Kishore Bhuvan

Kishore Bhuvan - literally Kishore's World.. I don't know who Kishore was - perhaps he was the son of the owner from whom my maternal ancestors rented an apartment in Bhuleshwar since the mid 1920s - Kishore himself is irrelevant to this story .....

For to all of us cousins, Kishore Bhuvan constitutes a world of a large family. A world with lots of uncles and aunts, lots of cousins coming together to celebrate raksha bandhan, chopda poojan and bestu varas and spending the summer holidays together.

A world in which 1 person could surreptitiously consume more chicken in a single afternoon than a family of 4 could consume; summer holidays spent at my paternal grandfather's farm with a horde of cousins from both sides of the family........... a safe cocoon, a special experience that we will treasure for the rest of our lives.

A world in which your business was every one else's business - whether you liked it or not. And where the older people lorded it over the younger ones (atleast that is what we who werent the oldest always maintained).

Yes Kishore Bhuvan is a world of family, familiarity, warmth and safety. It is a world of the family misunderstanding, and many kid fights. A world of tradition, and a word that immediately transports you to a special place where whether you like the rules or not, whether you think they are fair or otherwise, you know for a fact that the rules will always remain the same.

My maternal grandparents raised their 11 children there and lived there for over 50 years. Like Grand Central, it was also the launching pad for most cousins coming to Mumbai to make their fortunes.

We had our own pecking order and power structure - and yet we were all secure in knowing that we belonged, that we had our own place and that we would never want for friendship and camraderie.

But time moved on. We all grew up, several of us left the city and country, today the ancestral home has been sold, we no longer have any family in Kishore Bhuvan, indeed none of the family lives in Bhuleshwar.

It is a memory that is hard to recreate in this world of nuclear 2-children families. It is a concept that is hard to explain to the new generation - the one that never had cousins and aunts and uncles and an extended family, that expanded and contracted at a drop of a hat.

Or so I thought. Until an uncle and cousin had the brilliant idea of putting together this family reunion. Now the people of Kishore Bhuvan are all very clear on what they want and how things should be done. They are great leaders, very good at planning, defining, commanding. Their ability to execute, especially details, takes a long second to these abilities. Thank God for the in-laws. A cousin's wife took charge of the logistics - the brothers-in-law took charge of the menu. And we had a wonderful time - full of happy moments, drama, tension, intrigue and laughter.

Will there be another ? Who knows - I think the cousins in-law are still recovering from the last one.