Thank you for visiting my blog. This is not really a blog, in the sense that I do not write everyday on things which concern me or the world. This is a site where I have recently begun publishing what I write. And I have not been writing for too long, maybe a year or so.
Most of what you will find here are nostalgia pieces from my growing up days in Jamshedpur, now in Jharkhand, where I was born in the early sixties. I like to write on places where I travel to, so you will find some travel pieces as well. I love books, music and movies, so you will also find some of that stuff here.
I used to mail whatever I wrote to friends who suggested that I post these on a blog site so that they can forward the link to whoever they would like to forward it to instead of sending word files. So that is the genesis of this blog. I have been gradually uploading some older stories and adding the new ones I write over the past two months since the blog came into being.
Some of my pieces are also up on another blog http://woodsmoke.wordpress.com which is edited by Rajib Sarkar, a friend of mine.
I am a business executive based at Bangalore.
If you wish you may write to me at santoshojha@gmail.com Or you may post your comments here. Either which way.
And, by the way, please suggest a name for this blog. Till I get around to choosing a name, this blog will continue to be called Santosh Ojha’s Weblog!
Thanks,
Santosh Ojha
August 24, 2008 at 3:21 am |
Hey Santosh – a suggestion for the Blog name – A cup of nostalgia, served half cut or
A cup of nostalgia, malai markey or
Santosh Cabin – Nostalgia served hot!
I prefer the last one …let me know what you think.
October 8, 2008 at 11:24 pm |
Hi,
My name is Pawan Patl, presently living in Montreal, Canada. I rea dyour blog which I liked too much. As your diary take me to my old memories which I left in Jamshedpur in 1994. I read your all pages of diaries. Wishing u and your family a Happy and safe Durga puja.
October 9, 2008 at 5:34 am |
Pawan: Thanks a lot.
April 12, 2009 at 10:08 pm |
Dear Santosh Ojha Saheb,
Greetings
The three stories you have listed are also some of my favourites. I had read USNE KAHA THA as my high school text.
By the way, KAFAN was originally written in Urdu. It was transcribed into DEVNAGRI much later. It is still taught in Urdu here in the United States Unievrsities in its original. My daughter did so too.
Thank you.
April 14, 2009 at 6:56 pm |
Namaste Santoshji,
Your posts make me travel into the virtual reality of my childhood days in the 70’s and early 80’s, and make me feel so nostalgic about those happy days. I have spent a large chunk of those years , the first 21 years to be precise, in Benares .I am aa alumnus of IT , BHU .
Every post or should I say story of yours is so vividly composed and evoke mixed feelings of sheer joy and tears too .
I enjoyed the latest one on the service providers . Some others I can remember were the poor villagers coming to the doorstep of my house selling garden fresh vegetables at a throwaway price, with a large heart. And not to forget the halwai who used to prepare sweets and savories in the backyard on a choolah on festive occasions, even as the mothers chatted away to eternity and spicing up the fare with tips and instructions to him.
Last but not the least the chaatwala and icecream wala who used to announce their arrival in our colony , even as we excitedly ran out to grab a bite.
Keep the show going Santosh. God bless you for bringing back those fond memories so vividly .
Sridhar ( Mech – 1985 )
Perhaps life was never so full of happiness and contentment those days
June 23, 2009 at 8:09 am |
Santosh, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your pieces. I was startled at the apparant similarities between you and me. Like you, I grew up in Jamshedpur, not in 60s and 70s but during mid-late 80s and early 90s. Like you, I studied in BHU, Varanasi and like you went on to do my MBA after that. Like you I stay in Bangalore now and like you even I love to wear my middle class upbringing on my sleeve. I liked your posts and being from Jamshedpur, was able to relate with most of them. However, the one that I absolutely loved was the one where you describe your mom’s coin collection with which she bought you a watch. It brought a lump to my throat. I can relate to this. Even I got my first watch when I passed my Board exams and I was aware of the kind of difficulties my parents were going through to give me and my two sisters a good education. Sir, you’ve got me hooked onto your blog. I’ll be a regular visitor here. P.S. Even I’ve started writing recently. You can read my ramblings on riteshjsr.wordpress.com
July 7, 2009 at 2:52 pm |
I like most of the Hindi stories you mentioned on your blog, especially, Parda by Yashpal. In fact, Hindi short stories like Parda, Haar ki Jeet, Pariksha, Idgah, and others by contemporary authors, including Munshi Premchand (http://munshi-premchand.blogspot.com)have molded my character and permanently impacted my outlook on life. I wonder if you could post complete text in Hindi of Parda on your website or suggest one that may have it. I thank you for the opportunity to enjoy your blog.
July 7, 2009 at 3:34 pm |
My child has an elocution competition..in hindi..titled ‘Dosti’…can you help me please?
August 8, 2009 at 7:58 am |
Someone asked the other day, ‘What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?’
‘We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,’ I informed him.
‘All the food was slow.’
‘C’mon, seriously. Where did you eat?’
‘It was a place called ‘at home,” I explained. !
‘Mum cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.’
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it :
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card.
My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).
We didn’t have a television in our house until I was 19.
It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people…
I never had a telephone in my room.The only phone was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line.
Pizzas were not delivered to our home… But milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers –my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 6AM every morning.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don’t blame me if they bust a gut laughing.
Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?
MEMORIES from a friend :
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother’ s house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle.. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it.. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to ’sprinkle’ clothes with because we didn’t have steam irons. Man, I am old.
How many do you remember?
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Older Than Dirt Quiz :
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about.
Ratings at the bottom.
1.Candy cigarettes
2.Coffee shops with tableside juke boxes
3.Home milk delivery in glass bottles
4. Party lines on the telephone
5.Newsreels before the movie
6.TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels [if you were fortunate])
7.Peashooters
8. Howdy Doody
9. 45 RPM records
10.Hi-fi’s
11 Metal ice trays with lever
12 Blue flashbulb
13.Cork popguns
14. Studebakers
15. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered 0-3 = You’re still young
If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older
If you remembered 7-10 = Don’t tell your age,
If you remembered 11-15 =You’re older than dirt!
I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Don’t forget to pass this along!!
Especially to all your really OLD friends….
August 22, 2009 at 11:45 am |
Ojhaji,
it was good to go thu the blog. The writings were quite vivid especially some of the stuff of teh school days. Being a batchmate I could recall many of the moments & see you as you were during teh days.
Great stuff!! carry on.
August 22, 2009 at 3:48 pm |
Thank you, Sudhanshu!
September 22, 2009 at 1:33 pm |
Namskar Ojhaji,
It is realy very nice to read your Bhojpuri Song Selection in your Blog.I want to collect the CD of Baja Baje Boys can u help me in this.