Shot a few movies, traveled abroad, signed autographs for a few lakh fans... but when they were younger still, about three feet tall, life was a greater adventure. And so, they explored. Amita Amin-Shinde jogged a few memories and delicious, mango-stained stories came tumbling out

Prateik Babbar
One summer, I went to Switzerland for a skiing camp. My cousin was with me. It was too much fun. We did a lot of outdoor activities, skiied, shopped and ate at some great restaurants. It was three full weeks of dhamaal. One night, we even got lost. That evening, eight-10 of us went shopping. After that, we thought we'd get pizza and beer. By the time we started to return to the hotel, it was past midnight. We didn't have a vehicle and couldn't find any cabs. And it started snowing hard. We decided to walk back, but weren't sure where it the hotel was. That's when a mad man started chasing us. My cousin said: 'Don't worry, I have a knife'. I said, 'Don't even think about it'. And we started running for our lives. We were sh*t scared. (Laughs) but we did made it back safely, and learnt our lesson.

Makarand Deshpande
Kairi churana that was our summer vocation. And we did it professionally. My twin brother Milind, another friend also called Milind and three-four others and I used to steal kairi from the neighbouring wadi on 16th Road Bandra. The owner was an aunty. Our modus operandi was to engage aunty in conversation while the rest of us stole the mangoes. We succeeded every time. And we never got caught.

We had a small aangan in front of the house, where all the kids played all kinds of sports. Our parents used to beat us because we broke glass panes all the time. But they also loved entertaining everyone who came by. People came and ate at our place. The main door of our house was always open.

We even went fishing at the nearby Bandra lake, and adopted street pups for the summer. We would bathe them under the tap behind the house, irrespective of whether we'd had a bath or not. (Laughs)