MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME.. AND BEYOND..MAYBE!

 

Summer is here and I can’t stop thinking about my childhood summer times..

I grew up in a joint family. Our house stood in a serene, calm residential locality with mostly silent neighborhood... apart from the noise we made of course! It was a beautifully designed independent house with a lot of greens around.. from roses to varieties of jasmine.. we had it all! The pathway to the garage had a strip of bushes and plants in the middle and this used to be our favorite observation area. We cousins witnessed numerous larvae growing into caterpillars and then into beautiful butterflies. Although ours was an orthodox household, we never once felt suffocating…well, maybe our moms took all of that and made us breathe free 😊

All I remember are the moments of joy during summer season, when all of us kids were given a triangular piece of watermelon each or big slices of mango that we’d smear and eat making it all yellow around the mouth. We’d assemble around the open drain (those days there weren’t closed drainages) and spit out the seeds like bullets getting fired by a gun !!

I had my cousins living with us for quite some time, during which I had made friends in the neighborhood as well. The onset of summer and we kids would already start planning the playtime, the different games that we would play during holidays, the events that should be conducted for us - like cultural programmes, races, sports events etc. Even before thinking about the events, we’d be planning the attire .. 😊 golden times indeed..

There would compulsorily be some religious event in our households, scheduled for the holiday season and we used to be so excited about the food variety - the banana leaf food spread, people coming over.. and mostly.. more kids to play with!!

The holiday season had started. It was the day we had some event planned at home. While we never realized the amount of work and stress our mums were put to, all that mattered to us was the celebrative atmosphere - a no-routine, free play day, fun-filled ! I remember, my parents were busy setting the house right for the “Bhajan Sandhya”, the musical evening, and we were there, enjoying an outing with our uncle, my dad’s eldest brother, who’d pamper us with what our mums restricted- colorful gum balls and chocolates. I still remember how we would have our hands full with those colored gums and stuff some into our pockets as well, before reaching home 😊.

When dusk set in, we would all change to night clothes and hit the road to play badminton, running and catching..(that’s what we called this game back then), Hide & Seek or some board game, which we would set up in the middle of the huge compound we had, in all of our houses. This used to be the favorite place. All houses had this space in the front yard and we’d shift from house to house to set up board games for play.

The locality was silent through the night, breezy too, because of the many trees around and most importantly.. safe. We never witnessed thefts or the like in childhood. The sound of someone stepping on the sump lid would usually be that of a cat or a rat!!

Our summer cultural events would be a local one organized by the mums, dads and grandparents of our friends. There were dances, group songs, solos, dramas etc., all followed by prize distribution to the best performers – the most awaited moment for us. We were mostly a group of girls. The boys were much younger, so you can imagine the “color rush” during these events !! The entire stretch of road was festive during this time.

Back then, eating out was not very popular and we enjoyed the delicacies prepared by other mums. That itself was a big change from our own food routines. Every one of our mums prepared a special variety of snacks and we hopped homes in the evenings and got to eat yummy stuff. They loved making it for us and there was never a calculation of how many times one ate in a house or whatsoever!

Summer would come and go. We became thick friends and would share the smallest of small incidents with each other, play through the night, cycle away on the neatly tarred roads, circling amidst the calm streets, prank one another, make merry munching on ice candies, learn music or attend summer camps, indulge in crafts from things collected on the road, trees, fallen flowers etc., pursue hobbies and so on. Minor fights and making up for it were a part of the holidays too.

My summer memories are still fresh and bring a smile on my face. I hope our kids make such memories for themselves too, to cherish forever.

The memorable part was, we ate together, played together, fought together and again came together.

Although there were differences amongst the elders in every house, they made sure we never got entangled in that and that is exactly why I have pleasant memories when I turn back.

Such were those times.. the trust, care, affection, anxiety.. everything for everyone !