Childhood Revisited

Childhood is everyone’s favorite period. Long lost into the dark recesses of mind, one day there was an unstoppable urge in me to visit my childhood place. I picked up my car and set out on a long journey to a town where I had spent most of my childhood. I was in a very excited state of mind at the prospect of seeing moments from my childhood in the by lanes of our house and school.

On the way I noted some beautiful sight from distance. On approaching it I found it was a flame tree, with resplendent scarlet orange flowers in full bloom. Petals of the flame tree flowers strewn on the ground with squirrels running amok amongst them. The squirrels were in a very playful mood, in between staring at me, the intruder, while being busy in their own feast.

A cool breeze brought the mild scent of the flowers and filled me with endless joy. I took some time to capture the beauty of the moment in my mind and moved on towards my intended destination.

On reaching my childhood city, I headed for my school. It was Sunday and the school was closed. There was a lone gardener who let me inside on learning that I was a past student.

I strolled inside watching the school building, trees etc., thinking about the sights & sounds of my school days, with the awe of a little child. I found a big mango tree at the end of the school ground, which was used by us to learn tree-climbing. I tried to find the treasures stored in a hole in the bole of the tree. But my treasure was nowhere to be seen. Not to be disheartened, I tried to take in the smells of the surroundings by deep breathing, to find if any moment of my childhood was still frozen in time.

After trying very hard, my mind responded to the smell of flowers of a Champa tree. It was a strong smell, filling the mind & body with the odors of the days gone by. I could see me with my friends standing in the morning assembly in the lush green school grounds with folded hands, eyes closed, reciting our morning prayers. I would intermittently open one eye to see if everybody was around!

The Champa tree was our favourite, and I would partake my school lunch with my classmates in its soothing shade and soulful aroma of its flowers. I peeped inside some of the classrooms through glass windows and it felt as if I heard sounds of students and our teacher. On seeing the school grounds, I could see me running amok during the recess time and playing with my friends.

Having filled myself with the moments from my schooldays I said goodbye once again to my school, perhaps forever now, and headed for the house, that was our residence during my childhood. The streets were all familiar. I was trying to ascertain the identity of some of shopkeepers, whom we had visited regularly for hiring comic s or buying stationery supplies. But forty years is a long time and there was hardly any resemblance to the present occupants of shops.

On reaching my old house, I was awestruck at the same street as I had left it forty years ago. I couldn’t muster the courage to enter the house but could see inside when one of the occupants came out. I took some rounds of the streets around my house to experience the same joy as I had during my childhood.

I remembered our favorite pastime during childhood that was flying kites. Then my focus was more on catching a kite broken loose after a fierce battle with the opposing kites. On seeing the dark pink string of the kite, lurking in the air above, whizzing past rapidly like a snake from one rooftop to the other, I would jump, running to catch hold of the string, unmindful of the dangers of a foot slipping or an impending fall.

Later when I finally caught hold of the dark pink string, with the kite still high up in the sky, pulling hard on the string, the string would slip momentarily from my little fingers & give me a deep cut on the forefinger. Even with a pang of pain running down my spine, blood oozing out from the finger, I would again tightly hold the string & carefully pull it till I got the kite as a prized possession with me!

The joy of flying kites was overpowering, I, being unmindful of the fact that I would not be able to write a word of my homework with my fingers having cuts from the glass coated kite strings. Sometimes it resulted in a demeaning slap from my teacher for neglecting homework for the joy of flying kites all day.

I, having left my childhood far away in the folds of times gone-by, felt myself as a kite flying lonely in the skies, with broken string, drawn into the unending race called life!