Last couple of weeks have been reminiscing a lot about my childhood…guess its was getting in touch with long lost childhood friends (thanks to Orkut, Batchmates) that triggered it off.
17 B/D…our house in Jammu…if I close my eyes I can visualise each nook, tile, carpet design of that house…the room I shared with my siblings…the connecting walk-in cupboard leading to my parents room…the dining table where I fought with my sis and bro for that leg piece of the chicken…
Has a study ever been conducted as to how come children don’t feel hot in the scorching sun, as long as they are out playing? I would be out in the hot afternoon sun sitting near the water tank and playing in the water while the maid washed the clothes…and mom begging me to come inside and sleep in the AC…but no …I just wanted to play in the sun…
Ahhhhhh…. the birthday parties…we were filthy rich then so we had lavish birthday parties…the whole town was invited I guess… That whole afternoon the servants would be carrying chairs from the nearby Little Flower Nursery School and then mom would organise the chaat waala, tikki waala, the candy floss man and a couple of more reri(carts) walas who would set up their carts in the long driveway …we had a driveway for at least 5 cars I think….
And the birthday cakes…always elaborate ones…airplanes, trains with 5 bogies, a castle with the works (a princess etc)…
And of course …how can I forget those sunny winter afternoons when we would eat our lunch in the huge garden that we had … gobbling down plates of red carrots and radishes with loads of red chilli powder and lemon…
Then we decided to get dogs…not one, not two but three at the same time…a Labrador (Maggi), a cross between a Spitz and a Sheepdog (Sausage) and a Bakhrwal – its found only in the hills in Kashmir and has wolf like looks and habits (Tommy). I don’t know what made me decide that Sausage was some kind of a performing trick dog…so I would place him on this high windowsill and prod him and goad him to jump off…poor baby….
One wrong business decision and we had to sell off that house. A couple of years later I met a girl in one of the tuitions classes who I became quite pally with …but when I came to know that her family had bought our house, I just didn’t want to even know her. I know…how juvenile of me…but I guess it just hurt so much back then…
That house had and will have a special place in my heart. I used to be in hostel when we lived in that house and I spent only holidays there but still its soo vivid in my memories… whereas the houses that we moved into after that and where I lived for 2-3 years I can’t seem to remember…
Memories, memories, memories...
No comments:
Post a Comment