Chp 475. To a fallen brother

Exactly 10 years ago from today, I had just graduated as a Computer Science Engineer and was in Hyderabad undergoing my CAT coaching classes. I was busy doing a mock CAT test by myself in my tiny rented apartment in Sainikpuri, when suddenly my phone rang.

It was Stephen, my classmate from School.

Since we hadn’t spoken much since we all left School, I knew it must be important and picked up his call.

“Hello… Kima…”

“Hey sup Stephen….”

“Listen….”

Stephen broke down…

“Hello?”

“Kima… Francis… he…”

I knew exactly then what he was about to say next and my whole world spun around…

“Francis passed away today…”

I spent the rest of the night calling up all our classmates I could reach, talking about all the wonderful memories we had shared with Francis.

Francis was not just a classmate from Montfort School, Yercaud. He was a very dear friend.

I still remember that momentous day in Montfort when the three House Vice-Captains of class 11 (Ashwini, Kamalesh and I) were to select the new 11th standard joinees into our respective houses.

Ashwini and Kamalesh warned me not to take all the talented Mizos who had just joined our School into my House just because I already knew which Mizo was good in sports and extra-curricular activities, so as to keep the balance between all three competing Houses (we have this all-year-long inter House competition when it comes to sports, academics, cultural activities etc etc, it’s a Boarding School thing).

I snickered. Comon, all’s fair in love and war.

Francis was one of the first people I selected to join my House, because I already knew him well before he joined our school, since we were in the same social circle when I was playing basketball for JL Vision Club and ABC (Andrew Basketball Club – in memory of Andrew, another friend who passed away) in Mizoram (and eventually, we created a new basketball club called Club Francis after his sad demise).

So, to remember my dear friend on his 10th death anniversary, here are a few photographs I’ve taken with him back in School. I’m really glad to have such photos still with me.

Click on all pics to enlarge. Photo will open in a new window. All photos have a resolution of 1400 pixels width. Captions are below the photos.

In memory of Francis Lalhrilhtluanga

You can see Francis on the left end. This was during our School Sports Day’s traditional 12th standard parade, where the outgoing batch marches around the field as the entire school cheers them up.

Some of us just chilling at this place near school called “Aeroplane Stream” in Yercaud, during one of our Sunday Walks. I just realized, Francis is sitting with Lawrence in this photo, and ironically, Lawrence too had passed away recently, in a similar road mishap.

Back in 11th standard, on our way back from morning Mass.

Happy happy. Some of us 11th std Mizos with the 12th std Mizos, near the common toilet next to the tennis courts, our favorite hangout place, lolz.

One of my favorite pictures. We were on stage dancing in front of the school during one of our extremely rare hostel party nights, and as is evident from this photo, Francis clearly forgot his step, lolz. Wish I could ask him now what he was thinking right then, to forget a choreography we rehearsed so many times before.

Patrick House – We won the prestigious March Past Shield, all thanks to people like Francis who was a natural soldier. You can see him in both the photos above – second row, middle column. Made me proud to be a Captain that led such fine people like him.

12th standard, Patrick House Picnic day – Had so much fun that day. Francis was extra efficient when it came to peace making (ok there is this annual tradition of 11th std students and 10th std students fighting with each other during every House picnic, especially during “flag hunt”, and by fight I mean fist fighting, punches, karate kicks and all the works. It is a part of our deep Montfort tradition. It is the duty and responsibility of a House Captain and his 12th std classmates to make sure such fights do not go out of hand and things don’t get too bloody, or fatal. It’s what makes us a man.) Apart from that, we had a memorable time during tug-of-war and so many other games. In another photo above, you can see Francis carrying a crate of cold drinks for the Patrick House students.

Hehe… boys will be boys :) Those few naughty times we get to bunk and smoke secretly. And if you think being a Patrick House captain, I’m showing bad example, well, the guy in front of Francis is the Gabriel House captain, lolz.

The next one above is awkward! Lolz. If it was not for Francis in the pic, I would have never posted it online. This was our 12th standard dormitory. I knew there was always something going on between Hminga (Mama) and Edward Lalrempuia :D And in the far right Stephen’s reading something, probably his usual stash of porn :D :P

SSGY Fête, one of the most awaited annual events for any Montfortians, where we could interact with the girls of Sacred Hearts and treat them to pepsi and even exchange letters or Hallmark cards, behind the backs of the Catholic Brothers and Sisters who run both our institutes.

In Calcutta, on our way to school and start our 12th std term, traveling together. Oh man, those journeys had so many many many wonderful memories!!!! :)

11th std. Walking to our dorm, with Francis and Tlawmlova.

11 std. Bio batch. Class photo.

11 std. Francis’ table in the mess. Except for Stephen and I who had been studying in Montfort for a long time, all those Mizos who joined our batch in 11th std all sat together in one table.

12th std. Francis’ table. Again, same set of table mates, but this time, they have a more serious look on their face, what with the 12th std board exams coming up.

Sports – one of our School’s proudest moments in its history when it comes to sports. We took part in the prestigious Holy Cross School annual tournament held in Salem for football, basketball and volleyball, and WE WON in all three games, each team beating some 5-10 other schools! Above are the three extremely proud Captains with our respective trophies, Me (basketball captain), Francis (football captain) and Vivek (volleyball captain).

State Championships! Both the School football and basketball team qualified for States (To reach States, you need to win Zonals first, then win Districts, then Regionals, then Divisions and finally States). We were the first Montfort batch in our School’s history to reach States for BOTH football and basketball at the same time! Other years, we would get knocked out in Regionals or Districts, and even if we did happen to have a team reaching States, it would be just one team. And as always, I was the only Mizo in the basketball team, while 80% of the football team were Mizos.

