A Walk Down Memory Lane...

Childhood memories… Aren’t they some of the most precious and priceless ones that we possess? Yet, we can barely recall anything significant from our childhood days. All we remember is probably playing lagori and cricket with our friends, attending school and sometimes bunking it by feigning stomachache, fighting with our siblings and cousins, etc. Why?

Because time has a curious way of blurring out what has passed. Time causes these memories to gather multiple layers of dust and they are usually forgotten as they get pushed down, lower and lower, in the dark and deep far away unused recesses of our complex brain. Most of these memories are lost forever but a very minuscule percentage of these remain etched in our mind, as fresh, as though they were an occurrence of yesterday…

One such childhood memory which, I think of quite often is the family night walk that we used to go on every Saturday - My parents, me and my younger sister. We had this routine for many years; wherein, we used to go for a long and slow walk after dinner. We would walk as slowly as we could, lazily covering about 3 kilometers on each of those walks. What a nice little 'Family Time' it used to be, a few hours of some real and pure fun and entertainment! Before embarking on the walk, my mom would caution me – Beta, gudiya ka khyal rakhna aur hamare saath saath rehna. Though I would have barely been around 10 yrs or something, still these words would always wake up the responsible brother in me. Holding my cute little sisters smallest finger of her left hand tight, together we would step out in a new world, the real world. One of our favorite stroll highlights was the visit to the local garden. Mom and Dad would occupy a park bench leaving us both, all by ourselves to have the time of our lives. The entire garden is ours, we are completely free! We would amuse and giggle and then roll down on those soft green grassy slopes!

(image courtesy: snapshotpics.com)

We’d watch the flowers available in all shapes, sizes and colors blooming all over the garden, or stand on that wooden bridge above the small pond gaping at the milky white ducks or try to spot some fish in the water or just run around racing, trying to outdo each other in who touches that light pole first. I reached first! No, no, it was me! Hehe, how we would bicker kiddishly!

Ah!!! JOY… JOY was such a cheap commodity then!!! In those times, kids derived extreme joy and unadulterated happiness playing with an empty Cardboard Box... For the kids of today's generation, the novelty of playing with an X-Box fades away in a couple of weeks!!! Those halogen filled gas balloons, the occasional chocolate ice creams, the ferry-wheel car rides by the pavements, the multicolored icy golas with the extra juice, the fluffy pinky candy floss… I still recall, how merry it was for us, complete bliss… how we used to take pleasure in the simple sweet moments of life, unmindful of the traffic of people swarming around us, unmindful of any word – worry – ever existing in the dictionaries of life, unmindful that... time… those precious minutes, hours and seconds were fast slipping by… taking with itself all these small joyful, real moments, somewhere… far far far away from me…

(image courtesy: thewallpapers.org)

I am often left wondering - When, Oh when did we stop going for those much loved and enjoyable walks and why? Perhaps when color and cable TV infiltrated our modest home? Perhaps when tuition's assumed more importance and ate away our time? Perhaps when Dad was transferred out of Mumbai for a year?

Perhaps it was time that snatched it all away from me and perhaps it will be time that will provide me an answer someday, I don’t really know... but I think what I do know, is that I should be extending a sincere vote of thanks to the sincere souls out there for giving me an opportunity to at least relive a real childhood experience through this post! Thank You IndiBlogger and Kissan! :)

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