Northdale

With the high school reunion coming up we were all reconnected with the most influential people in our lives.

Our teenage schoolmates.

Some came forward with their life stories, and others dropped a bit here and bit there and we got to piece it together and understand what the last three and half decades has meant to us all.

Some truly remarkable characters were forged in the same fire that destroyed others.

Much of the discussion revolved around Northdale and the crazy melting pot that it was.

Northdale back in the day was an Indian neighborhood, for mostly poor Indian families. Mostly hard working decent people, and we lived our lives in the street.

Today one is boxed into ones home and for the most part, we don't get to interact with our neighbors further than the next neighborhood watch meeting. Back then we lived in the street and our homes extended to the entire area.

We lived on Bangalore road that joined Bombay Roads and Mysore.

These main roads were a little better than the rest of the smaller roads as the homeowners in these roads owned their tiny plots and built their own homes. All around us the same plot size had council homes.
Low-cost housing units. Looking back we were so poor, but compared to the rest, who had even less, we felt like the fortunate ones.

Avalon cinema was literally opposite my home and it was the heart of Northdale. We had the clinic next to the cinema, the church down the road, community hall on the top and a shibeen if one were so inclined. We had it all, and we lived in the heart of it all.

The house we lived in was so small that all of it could fit into the average sized granny flat of today. The rooms were barely big enough to house two single beds. We shared the bathroom and the loo and we didn't realize that we were living rough.

When we failed to maintain the grass in the tiny back yard my dad laid down concrete so it was less work. The families in the road behind us would come over the back wall when they needed to get to the shops on Bangalore road. So we had a steady stream of our neighbors passing through our yard.

Every morning where others might greet the day with roosters crowing, we heard the old man at the back.
His hacking cough was the stuff of nightmares. Each day would begin with him coughing. It got so bad that we would often joke that at some point he would cough up a lung and we would see it coming over the back wall.

Mr. Reddy, the street sweeper would come every morning and join us for breakfast. My dad had a deal with him,  for a breakfast with the family, he would sweep the front yard. (such as it was.)

We went to the movies whenever we could and it was the highlight of our week. The area was always packed when there was a big movie opening or some live concert.

Avalon often hosted music concerts and other events that transformed the area into a little Broadway.

People would often in their haste to go to the movies, park accross driveways and block the home owners in.

All except ours.

Nobody ever parked on our driveway. My dad who was a mechanic and a real tough guy would look forward to having somebody park on our driveway.

He would let out the air from  their tyres and wait for them to get out of the movies. There would be a huge bust up that often resulted in him threatening to beat them up.

Truth be told there were several incidents where there was more beating than threatening.

I started smoking young, and while the "how" is a long story for another time, the "where" was the crazy part.

Smoking at the movies was cool back then and everyone getting back from a show stank of cigarettes. We didn't have to worry the smell, so long as a random search didn't come up with cigarettes.
So we, my Bros and I had to finish the whole pack! And never take any home.

When we wanted to hang, we went to Debi place behind the Cinema and played arcade games and smoked some more. What we now call Foosball was called table soccer in the hood and we really had great fun with that. I loved the games but quickly reached my limits..
Some of my friends however had the gift and coordination and in time they became awesome.

Walking in the shadows, in order to smoke took us  to areas that decent people avoided. We met gangsters and thugs and got mugged and got into trouble. All because we couldn't smoke in public.
A good case study for legalising soft drugs to prevent them from becoming a gateway to much worse addiction and danger.

My dad was famous for making grand generous gestures that often ended up with us taking in  some stray. I shared my room with cousins from the farm and all sorts of strays and runaways. All through my childhood, there was always one or two adults or kids in my room.
The room was smaller than a jail cell.

We were poor but we didn't know it as there were so many people who had it worse than us.

Many of those who lived with us have gone on to do great things and my dad is really proud of his role in that.

Our doors were always open to the world and my mothers kitchen was the center of many peoples lives.

My friends popped in when ever they wanted and we fried eggs or make weird mixes of all the leftovers.
Nobody left hungry.

My dad had a menial job but he gave us more spending money than anybody I know, and as a result we had no sense of how poor we actually were.

We lived in a violent time.
Despite what people would have us believe we were constantly exposed to drunken violence and domestic violence.

My dad was strong and he had a mean streak in him and he was never one to run from a fight. In fact he literally would cross the road to get into a bust up.

I was not inclined to violence and as a result I think he must have been quite embarrassed by me.

He insisted that I go learn how to fight, so for years I went to the Northdale community hall to practice Karate.

Like the previous attempts to get me playing soccer and cricket, It didn't take.

I didn't have the coordination or the competitive nature that it required.

The last time I went back was when my brother passed away.

He died in the house we grew up in, at about the same spot that his crib stood in the corner.

Someday I will work up the courage and go back, but not now.

M Parak 2017.