One of those many sports tournaments the basketball and football team participated in.

12th std class road trip to Kovalam beach. Hehehe, good memories there as well :)

Our 12th std batch, with our official batch tee-shirt.

Our farewell night :(

Socials night :D

Our 12th std batch group photo.

Get-together party at Notea’s house. Lolz. Funny night :D

Taking a few photos around school together, this was our last day in school after our board exams.

The day we left school for good, on our way to Bangalore to party our brains out :)

These are the pics I can find for now. Great times indeed. Still hard to believe it’s already been 10 years since that fateful day. Man, these photos are not enough… the first time I ever got sloshed and puked my guts out, it was with Francis, in Bangalore :) The first time I smoked too much in one go and puked, again, it was with Francis. Man, there are so many things I want to share about my time and experiences with Francis, but then, maybe let’s save those for the next anniversary.

Once again, Francis, here is me drinking to your memory. Cheers brother.

Chp 474. The Great Bandra Momo walk

I have two clashing personalities – one is, I’m an amateur foodie. The other is, I’m a professional introvert.

I’m extremely shy at social events (yes I am the opposite of all things shy when I’m with people I know well, but with new people, I am the most socially awkward penguin you’ll ever come across).

And therein lies the problem. Mumbai is a wonderful place for foodies, with many social events organized by food lovers where strangers come together to a place and socialize and eat to appreciate different types of cuisine. I’m a member of Coral Networking dinner and Pet Pujaris (for my non-Hindi speaking readers, the “pet” here means stomach, and not the domesticated pet, fyi, so basically, “pet pujaris” means stomach worshipers)  two of the many such communities that conduct foodie hangouts. Problem is, I rarely participate because I’m shy.

But last Thursday, since the theme of the Pet Pujari event was Momo, I decided to participate :) One thing I love about the Pet Pujari gang is that most of them LOVE pork as much as I do!

Pet Pujari conducts around 3-4 foodie meet-ups a month. There are two types of meet-ups – a fatka, and a kadka. A fatka is when they meet up at an exclusive place and every member pools in around 2000 - 3000 bucks per head and the food is really good and the place has good ambience. This happens at the beginning of a month when everybody’s got their salary, lolz.

The kadka event happens at the end of the month when everybody’s running low on cash, lolz, and the budget is 200 - 300 bucks per head, and in this case they visit cheap (usually roadside) stalls that serves delicious food.

The momo event was a kadka one, aptly called “The Great Bandra Momo walk” because Bandra not only has the most Momo joints in Mumbai but the tastiest as well. The plan was to walk from one restaurant/stall to the other, all in all visiting seven places renowned for their authentic and unique momos.

Here is a map I made of the route we were supposed to take, starting from our office and ending at our apartment vicinity. It covered a stretch of 3.6 KM.

And so, I left office and reached the starting location by 7:15 AM. It was this restaurant on Turner Road called “Lemon Grass”.

The very first joint itself, I met a couple of really wonderful people and we immediately got into a wonderful conversation. In my table, there was Tejaswini, who was currently doing her MA in Psychology, and Tanuja who was planning to appear for an MBA entrance exam. Having a sister who did her PhD in Psychology and having done a brief stint in a B-School myself, we immediately found something to talk about. And next to them, were Shweta and Nidhi who started this exclusive e-com portal for art called CrudeArea which you must definitely check out. Then there was Falguni, who was a part of an awesome consulting/business firm called Gravy Corp. Being a Start-Up Co-founder myself, again, we had a lot of stuff to talk about. And finally, there was Melissa, who was a communication manager at OTIS Elevators. Since I had been inside elevators many times before, again, we had something to talk about! :D :P

Yes, it was a very interesting table indeed.

Any food that appeared on our table, disappeared almost immediately. The momos were really good, but the only sad part was that Lemon Grass served only Chicken and Prawn for non-veg. But still, they were all yummy, including the veg momos.

The tiny cabin inside Lemon Grass exclusively reserved for Pet Pujaris was soon overwhelmed, but everybody had a lot of fun, talking about food or socializing with new people. Kumar Jhuremalani, the founder of Pet Pujaris, along with other organizers like Augustine kept the crowd well entertained with their witty remarks and conversations.

I was more busy hogging the awesome momos, lolz…

And a day at Lemon Grass wouldn't be complete without having their signature trademark Lemon Grass cucumber cooler mocktail. It was sooooooo good! Of course we had to pay for this separately as the Pet Pujari event covered only the Momos. But do order this the next time you’re there.

After Lemon Grass, we all walked to the next stop – Busago, which was around half a kilometer ahead. Busago is apparently a restaurant that serves authentic Burmese cuisine.

This time, all of us did not fit inside, so some of us sat outside. I met Pawan, founder and director of Digicat, an upcoming digital marketing firm, and Megha, founder of i2cook, an awesome culinary e-com portal focusing on organic food.

This time, we had PORK momos, yummm yummmmmmmmmm! The way Busago made their momos was quite unique, and I was bloody glad I took part in the foodie event. The next stop after Busago was a new momo joint right opposite Toto’s. Great food there as well.

Since I had to meet a few friends at Toto’s, I called it a night and went to Toto’s while the others continued with the momo walk. Below are some of the pics they took.

Man that was a really fun and memorable event. Glad to have fought my fear of shyness, which resulted in me meeting so many wonderful people. Looking forward to participating in such events again, and hopefully, my introvert-ness will forever be gone.

Momo cheers :)

*All pics courtesy my S4 and Kumar Jhuremalani