Bachpan ke din

The days of childhood are the most precious..talk to anyone about those days and the eyes shine up with a gleam and a sparkle and I am no exception to that.
I have so,so,so many stories from my childhood days. And I like to keep them intact in my memories by narrating them to my kids now; they are also intrigued by those stories; more so by the fact that even their mom was a kid (like a REAL kid!!!!)

I grew up in a joint family,a full house with Babaji, Maa, Chacha, Chachi, bua and my sisters and brother.
We did not even know the concept of cousins, so everyone was simply sisters and brothers.
And then we had some common toys in the house that we used to share, like the wooden orange,yellow horse like this (Remember???)

One toy and 5 kids to share and yet we were able to come up with a sharing plan between the kids, without any of the grown ups getting involved. We assigned specific rooms and areas of home to each kid. If the toy was found in those areas, that kid had the privilege to ride that toy. And even till date, my mom, chachi and buas tell the stories to their grandkids that with that arrangement, we never had a fight for the toy.

Evenings used to be party at the house. All the kids from the street used to gather at our house and Pakdam-pakdai and chupan-chupai used to be usual games to play. All the auntys and mom used to have their evening tea on the upper gallery, discussing their knitting patterns and dinner plans for the night.

With changing times, the games that we played also changed. But the theme was always the same, to have the most fun while spending the most time with the siblings and friends.
Whether it was the game of creating a towers out pillows and blankets for the little brother and making him sit as a king or playing shopping at home by accumulating different stuff from all over the house.

And then there were instances where mom became the strict on us when one of us did something really wrong or threw a fit on something. One of my favorite memory (not so favorite back then) is of a time when my brother got mad at something and decided to leave the house (yeah at the age of 5 years!) so when he said that, my mom very calmly asked him to pack his stuff and leave if he wanted to. So he looked around the house and packed all his valuables (which included 6 marbles, 4 stickers, 4 toy cars and few other knick-knacks) in his box and dashed towards the door. Me being the sentimental older sister wanted to stop him but mom asked me not to. So in the summer afternoon, he is out of the home, wandered around on the street for a while and then probably  was thirsty. So he went to the nearest park and tried to find some water. When he could not find any, rang the bell on the door and asked for some water. And that's when my mom taught him the most important lesson of life: Leaving what you have is easy but then only you realize how important it was for you.

As I remember all these stories and other anecdotes from my childhood, I cannot stop and wonder how easily we learnt important life lessons through these play activities. With all the focus now on electronic devices, video games and demanding work load at schools, the one to one interaction between the kids and free play is kind of lost on them. I try to include free outside play for my kids, just so that they can learn to interact, communicate, play and even handle their own disputes with other kids in their own ways.

I am sure they will have their own stories to tell their kids when they reach the stage to reminisce their days of childhood. 

This post is being written for the #BachpanWithFlinto blogger contest

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U is for the unconventional

It is  not too often in life that we come across people that do not follow the norms and rules of life; Live life on their own ways. I am always intrigued by such unconventional people because it takes a lot of courage to do so and not worry about the judgement of other people. I, for one,am very conscious at times of what other people will think or that I should be following a set of rules.

One such unconventional person I remember is from my school days. He came as our Maths teacher in XIth grade. At that time, it was said he was just a substitute teacher.
An elderly man, walking with a stick in his hands, for his troubling back, Mr Dhayia, always walked with a limp.
But he had a way with the maths subject and his student. And right from the first day,he was different.
Not like other teachers at all. He always said "I do not believe in punishing the students for not doing the homework. If I  could make the kids do homework that way, I'd have taught the subject to a cow or a mule. I am dealing with human beings here who have the ability to think and take decisions"

Once, when he caught one of the students eating his lunch during the class in the back of the class, instead of reprimanding the student, he offered the student to take his time to finish his lunch and then discuss with him personally on the problems he missed. Because, again according to him, "a hungry student could never concentrate, especially on Maths problems"

He made even the toughest of maths problems on derivatives and integrals seem so simple with his logic and smart tricks he taught us to tackle those problems.

And before the exams, he always told us "You all are so prepared that you need not be scared of the question paper. The examiner will be scared with your answers"
And before every exam, he would be standing right outside the exam hall,  boosting confidence of each one of us.And he always said "You should be so confident that after the exams, you should be able to calculate your scores yourself"

He ended up staying for both our XI and XII grades and improved the maths grades for our class so much. I  stayed in touch with him for about a month after I left school. I still wonder where he is or how many lives he touched.

I is for the ink pen

So do you like to write? With what kind of pen? Wait, before you brush me off as someone crazy asking crazy questions, hear me out.

