This is one of my favourite things to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon: write in my blog. This happens to be the 2497th Sunday of my life ... give or take a few, and today, I am going to relate a few things about my childhood. I remember a most enjoyable visit to the hill-station of Matheran (a jungle on the head in Marathi) when I was 12 years old. I had gone there with my fellow-students in a school-guided trip under the supervision of my teachers. The high point of my experience was the stay in a old-style Laxmi Hotel, with 4 students to a room in a dorm-like room. I do not remember the names of my room-mates. The hotel was just next to a dirt road that led out to the edge of the mountain and to a point known as "Bombay Point". The other exhilarating experience was my winning a ball-point pen in a singing competition. I remember singing a Hindi film song and I also remember that the teacher most impressed with my singing was my Hindi/Gujarati teacher Mrs. T. K. Ashar.
Down the decades, whenever I have met her, I have recalled that incident, and I think that prize and that experience made her soften towards me too during the rest of my days in school.
After that school-trip, I have visited Matheran twice, once as a teenager with a school-friend, and once with my family. This last outing was in a comfortable A/C hotel called Hotel Kumar Lodge and occurred barely 6-7 years ago. These two visits, however, pale before my first ever visit as a school child.
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