Your childhood is the best time of your life and also the shortest one.
Those are the days of freedom and enjoyment of life to the fullest.
Those were the times when your aim's were as bold as becoming an astronaut to the plain stupid ones of becoming a taxi driver.
You could be stupid, foolish or even smart enough around the adults and still be admired.
You knew that you were loved and cared for.
But now all of it seems like a distant memory.
I can relate to it too, with the time I've spent playing with my nephew.
He finds fun in anything and everything.
Getting amazed at how the fan or light works, pointing out the birds in the sky, talking on the phone.
For us it may be a daily thing, but to him, each day is like discovering a new thing.
If I describe my childhood then I guess it would be in Delhi, at my nana and nani's garden.
That rectangular piece of land covered in grass, surrounded by trees on the right and plants on the left.
It was there where I would spend a good part of my summer holidays playing in the garden with my brother.
I couldn't wait for my school to end and go to Delhi with my family, travelling in the train and reaching there next day.
Most of the time as I entered the house, I would throw my stuff in the room and dash straight to the garden.
My brother and I liked to play cricket over there with the plastic table as our stump and a brick or a stick at the bowler's end.
We already had our bat there and the balls were unwillingly donated to us by the kids playing in the neighboring park.
Sometimes I would get up early in the morning to see my mom drinking tea in the garden and reading the newspaper with nana and nani, the teacups on the same table that we used as our stump.
There were times when I would also water the plants in the garden and even go to the neighboring garden for a walk.
Later, I would continue our match with my brother and sometimes even dad would join in, though mostly as a spectator.
Nana would at times sit and watch us play; there was this one time when he dozed off and mom asked him if he would like to sleep inside, he said that he would watch us play then go to sleep and mom went back inside.
At times we would play for hours then tired and hungry we would go inside to watch the TV.
There were those times when it got really hot outside and we just sat inside the room, AC on and we would wrestle.
Now, if you have a younger or elder brother and have never ever wrestled with them when you were young, you missed out big time.
We would argue when playing cricket and at times the argument would turn into a brawl and then we would stop playing.
That would last for only a day and then next day we would be back playing again.
We loved to compete with each other and since my bro is good in cricket he would always win.
I have seen almost all types of weather in Delhi, I've seen it rain, hot days, cold days and even days when I didn't know whether to feel hot or cold.
Mom and dad would often take us to visit our relatives there but since that meant cutting down our playing time, I hated it.
I liked to have fun and run around, not sit in one place with people I hardly saw for an year.
I loved to be in the garden, with the big trees from which squirrels would run up and down, the tree with lemons as big as tangerines and the various plants with thorns in them.
I also loved the smell of the grass which sometimes smelt bad but only cause a stray had shat on the bushes.
I spent most of my time playing in the garden than inside the house.
But as time went on and I grew older, entered college, all these things soon came to a halt and the next thing I knew I started to spend more time inside the house than outside in the garden.
It showed that I had grown older and things like playing outside was just a nice part of my childhood.
Time went by and even my trips there started to shorten and when my nana passed away and like my childhood he became a precious part of my memory, I just couldn't imagine that garden without him in it, sometimes drinking tea or watching us play.
I didn't even knew when was the last time I stepped into the garden and noticed the small changes there.
Now that garden has more flowers than before and properly resembles a garden, not a playground where my brother and I would play, but a more colorful and vibrant looking one.
That garden is an important part of mine and many of my cousins and relatives childhood.
Though I doubt any have used it as extensively as my brother and I did.
But I know that when I close my eyes, trying to remember my childhood, it will always show an image of me playing with my brother in that garden.
I know that my childhood may be over and that kind of time will never come back, but it also shows that I had the best time of my life.
It may be over now, like how we stopped noticing the small things in our lives.
The same things that could fascinate a child but we fail to notice, since we're older now and we gotta look at the big stuff and not care about those things anymore.
I do pity the kids today who mostly will never learn the joy of being outside because they are way too busy with their smartphones or tablets.
But you can always take a step back, go visit the park, slide down the slide even if it is too small for you or swing in the swings, swing as high as you can go, only to crash land when you come down.
Even if you get funny looks from people, it doesn't matter since it shows that you had a better childhood than them.
Be proud cause this is the only thing no one can take away from you.
Be proud of your childhood as one day it will all become a distant memory.