Remember, in school as you graduated from 8th grade to 9th grade, all of a sudden you earned a new privilege: that you could do you school assignments in pen. No more hassles of keeping sharpened pencils,an eraser and a spare pencil sharpener in your pencil box. You could be the "cool kid" with a fancy pen to show off.

But wait, the very first day of school supply shopping, mom rolls out the policy: "Those fancy gel pens and ball point pens make your handwriting go bad. So you'll start with an ink pen". What??????
All those dreams of finally getting one of those colorful reynolds pen for yourself is gone?
Yes, dad gives you one of the basic ink pens and your shelf is also stocked with a bottle of royal blue Camlin ink to start your day at school.
The first day you come back with blue ink smeared all over your hands, your copies, even your school uniform. And you absolutely hate it.

But as you continue using this new writing tool, you start loving it. The way it writes it seems as if the  words are  flowing out and just arranging themselves on the paper. You start loving the little stain it leaves on the inside of your ring finger.

And then one day, dad opens up his collection of the finest Chinese ink pens that he had been collecting and asks you to pick one. With the elated feeling, you choose the sea blue colored one with a shiny golden cap. You treasure it more than anything and write with it with more pride than what any Governor General would ever had (I am not kidding, I used to think of myself so special as a kid, obviously in my imaginations)

And since then, I never hated those ink pens or those ink stains. If given a chance today, I would prefer to use one today too. I still like to maintain a paper journal with a pen in my bag. But, ironically, too much technology (storyboards) and convenience have taken prominence in our lives.

D is for the dance teacher

When I was growing up as a kid in Ranchi, we used to live in a very close knit neighborhood.

Our nursery school was just round the corner from our house and just across the street was the huge villa of our dance teacher, Mrs. Bhattacharya

She was a teacher at our school and she also was the dance teacher for me and my sisters.

I remember I was always so mesmerized by her house.

A typical Bengali house, with a huge garden with so many flowers, her own garden facing the road had a huge fence and it was all covered in little purple flowers..

An elderly cook, with white dhoti and kurta, one maali whom I always saw watering the plants, in the garden as well as tons of money plants inside the house.

The smell of fish  and rice always lingering in the house.

Mrs Bhattacharya’s mom, an elderly lady, always clad in white, busy doing puja and always had a white teeka smeared on her forehead.

In her room, which we crossed while going to the practice room, that fragrance of mogra and raat ki rani flowers, plucked from their garden

And decorated in the room, big picture of Ma Kaali with fresh flower offerings in front of her

Huge painting of Rabindranath Tagore hung over her bed,

Her bed, made to perfection and surrounded by the mosquito net hanging on all 4 sides.

So many musical instruments in her room: you name it: table, harmonium, sitar

And then her little almirah with glass doors, where she had hundreds of figurines decorated.

Little dolls, animals, various gods, even a mini doll house with each room clearly visible with the miniscule beds, sofa and rocking chairs.

And Mrs Bhattacharya herself, always clad in a crisp cotton  saree, black rimmed glasses on her nose and always welcomes us sisters by saying:

“Tum log aa gaya, jol khabee ke?”

The 3 shy sisters would just nod the head and follow her to the practice room, all the while whispering to each other and giggling.

We would put the ghungroos on our feet and start the practice with the beats “1-2-3-4; 4-2-3-1; 1-4;1-4”

And then would come the performance night in our colony.

More than the dance performance, the dressing up part was the fun.

Several days before the event, we would make the paper jewelry using craft paper.

We would cut stripes of colorful craft paper, and then needle through it and twist it to give it a flowery look.

She would dress all 3 of us in white sarees with red border in traditional Bengali style.

Put a side bun on the hair and then put all those paper jewelry.

And then she put the red alta on our hands and feet.

During the performance, she’d sit in the front row, lip syncing the song, doing actions with her hand and escorting us out when it was all over.

All of this is from about 30-34 years back. And as I started writing it, it all came back like a flash movie in front of my eyes.

It has been so long that we left Ranchi.

I don’t even know what happened to her or where she is.

Wherever she is, I hope she realizes that she made a great impact on 3 little girls.

Some memories are forever

I am sure each one of us have a memory of some special place or special soneone tucked away safely under the layers of our mind, which comes back to us every now and then.
I have a memory of one such special place, from my childhood.


I was born and brought up in Ranchi, a place in Bihar. Believe me when I say it, it was a completely different place then.
Ranchi was considered the hill station of the state, with all its scenic beauty and beautiful falls.

The house we used to live was names "Jain Niwas"
And the front porch of the house, we used to call it "chajja"; that is the special place I am talking about.

