The Bandra house was situated opposite the tiny, quaint, St. Stephen's church on Mt. Mary Rd. The grounds of the house covered almost an acre. [Today there are 3 flats there :(]
Our neighbours who lived downstairs and we, were supposed to share the garden My mother had a gardener and laid out flower beds & I vaguely remember a lawn. I remember one time my mother even planted cassava(kappa) which she brought from Kerala.
It was certainly heavenly for us small children, there was so much place to play. The downstairs people had a boy around our age, who went to the same school too. So we were always playing, my younger brother, B from downstairs and me. My kid sister was just a baby after all. I can't find any pictures of the garden there, though I know there was one. You'll have to take my word for it I guess :)

This is a picture of the terrace outside the 'ballroom' of the Bandra home. The whole floor was decorated with an old-fashioned mosaic design, where the small pieces were all from broken pieces of china. I remember the pattern vaguely as white and a dark greeny blue. It was really pretty.

By the time I was 4, we moved to Bandra to Mount Mary Hill. Since we lived there for 5 years, the memories are very clear, apart from the fact that there were lots of pictures taken by my mother's younger sister.
It was a huge place. I remember going to see it on a dark evening, climbing up the wooden stairs and walking into this huge room, which was to serve as our company room. My mother was very pregnant at that time with my younger sister and had to waddle up the stairs. But she liked the place mainly because there was a huge ground and a lovely terrace for us children. It was actually one of those old Brit mansions. The actual sitting room and dining room and two bedrooms were downstairs. There was a side door out of that sitting room which lead up these wooden stairs to the ballroom, I kid you not! It was just like one imagined a ballroom to be from books I've read since. There were around 4 or 5 doors leading out onto the landing and 3 doors to the terrace. My mother told me fairly recently (before she died), that the landlord had wanted them to take the whole house. But she apparently said she was just not prepared to look after such a huge place. So we took only the top floor and somebody else took the ground floor.
So then we had this huge room which my mother had a hard time filling up, just 2 bedrooms and an enclosed verandah at the back, which we used as the dining room. That front room was so big my kid brother learned how to bicycle in that room!
Here is an edited picture from that time--
Those are just 2 of the four doors. You can get an idea of the place I think.
I'll post more pictures and more about the house in another post.

Pixelchick asks what my first memory was. Well I thought I'd do a little post on that. My earliest memory is a happy memory. I remember the flat and my high chair at the dining table and a cornflour pudding in the shape of a pink rabbit, waiting for me. I didn't like drinking milk and so my mother made these for me most days. We used to get Brown and Polson's custard powder in various colours and flavours. So my mother used to make one for me for tea and I remember the pink rabbit so well. This is somewhat like that except this is jelly.

Another memory from those times was not so nice. I used to go from school to a much older married cousin's house and be there for a while till I went home. Well, one day, while my cousin was sleeping and his wife was looking after me, I drew coloured pictures all over a wall of theirs!. They were a newly married couple then and the poor wife was horrified and told her husband the minute he woke up. He growled at me for his wife's sake and that was all. But I remember the terrified feeling, wondering whether I would get a spank or get shouted at.
Both these memories are from before I was 4 (I think).