Handful of gooseberries!
April 4, 2005 by parijaatha
As I sat looking outside the window of my bus..I grimaced!monday was back again…and it was back to work as usual:(I am not the kind of a person who wallows in self-pity(I am actually known to be irritatingly chirpy!).I gave myself a shake(mentally).. and I remembered those not-so-long-ago days…when I was just a kid running, screaming loudly at nothing at all!
I remember those times vividly…scraped knees..dirty fingers..grubby clothes..running around with hero(my dog…who is no more)I was a chubby ..and a silent kinda kid..my mom still says the only sound I ever made was that of laughing.Everything made me laugh…
Every time it would rain…we(my brother and myself) would have races of paper boats…and would dance with glee every time the opponent’s boat sank:).What fun it was to jump in puddles once the rain stopped…and sip the rain drops off one’s hair.
Or those hot summer afternoons..when we played with the water hose in our small garden..and came dripping into the house….
I think of those summer holidays spent in my granny’s place..with my childhood buddies…stealing gooseberries from the neighbor’s house..oh!what fun those days were!We would have a plan..a leader who designated roles…and when it came to climbing trees I was as lithe as a cat..but would be terrified of climbing down…I would sit on some branch and wait for my uncle to get me down…no one else..only my uncle!
What pleasure it was to sit in a huddle and eat those gooseberries with salt and chilly powder!and those mangoes pickled in salt water..yummy!
Now..caught in this tide of salaries,projects,savings..beating everybody else…salary hikes…the heart grows heavy and there is a drought of causeless mirth…sigh!
There was a time when happiness was about here and now..but today its a distant mirage..always out of reach(at least most of the times…).
Those were the days when happiness was a bubbling spring within my heart..and today..what I call happiness lasts only the day my salary gets credited or when i buy a new pair of jeans!
oh! How I yearn for those days..when happiness was just a handful of gooseberries!
>>we(my brother and myself) would have races of paper boats…
Your saying that just reminded me that me and my sis used to do the same thing
Hello
Great piece of work!Well written!
I agree to what you have written towards the end, I would even like to add that the day “salary” get credited, we start waiting for the next one to come, as our “already planned” expenditures take away the major (or for me -the complete) chunk of what comes as “salary”-thanks to our wild usage of freely available “credit cards” which have made our lives on credit. What do you say on this?
The days of childhood are days to be remembered and enjoyed over and over again. Whenever I recall my childhood days (though they were much different from what you have written, except the fact that I too was too quite for few and too noisy for others), I find myself saying again, everytime : “What those days were!!”
But I believe in one thing. Let your each day be unique-let each day of your present “age” remind you when you have crossed this limit and can’t do all this you are presently capable of. So just let go! Let the breeze move past your hair, if you feel like screaming..scream…Dont let the child in you die!! because when it does..everything does!!!
Best of luck for everything…
Hoping to eat some mangoes together-but they have to be unripe -ah!..the taste has come live!!