It was the place where Mummy used to sit and chat with all neighbouring aunties, while all the kids played downstains in the front "aangan"
That way, they all could keep an eye on their kids

That was the place where Sunday mornings, we all three sisters would take our turn to get our hairs oiled by mummy.

That was the place we used to watch the rains from, the aeroplanes in the sky from.

That was the place from where I would yell the "puchke wala", "chana chor garam wala" and the "son papdi wala" bhaiya to wait while I go and ask mummy if I could have those

That was the place from where mummy used to call "Dolly ki mummy" to ask tap water was coming in their house or not !!

And that was the place where we all would sit on long nights with powercuts and just look at moon and stars and mummy would tell us stories of pari and raja and rakhsas(demons) and a wicked old woman.

And there was a iron grill railing in front of that porch.
And me and all my sisters would climb on that railing to wave bye to papa and chacha when they left for work

And my youngest sister, the kind of experimenter she is, once tried to get her head between those railings.
And she did manage to get her head stuck there, the only problem was, she was not able to take it out.
So while I went to call mumma, my other sister scared the hell out of her saying that now her head has to be cut to get it out of that railing.
And then there was an open terrace just in front of that "chajja"
Papa used to put "bajra" and some water in a dish for the birds every morning there
None of us were allowed to get on that terrace because it was open from all sides
But occassionally, when something would fall on that terrace(after rain/wind), me being the eldest, had the privilege of climbing over the railing and getting down on the terrace (with my mom reminding me everyother minute ""chhat ke kone par pair bhi mat rakhna ("Don't even step near theend of the terrace")
And with my sisters giving me that jealous looks and fighting over whose turn would it be next time to get down on the terrace.


We lived in Ranchi only till I was like 10 or 11, but for some reason, I have very clear memories of that house and specially this place.
I am there often in my dreams too.
Do you have any such special memory to share?

Nostalgic

I missed you Papa yesterday when I made your favorite dal for dinner, and missed you Mom when it somehow tasted exactly like how you used to make it when we all came back from school/college/work in the afternoons and you had the entire lunch table ready for us.

And I mised you Ritu, my sis on your B'day today.
May you have everything and anything you wish for!!

On the lighter note: My brother crafted this to tease her:
Whole world gets fooled on April 1, the April Fool's day. And my mom dad got fooled on April 2 when she came to them :-)

Oh, and he is good at creating such teasers for his sisters

Once, my mom was trying to find the birth certificate for my youngest sis she needed for some of her degree program. And my mom somehow just couldn't find it. And that just gave him this idea. He goes to S, my youngest sis and says this (Imagine this with saadest look on his face and an equally sad tone):

"I think I'll have to finally reveal it to you since Mom just can't break this to you. You see, you are not her real daughter, she found you lying somewhere and so she just adopted you. All these years, she just didn't want to make you sad, so she showed you some fake papers while you could not read. Now that you have somehow learned to read, she is acting as if she cannot find it, but actrually there is none"

And sitting there, we all were in splits of laughter, while S was running after my brother to get hold of him and tell him how much real and adopted she was. He still teases her on this till day.

Gosh, those were such good old days !!
I so miss them.

And now that I wrote it,I realise that I do rewind to my past a lot.
Whether it is good or not, but that is true. My family, my brother and my sisters are my lifeline.

Bachpan

Aaah.. just the mention of it brings back so many memories, kuch khaati kuch meethi ..
Such were those days !! Most of my childhood memories are filled around my 2 sisters R and S and lil kiddo brother (He is all married now but for me, still that lil kid, even today)
a) I am the boss
So, these stories go back to the times when it was just 3 of us.And we were like ages 5-6-7 yrs (yeah all 3 of us are a year apart) And because I was the eldest of them, so R and S just accepted whatever crazy explanations I used to give them for all their questions. Every year, during our
summer vacations, we used to come to Delhi to my Nani's place. And the most exciting part of that used to be the 30 hour train journey from Ranchi to Delhi. So, in the train, all 3 of us used to take turns to sit on the window side. We loved to see through lots of fields, stations, huts ... Loved the "white puri (Aka chole bhatoore) at Kanpur station

And one of the interesting things we used to observe was lots of those "star shaped electrical grids". So my "obviously curious" sisters asked me "Mona, Do you know what are these?"

And Ms Mona(yeah, that's me) could never say "I don't know" to any of those questions.

