Growing up in Pune was a great secular experience for me. I lived in an area which was named after a Muslim woman, but given by a Christian convent. We played with kids from the surrounding original inhabitants of the area like farmers’ kids – called the Gawli Mala, the low income area - called the Ganji vasti (a name derived because men there used to roam around only wearing vests!). The farmers kids moms were the vegetable sellers for the area and the women from ganji vasti were the maids for the people like us staying in apartments/buildings.
I was in a Christian school, bordering clusters of maharashtrian, muslim, christian and jain settlements. My school by my analysis had a equitable distribution of Muslims, Chrishtians, Jains, and Hindus. My bench partner was Ubedullah Khan – a muslim, and behind us sat Malcolm Fernandes – a catholic, and Kishor Mutha – a jain. There were also kids whose dads were rickshaw drivers, dairy owners, well-to-do timber merchants, police and even in good corporate positions.
I remember during the Ganesh festival, the vargani used to be collected by everyone. You would have Iqbal and Patrick collecting the vargani from the Ganji vasti. You could have some kids from the Gawli mala fasting during Ramzan even if it was for one day. I remember we all used to sing carols with Richard and Dominic during christmas. In school, anyone could eat their tiffins on the church steps, play the role of Shivaji or Jesus.
Religion, caste, social status never an issue. Everyone was just a person. We all played together, studied together, ate each others tiffins, went to each others houses and moms were just as nice to all of us. We revelled in the innocence of childhood and loved every moment of it.
Then we all began to see a world influenced by selfish politicians with their smooth talking, mass hypnotising separatist attitude. The late eighties and early nineties saw the erosion of the secular fabric of the country. By the time we were 20, our minds had been bombarded with issues like Ram Mandir and Babri Masjid. Our less-than-twenty eyes saw the riots in the country on TV, the first in our lives.
And everyone since then has had a coloured mind.
