Childhood Days

For every person, the best time in one's life is obviously his/her childhood. This time does not come back again and is full of adventure, innocence, games, and enjoyment.

My childhood days was spent in the sleepy town of Sambalpur in the eastern state of Odisha. I grew up watching cartoons, playing games, going places in holidays and watching my favorite show Mowgli. . .

Mowgli  is a fictional and main character of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book stories. He is a feral boy from the Pench area in Seoni, India, who originally appeared in Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" (collected in Many Inventions, 1893) and then became the most important and memorable character in the collections The Jungle Book.

Many cartoons have been made on him including the one which aired on Doordarshan having the theme song "Jungle jungle baat chali hai pata chala hai. . . arrey chaddi pahan ke phool khila hai phool khila hai".

It aired on Sundays. Now on one of these Sundays, we had a friendly cricket match between us primary school friends. I was the vice-captain of one team. The match timings of the game coincided with the show"Mowgli". I went , batted first, became out as if it was fixing match and came back home, just in time for the show Mowgli, citing stomach ache. We however won the match. . .

It was a very popular show among us kids and this popularity was taken upon by another show a few years hence . . . with the name "Shaktimaan".

Shaktimaan is an Indian Hindi-language superhero television show that aired on Doordarshan from 13 September 1997 to 27 March 2005. I was a high school student during this time and I would still skip my studies and other activities , to watch the show. Again it was aired on Sundays when our schools were closed.

Producer Mukesh Khanna played the role of Shaktimaan and his alter ego "Pandit Gangadhar Vidhyadhar Mayadhar Omkarnath Shastri", who was a photographer for the newspaper Aaj Ki Aawaz. Shaktimaan was depicted as a human who has attained superhuman powers through meditation and five elements of nature: Space, Earth, Air, Fire, Water.  Kitu Gidwani (later replaced by Vaishnavi Mahant) played the role of Geeta Vishwas, a reporter in Aaj ki Awaaz, who loves Shaktimaan.  Surendra Pal played the role of Tamraj Kilvish, who was the negative character in the show. The show was followed by "Shaktimaan: The Animated Series" in 2011, and a television film titled "Hamara Hero Shaktimaan" in 2013.

There was a fancy dress competition where Shankar, a friend of mine dressed up as Shaktimaan in a red costume and he would move round and round as Shaktimaan did before going up in the sky. I dressed up as Subhash Chandra Bose.

Incidentally, both of us won the first two prizes!