So despite being a 7 yr old myslef, my "intelligent reply" to them was "You see, on Dusshera,you have seen how they burn the Ravan and Meghnad, so these are the frames that are left over after they have burnt those?"
R & S (together, with a weird surprise look) - Really? But why would they burn Ravan near the train lines and so far away from houses?
Me (Feeling very proud, that I have an answer for that too) - Are budhuu !! they do it so that no one gets burn when the Ravans are burnt !!
And they would be so excited, that they counted all the "so called Ravans" throughout the train ride. And now years later, till today, they tease me about that "explanation" I gave them :-)

Any explanation I give to them, is compared to that "response" to rate it on a stupidity scale !!

b) Okay, so this incident relates to my lil brother M. As per my mom, I was the spoiling factor for my brother. (Now tell me, was I spoiling him if I used to do his homework with my left hand when he was getting late in the morning, or covering his copies with brown cover, so that the teacher would not reject his homework, giving him chocolates from my share of money which mamaji used to give me when he used to visit us ??)

Anyways, that's still a debate factor between me and my mom. So one fine afternoon, based on some arguement with mom,he decides that no one loves him in the family and he just doesn't want to live here. So he packs his stuff (which consisted of a box filled with all sorts of colorful marbles, stickers and one of his fav T shirt) and gets out of the house. My mom never pampered her kids, when they threatened her about 2 things: Leaving the house and not eating the food.

So my mom was really cool and I was getting all teary eyed, asking my mom to stop him. And my mom's response was: "He has to realize himself to come back. So just wait and watch and see him come back"
(all this while,my 2 sisters are watching the entire saga and giggling saying "In dono ke drame to hamesha chalu rehte hai !!")
It was a hot summer afternoon in Delhi. We had a park just opposite our house. So M goes there and sits on a bench for some time. Then, I guess he gets thirsty, so he got up and tried to get a sip of water from one of the taps in the park. As you can guess, he did not like that hot water (as
compared to gulping water straight from the fridge water bottle). So he sits there for a while again and then rings the bell at home. I run to answer it, but my mom stops me in between and asks him "Kaun hai? Kya chahiye? (Who is it? What do you want?)"
And M replies: "Ek pani ki bottle to de do!!"
And my mom says "Ghar par aakar apne aap le jao"
He decides he doesn't want it and goes away again. And all through this, I am all hysteric as to what will happen to my lil brother.So he finally roams around in the street for about 45 mins more, then may be realises that the streets are all deserted and it is all hot and humid. So, he finally rings the bell again and says "Yeh mat samajhna ki main wapas aa gaya hoon.Main sirf abhi sone aaya hoon. Uthkar fir se chala jaoonga !!(Don't think I have come back. I am just here to take a nap. I'll leave again after I get up)"
And the rest, you can imagine, what would have happened !! He didn't even remember that he had to leave after he got up. His friends came to call him for their street cricket game and the day just went off. At dinner time, when we reminded him to leave, he was all embarrased and just ignored us !! We tease him till today for that and that fella has one standard answer :Are, teeno behno ka byaah jo karna tha na, isliye ruk gaya :-)" (I just came back because I had 3 sisters to marry off !!)

c) Hum Teen
It was the time when I was probably 8 yrs old and we were still in Ranchi at that time. And my mom had to go to Delhi urgently for a week because my Nanaji was ill. so she asked a lady to cook for us.And instructed all 3 of us to take care of ourselves and my dad properly. And also not to miss school or homework. And again (as always), I was the eldest, so the responsibility was on me to make sure that the other 2 did not create any panga.
So, the day, my mom was to leave, we all went to the railway station to board her in the train. And just as the train had left, we realised, that the home keys were gone with Mom. But the train was also gone.Anyways, so my dad came up with an idea. The train to Delhi from Ranchi also went to few of the other closeby stations like Patratu and Ramgarh.So my dad asked one of his workers to drive to one of those stations and see if he could get the keys from my Mom there. However, all those efforts were futile. so, we came back and now we are trying to find a way to get into our home.So dad gets a ladder, and tried to get into the house through one of the other verendah we had. and he does.Finally, we are in the house. Then the cooking lady's son comes and informs us that she slipped in her house and she won't be able to come and cook
for us !! All of us, including my dad, look at each other's face as to "What do we do now?" (Remember, that was not the era of Maggi/McDonalds/Pizza)
But, me being the eldest, blart off: "Don't worry , Papa. Hum kuch bhi bana lenge !!"And all 3 of us get into the kitchen and make "Aadhi kachi aadhi pakki" rotis and aloo matar sabzi.And my ever darling dad ate that khana, without even letting us know that mirchi was too much and salt was too less. My mom called us back as soon as she reached Delhi (next morning, again remember, that was the era of no-cellphone)
She was not told anything till she came back. She didn't even realize that the keys were gone with her till after a few days.But we 4 had great fun with dad during those days. Hewould come back home from work early every day and take us for a softy at Firayalal.
Those were the days... they were really golden !!I can go on and on and on about those
But I'll be back soon with more stories....Till then
Dil se