KRISHNA APARTMENTS

A few days ago I was reading an article by Arvind Adiga about how he used to stay in a colony close to his grand parents villa. This article bought back a lot of good old memories for me - since this particular colony that he was referring to was Krishna Apartments. This colony is situated on Poonamalle High Road - some place between Hotel Dasaprakash to one side and YWCA on the other.

This was the colony were I literally grew up. My father had come to Madras (as it was called in those days - way back in 1973) and stayed on till a few years after it had become Chennai! We stayed in this colony till about 1999 and then moved out of the colony.

When my dad had just moved into this colony there were only 2 blocks - A and B. But a few years down the line a few more blocks kept being added. This colony now consists of blocks A to I. This colony is laid out like a "U" shape - the blocks were along this U and a road where the kids used to play, cars were parked, programs took place, was in the centre of this U.

We used to stay in Block E, 2nd floor, flat no. 1029 for a while and then moved over to Block D, ground floor, flat no. 1013. This is where we stayed until we left the colony.

When we were in 1029, the flat was literally facing the back of the colony. We would never ever know of anythign taking place in the front. 1029 also had 2 balconies - which were open for some time. The place next to Krishna Apartments in those days was place that was filled with lots of trees and hordes of monkeys. This is the place were the building "Cresent Court" currently stands. These monkeys were always creating trouble. They would "invade" houses which had open balconies and would run away with eatables. Most of the houses that were facing this side, later put on a fence of sorts, to stop these monkeys coming and invading our houses!! Before we had put up such a fence on our balcony, I remember once, where my brother and I had just returned from school and were having our evening snacks. Out of the blue came a fellow - who by the way had entered from our bedroom window, came and sat on the back of our chair, literally pulled out the sandwhich that we were eating, and ran out of the balcony. Both my brother and I were quiet shell shocked. I think after this incident, my father decided to cut out the open access for these monkeys.

Both my brother and I had a set of friends - belonging to each of our age groups. When we decided to shift our house from E/1029 to D/1013, this group of friends came across to help us shift all our stuff across. It was really fun, as we kids, were constantly running up the stairs to 1029, pick what ever we could get from my mother who was manning one side of the shift, run down the stairs to 1013, drop the stuff where ever we found some place and then out of 1013 back to 1029. This went back and forth till just about everything was transferred. Literally, we had shifted just about everything from 1029 to 1013 and all this in matter of few hours. Even the paper that we had under the cupboard (that we had placed under the cupboard for support) too had come over to 1013!!!

During special occassions like Republic Day, Independance Day, we used to have functions in this colony which were then followed by games and occassionally with a dinner. There were occassions when movies too were shown. Navarathri time also used to be fun - poojas, dandia dances, prasad that we used to get after the poojas ....

As kids we were very interested in participating in programs and games. There used to be a Didi (Agarwal uncle's daughter) who used to be the main choreographer for such programs. She would get all of us kids to perform various skits, dances and the like. We used to practise in her house for weeks before the actual program used to take place.

When we became a little bigger, we used to organize various games for the smaller kids and other people in the colony. These games would have prizes. It used to be so much fun during these days when all the friends would gang up in somebody's house and plan out what needs to be done, what to get and stuff like that.

We also used to play cricket with other colonies. We used to go to Don Bosco school early on Sunday morning, jump the wall into the school, play for a few hours and then return back home.

Muthu Medicals, Babu's shop, a few doctors clinics were all in A block. From block B till I it was only residences. Neeru in block A. Ravi, PQ (Prakash) in block B. Sriram, keelu in Block C. Keetu and myself in Block D. Mohan/Mahesh in Block E. Sunil in Block F. Suhail in Block H. Venky, Raju & Rakesh in block I. Superman uncle (he looked so much like the late actor Christopher Reeves), Mrs. Pinto, Mrs. Ramachandran, Vimala aunty, Mrs. Chari were all people who stayed when we were around.

My friends used to call me Ramu and knew that i had a gopal attached to my name. They kind of thought that it was Ramu gopal and that of my brother's, by the same imagination, was that of vinu gopal. It was only later did they realize that my brother's name did not have even an ounce of resemblance to my name.

This colony also reminds me of when my brother got married. We were still living in this colony when he got married. By the time I got around to getting married, we had already shifted from this colony. In fact I dont even remember if anybody from the colony came for my wedding reception!!

I feel very sad that I have never gone back to Krishna Apartments since I moved out of the colony in 1999. My mother had gone to this colony earlier this year when she had visited Chennai. She also met a few of these people who were pleasently pleased to see her after all these years.

I dont know if my brother has ever gone back to this colony after 1997/98! He infact had moved over to Muscat way back in 1997/98. I'm sure he too will recollect all his friends names who were with him during those days.

I hope to make a trip to Krishna Apartments the next time I visit Chennai. One question in my mind is how many of these guys will I recognize and will they recognize me as well. The other question being is when will I be able to go!