After pondering upon way too much (please don’t ask me how much is too much 😉 ) and changing the topic the zillionth time, finally I landed up here, writing something that I am sure, max of the junta will relate to-atleast the one’s born in the early 90s.
Quoting Agatha Christie, “One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, to have a happy childhood”. So here’s the thing-no matter however your childhood might have been, those are the days which you can never forget. A quick check-pick up any person near you, be it a stranger, friend, relative, parents, anyone. Just ask them one small question-what is the one childhood memory that you cherish? I am sure, 90% of the people won’t have a specific answer to this. They will go on and on, telling you about ‘n’ no. of incidents, one linking the other; unless you interrupt them. After sometime, you will find yourself sailing in the same boat. Not that anyone asked the same question, but you will enjoy telling about how your childhood was. This is the most natural reaction, that at least I have come across till date. Ignoring the exceptions and stating a self-made theory ‘No matter who you are, where you were born or where you have stayed-you just had a perfect childhood (according to you :P)’.
Out of this nostalgia, I would love going into bit details regarding how it was actually like just a decade ago. Those were the days when we didn’t have laptop’s, cellphones, iPads, PSP’s etc.-we preferred playing games like ‘lagori’, ‘dabba ice-spice’, ‘coconut cocunut’, ‘langdi’, ‘lapan dav’, ‘chippi’, and the best part being that every place had a new name for the same game, amazing!!! Isin’t it. It was supposed to be a tradition to be followed- the bade didi’s and bhaiya’s used to take a lead in deciding what to play, lets say rather who amongst us will get a chance to play. I am sure most of us hated being the ‘kacha-limbu’ of the team. Bruising your elbows, knees, head and getting soiled was a complimentary practice. I still remember, whenever me and my brother used to go home after the play time, we were thoroughly ‘washed’ by our mother right away in the bathroom. Not to mention, having a sibling of your own age was a plus as you need not wait or wander for your gang to come-you always had a company. ^_^
Apart from games, the serials that we were exposed to were amazing! Almost none of us believed in missing shaktiman, sonpari or even shaka laka……Be it small wonder or mahabharat- we were supposed to watch them religiously. How can you miss such important shows ;). Its absolutely ok if you are singing the title track of any of the above show’s.
We used to die for those pepsi’s in plastic and the emli’s. For the naughty ones like me even a slate pencil, chalk, gili mitti formed a part of the regular diet. Fighting for you most favourite WWE card’s or a particular colour for your lunch box, and having the most sophisticated pencil box was a our right. Those last pages of the notebooks were always filled up with strange but yet interesting games like ‘name,place,animal’, ‘X and 0’, joining the dots, pen-fights etc. Believe me those were our pass-times during a boring class or even lunch breaks at school.
I still remember, my mom devising ways to solve those everyday small fights between me and my brother. Those solutions were amazing though-but back then we were too sincere and innocent to follow them. With changing times and lifestyle, the entire definition of childhood has undergone a huge transformation. That innocence is not found these days. Even the tiny tots want to grow up (don’t want to get offtrack 😀 )!!
Now this doesn’t seem to have any ending, and so I would love to leave the rest to the reader’s. I know that’s an abrupt ending 😀
P.S – Occasionally remembering those things and telling people about it, gives a very different energy. So go ahead and try doing that right away! 🙂
A clip that I guess you can relate to completely, do watch this too 🙂
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ1zZ8VaN7M”
Courtsey : YouTube
Kalyani Shelat 
Leave a comment