Lalit and I got married in Jan 1971 and that was also the year when construction began of our family home “Konarika”. Lalit’s father, Mr.J.C.Mathur’s play, ”Konark”, was already well known and ours was the “kone wala ghar”… so “Konarika was an obvious choice for our house!
Lalit’s mother Ms.Prem Kanta Mathur, was fortunate to have an architect like Mr.Agarwal, who was able to translate her creative thoughts into a simple yet attractive red brick house. From the terrace of the 1st floor, we were able to see a huge open expanse with a well in a nearby corner and horses used to be seen running in circles in the distance! Vasant Gaon was still a blob on the horizon probably from where the horses came!
The underground water tank, as part of Vasant Vihar’s infrastructural requirement was already in place, and we used to get fresh water in our taps twice a day when the water supply was opened – even on the 1st floor! The pressure was enough and online or booster pumps were not part of one’s vocabulary in those days….
The architect used our corner plot with ingenuity – he made the drive way end half way down and the latter half was raised by one step to accommodate a small garden which was eye candy from the lounge windows. At the end of this side garden was an L-shaped garage. The front portion of the L was my father in law’s study, again with a view of the side-garden. The back part was the garage which had a large door open onto the side lane abutting our house. The funny thing is that it was never really used as a garage, as we also had a tiled portico for parking the car. But the so called ‘garage’ will always be remembered as the honeymoon suite for my sister in law Kumkum and her husband Ashok Lal! At that time we had only two bedrooms in the house and this invariably doubled as the guest room as well.
Meanwhile, Konarika’s moment of fame happened in 1979 when it became a central character in Sai Paranjpe’s iconic film “Chashme Baddoor”. She wanted a “cottagy house” for the film’s heroine, Miss Chamko (Deepti Naval), and our house fitted the bill! Little did we know what this would entail…. the promise of “over in a week” became at least three.
The crew were to use only the ground floor… so imagine my surprise when I returned from work one afternoon and found Farookh Sheikh and Ravi Vaswani having massages on our beds on the 1st floor! That apart, it was fun and there were ogling moments which we all and the passers-by enjoyed…with the hedge almost giving way! My youngest brother in law, Samir, was still a bachelor then and was delighted when Deepti left her poems called “Lamhe” with him. He never heard the end of it, and if that was not enough, she always did a quick check with him to ask if the “feetas” (ribbons) in her hair were in place or not?!
On our return from Australia in 1978, our children Sajal and Sonali were fortunate to have an amazing pair of twins in the opposite house, to play and grow up with. Sean and Tania had got the best of their Canadian father and Mizo Mom… and fitted in age, plum between Sajal and Sonali. They got on like a house on fire — we had ticketed puppet shows, and since a plot down the street had been dug up for construction, it made an ideal place for hide and seek — and finding them to get them home for meals was not always easy!
Within a decade the colonisation of this area had begun, and with Vasant Enclave also built up, the traffic began increasing. However the side lane to the pump house was rarely used and many of our family weddings were held in this cul-de-sac!
Stalwarts in C-block like Brig.Ajit Singh, Mr.Swaroop, Lt.Gen.Vohra, Mr.Dhawan were responsible for getting the gates fixed at the end of our streets under “The Neighbourhood Watch Scheme”. The pioneers of our C-Block were also the Bhatnagars, both Vijay and Veena, Mr Sardana, Mr Gombar and a few others who came together to form an association of the residents when Tagore School tried making an opening for their school buses etc. onto C-2 street. They were able to stop this by quickly getting together to form an association. The seeds were thus sown of community effort and get-togethers for festivals became a regular feature.
About two decades down, the home and family was also growing and we felt the need for another floor to accommodate everyone. This effort began in the late 80’s by adding 3rd bedroom on the first floor, and creation of a 2nd floor with just one bedroom, due to limited finances. Lalit’s explorations of new and cost effective building technologies resulted in Laurie Baker’s input of using just bricks for a “filler slab roof”. It took us another decade, when we were nearing our retirement, to finally complete the 2nd floor. We have since been joined by Lalit’s middle brother Chanu and his wife Punam, and will soon also have Samir and Arati moving into the 2nd floor after retirement. All their children were also blessed to have their Dadi Ma at hand when they were born in Konarika.
Now it is the turn for Gen Next- Next- (the 4th generation in the Konarika family!). The eldest Chaitanya is already 13, Udit 12, Soham 11 and the latest arrival, Ahaan is all of 6 months old, much to the delight of our generation of Dadi Mas/Nani’s and Tata/Nana’s for our gorgeous grand’uns!
Fortunately for us the remnants of the clinging ivy planted over 40 years ago suddenly took off… it has reached the very top of the building and flowers profusely once a year; a beautiful bright yellow plumage. Likewise, our children and grandchildren have also grown up in Konarika, got married and have blossomed in various fields, but the pull of our family home is so compelling — may God always keep it that way.
By LALIT & GEETA MATHUR
C-1/26, Vasant Vihar