Another jog down memory lane and I remember just randomly asking Shraddha Kamdar if she would go with me to the Kanga Library at Wankhede Stadium in 2006. We'd finished our day at office at the TOI Building at CST in Mumbai but I was doing a story on cricket statisticians (the guys who kept the scores and records) and wanted to look at the scorebooks from the early 1900s. Shraddha and I weren't exactly friends. She was a senior colleague in another paper in the Times Group. But we loved walking, talking and reading so I asked her. We first walked to Kanga where I found some old books but many of the records were being digitalized so they weren't available. Half-disappointed, I asked her if she would walk with me to Marine Drive to see the waves. We walked through Marine Lines and Marine Drive, Hughes Road, Balbulnath, Kemp's Corner and talked till we reached my home at Pedder Road. She told me of the loss of her mother in an accident and how she taught tuitions to run the household when her father was in the hospital. I talked about my life in Pune and New Delhi before I moved to Mumbai. We chatted about food, clothes, people, places and books. She had not travelled much but wanted to see the world. I had seen pretty much all of India by the time I was 23. I wanted to see the world next. We became friends. That 6Km walk from office to home remains my favourite till date.
#anecdotes #comewalkwithme
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