Childhood Revisited

I was going with my 15- year- old son to the market when we passed opposite a hospital. I told him that this hospital is his birthplace. He was very excited and wanted to see the room where he was kept.

I took him to the reception and requested the staff there. The staff was very cooperative and they took us to that room. As we were returning home my son asked me about my birthplace. I told him it is about 200 km from our home in a remote village. He asked me could we go to that place this Sunday. I too had this wish hidden in my mind somewhere and so I gave my consent and on Sunday afternoon we were in that village.

The village has changed very much with time. Where there used to be kacha roads were all metalled now. However, the greenery that used to be there was slightly less.

As we went further into the village, all the houses are now made of bricks and in the ground, a few grown-up boys were playing cricket. We used to play marbles and Gulli danda. Playing marbles was my favorite past time after school.

We asked for Sharma Ji ki haveli, as our ancestral house used to be called those days. Actually my grandfather was a very famous figure in the village and had a very big haveli like a house. An old man guided us to the place, he knew my father and my grandfather. We were two brothers and my father shifted to the city 40 years back and now living with my brother.

As we reached the haveli everything has changed except an old peepal tree in the center. We used to play under that tree and my grandfather used to have a meeting of village elders under the tree.

As we introduced ourselves to the new owner, he offered us tea and biscuits. Two children of about 8-9 years old were quarreling with each other for the mobile phone, they looked like brothers. We brothers at that time used to quarrel like that for sweets.

There were bikes parked outside every house and some of them had cars too. In our old days, our father had only a bicycle and he used to drop us to school on that. My brother used to sit on a back seat called the carrier and I sat on front seat called danda of the bicycle.

After spending two hours there we returned to our city and some very beautiful memories of my childhood accompanied me back home