Those are the days of freedom and enjoyment of life to the fullest.
Those were the times when your aim's were as bold as becoming an astronaut to the plain stupid ones of becoming a taxi driver.
You could be stupid, foolish or even smart enough around the adults and still be admired.
You knew that you were loved and cared for.
But now all of it seems like a distant memory.
I can relate to it too, with the time I've spent playing with my nephew.
He finds fun in anything and everything.
Getting amazed at how the fan or light works, pointing out the birds in the sky, talking on the phone.
For us it may be a daily thing, but to him, each day is like discovering a new thing.
If I describe my childhood then I guess it would be in Delhi, at my nana and nani's garden.
That rectangular piece of land covered in grass, surrounded by trees on the right and plants on the left.
It was there where I would spend a good part of my summer holidays playing in the garden with my brother.
I couldn't wait for my school to end and go to Delhi with my family, travelling in the train and reaching there next day.
Most of the time as I entered the house, I would throw my stuff in the room and dash straight to the garden.
My brother and I liked to play cricket over there with the plastic table as our stump and a brick or a stick at the bowler's end.
We already had our bat there and the balls were unwillingly donated to us by the kids playing in the neighboring park.
Sometimes I would get up early in the morning to see my mom drinking tea in the garden and reading the newspaper with nana and nani, the teacups on the same table that we used as our stump.
There were times when I would also water the plants in the garden and even go to the neighboring garden for a walk.
Later, I would continue our match with my brother and sometimes even dad would join in, though mostly as a spectator.
Nana would at times sit and watch us play; there was this one time when he dozed off and mom asked him if he would like to sleep inside, he said that he would watch us play then go to sleep and mom went back inside.
At times we would play for hours then tired and hungry we would go inside to watch the TV.
There were those times when it got really hot outside and we just sat inside the room, AC on and we would wrestle.
Now, if you have a younger or elder brother and have never ever wrestled with them when you were young, you missed out big time.
We would argue when playing cricket and at times the argument would turn into a brawl and then we would stop playing.
That would last for only a day and then next day we would be back playing again.
We loved to compete with each other and since my bro is good in cricket he would always win.
I have seen almost all types of weather in Delhi, I've seen it rain, hot days, cold days and even days when I didn't know whether to feel hot or cold.
Mom and dad would often take us to visit our relatives there but since that meant cutting down our playing time, I hated it.
I liked to have fun and run around, not sit in one place with people I hardly saw for an year.
I loved to be in the garden, with the big trees from which squirrels would run up and down, the tree with lemons as big as tangerines and the various plants with thorns in them.
I also loved the smell of the grass which sometimes smelt bad but only cause a stray had shat on the bushes.
I spent most of my time playing in the garden than inside the house.
But as time went on and I grew older, entered college, all these things soon came to a halt and the next thing I knew I started to spend more time inside the house than outside in the garden.
It showed that I had grown older and things like playing outside was just a nice part of my childhood.
Time went by and even my trips there started to shorten and when my nana passed away and like my childhood he became a precious part of my memory, I just couldn't imagine that garden without him in it, sometimes drinking tea or watching us play.
I didn't even knew when was the last time I stepped into the garden and noticed the small changes there.
Now that garden has more flowers than before and properly resembles a garden, not a playground where my brother and I would play, but a more colorful and vibrant looking one.
That garden is an important part of mine and many of my cousins and relatives childhood.
Though I doubt any have used it as extensively as my brother and I did.
But I know that when I close my eyes, trying to remember my childhood, it will always show an image of me playing with my brother in that garden.
I know that my childhood may be over and that kind of time will never come back, but it also shows that I had the best time of my life.
It may be over now, like how we stopped noticing the small things in our lives.
The same things that could fascinate a child but we fail to notice, since we're older now and we gotta look at the big stuff and not care about those things anymore.
I do pity the kids today who mostly will never learn the joy of being outside because they are way too busy with their smartphones or tablets.
But you can always take a step back, go visit the park, slide down the slide even if it is too small for you or swing in the swings, swing as high as you can go, only to crash land when you come down.
Even if you get funny looks from people, it doesn't matter since it shows that you had a better childhood than them.
Be proud cause this is the only thing no one can take away from you.
Be proud of your childhood as one day it will all become a distant memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment