My Summer Vacation

It's May, and I am bustling between online assignment submissions and zoom calls with friends, only to pause for a moment ever too often, to fondly recall my childhood summer vacations. 

One month of no homework and endless play was all that summer vacations meant to me then. In hindsight, I'd add that it was actually one month of utter bliss. My building, which was usually quiet in the mornings would perk up with the screeches of a noisy pack of kids playing cricket all morning. We'd have small picnics in the garage and buy ice cones from the shop near the gate. We'd gush about what we had for lunch as we watched the sunset from the terrace. We'd watch movies at my place and eat pani puris from the vendor who would make it a point to come by our building every day at our stipulated time. He'd laugh and say, anything for his favourite customers. Not a word about school would even be mentioned. Our parents would have to drag us upstairs each night, we kids kept no track of time when it comes to play. 

Those were months of fun and the fondest of memories. I look back at those memories often, and wistfully wish to relive those beautiful days. The cliches speak the truth, back then we didn't realize that we were making memories to last a lifetime, all we knew is that we wanted to have fun. 

Some summers ago, I was playing cricket with my friends and today, I submitted three research papers and am sitting for a video call with my friends in an hour. My friends and I went from playing all morning to texting each other all day. Is this a testimony of times changing? Yes. The times that we are living in now, kids don't really get to go out and play as such and my heart goes out to them. This is the age for all those beautiful memories which sustain you and your friendship for years to come; after all there is truly no one like your childhood friends.

My heart takes a leap as the familiar faces start showing up on the zoom call. I smile as we begin to reminisce about our childhood days and in no time, we make a plan to meet at the terrace in five minutes. Half an hour later, there we all were, masked up at the terrace. We watched the sunset and laughed through the evening, it became our one day of bliss in a tough year. It's one fun evening, an ode to our childhood and it's one good summer after so long.