This too shall pass.

The salt-pans are not visible anymore; they have given way to high rises. The yellow whistling flowers are not to be seen anymore; a BP petrol station came up few years ago where they once had flowered.

Vasai has changed; is changing. Better and wider roads came hand-in-hand with rising real estate costs. Basic infrastructure woes had reduced with every passing year: water supply and electricity improved. I did not get to see any hand pumps where they once stood in limelight as people, especially women and children rushed to fill their daily quota of potable water.

St. Augustine’s High was getting higher and the Ayyappa temple grander.

The horizon and skyline, as seen from Vasant Nagri, changed. The Giriz hill was not the only structure that stood between the railway line and the setting sun; there were newer buildings that were being built on lands that once were salt pans. The picture postcard sunset and its changing hues on the hill can’t be viewed anymore. Nor can the Sun be seen playing hide-and-seek behind the hill during its annual Uttarayan and Dakshinayan journeys.

Vasai is in the process of becoming the next Bandra; the next 'queen of the suburbs'. Because just like Bandra, Vasai too has still retained its idyllic charm and rustic life that will rapture you when you travel towards Vasai Gaon, or its beaches, or the fort.

This weekend may have been one of those nostalgic, sepia-toned trips to Vasai… and I would be dishonest if I say that during my two-day stay there, my eyes hadn’t welled up. 

It was only while driving back to Pune that this dawned – our Vasai house has been sold. Ani, our house, which was like a crevice where our bittersweet memories found a common hiding place all these years, is sold. Ani, avarka okha avarde kaash, avarde kanakh… nammalku nammalde nostalgia!

Sob, sniff, sob.

Though I no more have a house to call my own there, Vasai will always be a home. For home is where the heart is, right? :-)