Childhood is an interesting phase of life. No. Its THE interesting phase of life. The time when we were free of responsibilities, lived in our own fantasy world and the only worry that we had was what stories the next months issue of muthassi or chandamama held for us. Childhood was so much fun but I am not able to remember all the incidents that happened. There are some people who can tell what and all happened when they were so and so but not me. I don't recollect everything. Just some little portions of my childhood here and there and few of them are in black and white!. Most of the childhood seems forgotten but take a look at what all things i do remember:
1) One of the earliest memory is that of traveling in a train. The seats are wooden. No cushions. I am sleeping on the wooden seat and my dad wakes me up to give the seat to an old lady. My mom is sitting next to the window on the single seat and I move there. This is all hazy in my memory and the image is heavily blackened.
2) We are at a railway station and its a very bright day. A train comes chugging along spewing black smoke from its top. The train doesn't halt at the station. When the train has passed, I look across the tracks at a green hilly mountain and a small bamboo hut in the middle of the field.
3) A Handpump that I am trying to pump up and down to get water to wash my hands but cannot get it to work. A lady comes and does it for me and I wash my hand.
4) I wake up and immediately remove the mosquito net of our bed to fetch the kattan kaapi in a stainless steel cup on the stool. All five of us slept on one BIG bed.
5) We missed the school bus. My bro and his friends who were little adventurous boarded a lorry to go to school. I think I was afraid that I would fall off the lorry so didn't go with them. Don't remember exactly if my sister was with me too. I think she was.
6) Don't know if this happened because of point 4 above but my sis and I came back home and happily announced that we missed the bus. I remember being disappointed that mom didn't let us stay at home but instead got ready, came with us and dropped us off at school. I think she wore a light yellow saree with green leaves then. My mom had motion sickness earlier and couldn't travel in buses. I have no idea how she coped with it at that time. She doesn't have any motion sickness now.
7) Children's Day in primary school was celebrated by making everybody wear color dresses. Thats right. Anything other than school uniform was "color dress" for us.
8) A magician came to school and he made a kid drink milk and then poured it out of the kids ears. Later he threw eclairs in our midst on the ground and we forgot the Principles order to be silent and obedient. I managed to grab one or two eclairs in the melee.
9) Forgot my way to classroom after the playtime..err.. lunchtime. My bro came along somehow and I was back in class. My bro was in another school you see. His school was not far from ours. He probably was playing in the basketball court next to our school and came to drink water that he found me looking foolishly here and there.
10) I had a small aluminium suitcase in which I carried my books till third or fourth class (We used to say 3rd class or 4th class instead of 3rd standard, 4th standard).
11) We initially had a house built of bamboo and wood. We later replaced it with a concrete one. The bamboo was later reused by my bro and I to play Arjun. We fashioned out bow and arrow out of bamboos and tried to see whose aim was better.
12) My neighbour Guddu and I playing badminton. I couldn't understand why he was saying "13-love" "14-love" everytime I missed the shuttlecock.
13) We found a rusted handgun in the playground. I was curious and wanted to keep it. The other idiots with me had other plans. They showed it to the principal and he ordered them to throw it in the bushes behind the school, which they did. There were different theories as to how that gun came there but the most plausible one that seemed right was that it fell off from an Armymans pants when he came to visit his kid. Nobody had any answer to why it was rusted and why the Principal didn't call back the Armyman. Later my bro and his friends combed the bushes when i told him this but the gun was not found.
14) The last day at my primary school (I somehow passed 5th class!). It was an afternoon and my bro came to take my little sis and me home as his exams were over in the morning. We had some kind of farewell for us and I was supposed not to skip it. If I couldn't leave with my bro now, I will have to come back alone in the evening then. I went and asked permission from our class teacher. I remember asking permission and getting a resounding slap on my cheek. I was dazed but asked again and this time she barked a 'Go'. I know I was about to cry but I didn't. There was this feeling that my bro and sis are watching, so I put up a brave face and told my bro that she gave the permission. He saw the slapping but knew too well to probe further lest i cry.
15) My grandfather. He is no more with us. He stayed with us for a short period of time in Andaman but I was too naive to know any love he showered on us. All I heard from my mom and dad is I was afraid to go near him. The greenish tattoo of a fish on his shrivelled right hand was something I still remember. And we also used to hide under his bed for no reason!
16) Our Yellow Tricycle!. It was a kiddie cycle and I used to ride it with my sister standing on the plastic cover of rear wheel. My bro was too big for his age to sit on it and was always left out from riding it.
17) The swinging on the coconut tree. One coconut tree in our backyard was bent such that we could climb till the middle of the trunk. From there, it was easy to grab hold of one of the many leaves hanging down and give out a cry like tarzan while swinging on it. The younger the leaves, the better the swing for it wont come down crashing with our tiny weight. As that coconut tree grew, we also grew bolder and swung higher and higher. Fortunately, the leaves never gave on us and none of us suffered any injury. The only problem was to suffer from the insect bite. That slimy hairy little bastard which left us scratching all over. That slimy hairy little bastard had a knack of biting us at the back where our fingers won't even reach.
