Yearend Holiday Trips

My son's were in Classes 2 and 1 in Kolkata, It was a private School sponsored by a Christian set up. The school had a long winter holidays. My wife and the two boys came by train (Geetanjali Express). I received them late one early December night of 1982 at Dadar station. We were together after a long time. We utilised the weekends as best we could. We tool the children to all the different tourist sight seeing spots in Mumbai that my wife and I had visited in 1973. These included Gate of India, Marine Drive, Nariman Point to Chowpatty, Zaveri Bazar, Nehru Park, Malabar Hills, Temple, Masjid, Siddhi Vinayak Temple, Rabindra Natya Mandir, AC Market near Pravhadevi, Juhu beach and all that. For a break I could get back to regular Bengali dinner at home. Time was spent on shopping, buying fish, mutton and vegetables. Trying out sea fish selectively was another interesting exercise. Sweet water fish was still at that time not available in Andheri: we had to get them from Santacruz/ Bandra or Pravadevi. After a few days, Dada (my eldest borther) along with Boudi (sister-n law), Joy (my nephew) and Munni (my niece) would come from Kolkata to visit us. Just before the Christmas, eight of us would take a trip to Goa by bus. It was a trip during the night and we reached Goa in the early morning and checked into a two-room accomodation. Then, we went out to enjoy the closest beach and shopping. We took two guided bus tours one for south Goa and another for north Goa. Interesting sight seeing over and good Goan dishes, we took the trip back yo Mubai by ship. It was about 12 hurs journey. We rolled on the deck and reached Mumbai around mid-day. It was a holiday afternoon and we took a horse-drwn carriage to go to Nariman Point. After some sight seeing,around, we returned by train from Churchgate to Andheri. In the building where we were staying in IDBI's leased flat, there was a little Marathi boy. He was about a year older than my first son, Jhupa. He knew Marathi and Hindi but my sons could converse only in Bengali and English. He was obviously very pleased to find two young neighbous to play with. But my sons became reluctant as they did know Marathi or Hindi. I told them that if they play with him, they will soon pick up both Hindi and Marathi. But they were initially a little hesitant. One day when the boy came to our flat to look for them, my sons wanted to hide. My elder bother observed that one of them would tell the other, " Let us hide in the shooar ka ghar'. They messed uplanguages. English part was ok. Then they turned the Bengali word Shobar meanibg sleeping into Shooar into Hindi meaning Pig, ka in Hindi means of . Ghar means room in both Hindi and Bengali. They wanted to hide in the sleeping room, but said that would hide in the pig's room. In a year's time they would become comfortable in both Hindi and English. For now, it was time to go back to Kolkata.There was some more sightseeing and as the year came to a close, Dada's family and my family returned by train to Kolkata for our DumDum residence.