Another year at its sunset hour. Another year added to life. Just another regular routine.
Somehow, this year has brought a flood of reflections. Memories, lessons learnt, journeys out of the depths of downward spirals, winning battles and making friends with my inner demons...
As a teenager, I always wanted my life to have adventures. It took many more years to realise that adventures do not necessarily always happen like they do in books. A generic, routine and common life has its own adventures, too.
When I look back on the childhood lived, the very same life which seemed so mediocre and listless seems like a dream life now. Sitting surrounded by so much technology, having caught at least one sleeping disorder and regularly moving amongst mediocrity - now my childhood seems like a golden sunset which will never come back.
I grew up playing out in the sun. Mother never told me to stay in the shade to maintain my "complexion". I survived grazed knees, bruises, falls and cat fights. Made mud cakes during Monsoon and floated paper boats in the small rivulets made by rains. I even bid goodbye to a plastic santa in this tiny river once.
I had a favourite guava tree which we used to climb everyday. I used to sometimes pluck small guava which were not really ripe and still enjoy the raw and bitter taste. I still recall that taste. One day, a snake or cobra turned up in the area near our tree. Someone in the neighbourhood had seen it and warned everyone. I was young and clueless and we continued playing daily and climbing that guava tree and laze amongst the branches.
One evening I was alone on the tree and the other kids went home. I was in no mood to do so. It was past sunset and had started getting dark. Mother came looking for me and dragged me home, lecturing me about being irresponsible. I had never seen a snake, though people said they were poisonous and could kill us. Well, I didn't know what death was. But what I did understand was that my mother was very angry and very worried. That was the end of playing there, till someone caught that snake. Which they did, as I was told.
I even forgot my slippers at the base of this tree once. Now when I think of it, that guava tree was my own little escape into day dreams. Because I have very vague memories of other children with me on the tree. Most of my memories are of me being alone, climbing as high as I could and sitting in the branches and just fantasising about God knows what.
My mother used to hoard and clean small containers of geometrical shapes. Cubes, cylinders, spheres etc. Well, she was a research chemist at the beginning of her career and a tuition teacher later. She used to shade half of a white ping pong ball with a black pen or a pencil. Then she would put a pin through the center of the two halves to hold the ball, then switch off the lights and focus a torch on it. Then she would rotate this ping pong ball with help of the pin to show me how the phases of the moon happened and how it rotated and what caused the dark side of the moon. The torch was our Sun.
There was a cylindrical shape, an old glue bottle which she covered in brown paper and made a tiny handle out of hard cardboard to make a mini roller. For dealing with weird mathematics problem, "if a roller is moved on a lawn at x speed and the size of the lawn blah blah blah and so blah blah how do you calculate blah blah". Well, at that time, I understood the logic behind the problem and it helped to clear the stupidity during exams.
My mother made a miniature pinhole camera long before the topic was covered at school and showed me the inverted images in our house. I still remember my teacher's face when she got the school's pinhole camera in the class to show us and I told her that my mom made a miniature out of daily household rubbish. I love my mom!
I remember her father, my grandfather - Aajoba. With his misty blue eyes and a constant toothless smile on his face. When he passed away, I faced my first heart break. And a continuing phobia of hospitals.
To repeat a cliché, change is the only constant. And change is not always welcome. I do love the change in my life and the change in me, on an individual level. But I do miss the simplicity of the old days. When I face the duplicity and irreverence of today's changed world, the old days of my childhood seem so short-lived.
Babies I cradled are now teens, peers have turned into balding uncles. The rare telegram which used to scare everyone at home, is now officially shelved as a discontinued "technology".
Yes, scared because letters were the popular mode of communication and telegrams were expensive, to be sent only in case of emergencies. Like announcing the death of a family member in another town or state. Dad once received a telegram and that's when I got to know that it is a missive which instills fear into adult hearts. In our case, it was just an eccentric employer who announced Dad's new job offer with a telegram! They paid a per word cost just to let Dad know when he could join.
I used to get letters from friends and I was the only one whose parents never opened these letters and never pried into what was written in them. They were my letters and were given due privacy. My parents trusted me.
There is a charm in handwritten letters, sending as well as receiving, which cannot be replaced by any other means of communication. Paying heed to handwriting, spelling, etiquette, sentence formation - no it can never be replaced by anything else.
There were lazy summer days, spreading mats under the palm tree and playing a game of cards, sipping on coolers, going to different places within the neighborhood to explore new lands. I don't know if kids these days continue these activities. We adults surely don't, anymore.
We got a telephone (landline) when I was a teenager. One connection and 3 extensions. One instrument in the living room and one each for my bedroom and my parents' bedroom. The instrument in my room was a circular white phone with a curved receiver. It used to snap onto the magnetic instrument and had a black dial pad with white circular numbers. The numbers were buttons but were arranged in a circle, in imitation to the old rotary phones. I used to shut my door and talk on the phone. Sometimes, Dad would pick the phone to make a call and realise it is in use, and shout at me to hang up. I used to hate that but now it is too funny. The same thing would happen at the other end too, when my friends would suddenly whisper, "my Dad wants to make a call ok, I need to hang up".
And those long-distance calls, and trunk calls, and the politely announced"aap katar me hain", everyone calling at night for low call rates, placing wake-up calls on the telephone, those PCO and Xerox centers, dreading the bill after a long call because Dad would surely scold me...
Such stupid things and how I sorely miss them!
Music was cassettes and CDs, Walkmans and Discmans. Movies were in theaters, or on the TV. Not every home had a computer. Laptops were for the rich.
I miss the old haunts. The places I grew up in. They either don't exist because they have been torn down to make way for swanky, soulless structures or they have changed beyond recognition. Everything in life has become shiny, smart and impersonal. The warmth of housing societies is replaced by the cold sneers of towering apartment complexes.
Today, I'm wandering on a long meandering lane filled with memories. One of my daily sleepless nights. Trying to remember those times when sleeping at night was taken for granted.
All that has changed. How I have changed!
If one aspect soars into a long awaited flight, another aspect takes a nose-dive. Both together. Which one to follow emotionally? Be happy for the dream which took flight? Or mourn the death of one more personal relationship? Friends come, betray, leave. Home life moves from roller coaster to roller coaster.
Yes, I got my adventures. And now it feels like I would be happiest with indolence.
As I prepare myself for a life alone, I'm now making a new bucket list. If everyone is going to leave me behind, I better make the most of being the lone soul.
Since nobody wants me, let me make hay while my sun still shines. Since I have no ties and nobody to answer to, let me roam the world, exploring more adventures.
Let me live like a Queen. In my own Kingdom. Since I have been abandoned by all, let me build my own castle. Raise my own battlements.
Let me be a child again. A child who knows nothing about bitterness, loneliness and about being forlorn. A child who smiles when happy, and knows no heartbreak. Let me begin anew.
Let them call me selfish. I hide my scars well. Let them call me stone-hearted. I no longer show my emotions.
Let them call me wilful. I'm strong willed enough to handle it.
Let's begin a New Year. Let me make a promise to myself. To never abandon my peace of mind. To always put myself first. To live as per what my life has taught me. And not care about what has been conditioned into me.
The masses are all in a rat race. I'm not a rat and I'm racing against nobody. I make my own path and I follow my heart.
Thus it shall continue.
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