , streams ... 

Collecting wild grass , dried flowers , twigs and stems while walking in the forest , and arranging them in the large old pickle jars that Mummy had brought from Daadi's store room in Shahjahanpur to our home in Tata's various residential Colonies 

My father's most memorable gift to me ... a transistor that he had given me when I came first in my class five exam ... !

My reading choices evolving unawares from comics to magazines to James Hadley Chase to Agatha Christie , Perry Mason , Robert Ludlum , Frederick Forsyth aur pataa nahi kaun kaun ... and then ... finding Mills & Boon ... jo aaye to phir forever aisey bass gaye ke aur kisi ke liye jagah hi nahi bachi ... !!!

Naram-garam-reshmi yaadoN ke ye silsiley chaley to chaltey hi gaye ... Aur meri Chaai thaNdi ho gayi yaar ... 😊!!!

As I got up to refill my cup , I could hear Mummy's fav sentence ringing clear and melodious in my ears ... 

"Chaai ho ... bahot ho ... aur garam ho"

Maa-Baap to chaley gaye 

Lekin apney jiiney ka andaaz chhod gaye 

Unn ki yaadeiN duaaeiN bann kar unn ki sabhi aaney waali nasloN par rehmat ka saaebaan bani raheiN ye hi dua hai 🙏💐💕💕💕

Sharing the photo that started it all 😍😍😍 ... 👇🏼

In the pic : 

My mother with her neighbours

The Gaikwad Family ... my parents' first neighbors at Khopoli Tata Colony ... This was my father's first posting after he joined Tata Electric Company ... And this pic was taken a couple of years before I was born