My upbringing has not been conventional. I grew up seeing my mother engrossed in her daily household chores & my father earning for the bread. Nothing much to describe my mother, although ‘demure’ is what I can all say, but my father, a lot of things to say by. It was & still is frustrating to see my father eccentric towards others.Let me key this down. Today when I spend my brow-sweat earning on ‘one’ cup of Tea or Coffee which can buy that for an entire household for a week or more, I see chins dropping down. Today if I’m pulling up Levis Strauss, Abercrombie & Fitch, Billabong, Tommy Hilfiger etc etc, I see chins dropping down. Today when I carry a Tote which looks LS but costs me a fortune after I tell people, I see chins dropping down. I would like to reason out why chins drop down?
Okay, let me take it back during my school days (1999s) whence me was in 8th grade. I started offering tuitions for kindergarten, pre-primary & primary grade students. For a month, I could make hardly 500-700 rupees which was easy & more than enough for me. I decided not to extend arms in front of anyone for my expenses except food, clothing & shelter provided to me by parents. I sought education on my own since then. Stationery, school uniform, projects, travel expenses etc were well fit in my pocket-budget.
I remember having 2 shirts & 1 half pant when in school. Luckily I had a PT uniform too. So it was easy to wear a shirt for 2 days & pant for 4 days in a week. I was never a fussy, tantrum throwing boy. I was happy in all tiny little used things I got & sometimes they were new too (wink)!
During those days, there were these clothes sold on street in front of Eros Theatre where now you’ll find a huge parking space there. Shirts, T-shirts, half pants, pajamas, shorts etc were just scattered on the ‘baakda’ of the vendor. They seemed to be used clothes but I never cared because in my budget I could expect them to be nicer enough to feel good in. I used to go there, plunge the clothes which caught my eye, match up my size externally & buy it for a mere cost of 10 – 20 rupees maximum. I used to go to Fashion Street to buy me a pair of jeans which was 200 rupees then & t’was highly expensive for me that time. I feel like laughing keying this down that I used to buy a jeans which was exchanged 10 times because my jeans never crossed my thighs & if it did (forcefully) than it never crossed my bums to reach my waist because I was a proud owner of the huger them. I was round & plummy what you can call a Big O.
During those days there was a craze of Cyber cafes & Mc Donalds spread like wild-fire amongst the people. International food joints were burgeoning like a mushroom field after rains. School mates used to ask me out with them to play computer games at these cyber cafes after school hours but running penniless or misery smitten, I refused. Computers were never my best friends rather I used to build castles of Burgers, Fries, Colas & Softies in my mind. I used to collect money specially to enjoy the treat someday. Believe me, it used to take a month to feed my piggy to yield me pork. When a stipulated amount was accumulated, all alone I used to go to Mc D & enjoy my large tray of Heaven. Burrpp..!!
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