One of the earliest memories of my childhood is the day when I was rambling, "tappal ul raha hai" (Hindi. Roughly translated : slippers are flying around). I was around 3 then and everybody around grew worried that something has gone terribly wrong. I was taken to a doctor and he asked my mom if I had drank or eaten something. Mother was not sure about it. Doc said that I would be fine in few hours and gave some med for consoling my mom. Later on they discovered that I had drank half a bottle of my grandma's cough syrup and due to the alcohol content, I was feeling dizzy and hence the blurred vision resulted in "tappal ul raha hai". Now I feel that it proved my love for things that taste good ;-).
Most of my early years were spent in Government quarters in Patna as my grandfather was working in public sector enterprise. The area where we lived, Shastri Nagar, was well planned and laid out. Wide roads cut each other at right angle and ample play grounds in the neighbourhood which I do not see in the big cities now where space comes at a premium. During autumn or spring season, I would notice birds of all types sitting on the electric wires early morning and making all sorts of noises. Their nests used to be on the poles supporting the wires. I wondered why the crows or the mainas or the sparrows do not get electrocuted due to high tension wire. They would sit in line on the wire and would fight for places. It felt as if they are having some assembly meeting early morning and would be deciding about important affairs and tasks to be done during the day. Then would see flocks of birds flying down in the same direction at dusk and it would make me feel that they have done their job for the day and are returning back home.
Back then I played all the stupid games along with the kids in the neighbourhood, be it "denga-pani", "gulli-danda", "lali", "running with the cycle tyre", "pitto (7 times)", "looka-chhipi" (I-Spy), "some poshampa stuff", "cheel-jhapti", "dakia bhai dakia" , "kanche (marbles)", "kabaddi", "budhiya kabaddi", "sikdi (chain)", "vish-amrit","chor-sipahi" to name a few. Don't know what today's kids play or what my progenies will play. They will not have time from TV, video games and homework to try their hands at all these games. I believe they will scoff at me if I would give them some rotten cycle tyre and a stick from the guava tree to balance the tyre while running. Then ofcourse I would play other games like cricket in summers and winters, football when it rained (because cricket was not possible then), TT in school, badminton on winter nights, carrom during rainy season, chess, Ludo etc.
Life was so simple and fun. Egos were like bubble which would burst any time and we would be friends again. Worries constituted of when I would go out to play. Why is it raining when it's time to play ? Only shuttle which we bought from pooled in money broke and would have to pack nets and lights because we did not have enough pocket money to buy another shuttle that day. How much we pooled ? One rupee. Would be happy when uncles who played club cricket would give us the cricket ball, seam of which would have broken and cork from inside would be bulging out. Happiness was so easy to come by over simple things. As years have gone by and knowledge has increased, happiness is hard to find or to put it this way, heart has started thinking to be happy !!!
