"Sweet innocence" .... Simple description of the best phase of life - childhood. This is when we are the closest to our real inner selves. When our objective in life is to be and make others happy..... To enjoy each moment... To wake up as early as possible and never want to sleep....stress at most is limited to losing a kite to the friend staying in the neighbourhood....wants are limited to number of coloured marbles that we own....dreams are all about having a puppy.
A walk down the memory lane of early days of life must surely conjure up a number of lovely and tender memories for all of us.... For me, it seems like ages have passed.... I miss all those joyful moments of pranks and naughty tricks....simple bliss of summer vacations....gully cricket....hide-n-seek....colours and water balloons of Holi and early morning crackers of Diwali. I yearn for my childhood friends who have scattered all across the world and some have sadly passed on to other lifetimes.
As children, our foremost priority in life was to grow up and become adults.... Which is such an irony... We used to feel that our elders are poking fun of us for wanting us to enjoy the best phase of lives...little did we know that they were serious. Looking back now, those were the carefree days when life was full of innocence and merriment....as a child my biggest reason to grow up was to avoid having to ever appear in an exam!! Never imagined that those cute exams once ever few months on a paper would be replaced with the daily surprise tests of life with real challenges and serious consequences.
Life has indeed moved on to the fast lane. Childhood and innocence are shrinking in terms of time and quality... Parents are now completing their unfinished studies while spending evenings and weekends trying to learn and then teach the subjects to kids who have just completed long days at school followed by extra tuition and now have homework and assignments. If that's not enough, there's cricket, swimming, karate, music, dance, gymnastics or foreign language coaching.
"Abhimanyu" was indeed lucky to have learnt the secret of breaking into the chakravyuh (battle formation) while still in the womb of his mother. If he had been born in today's times, he wouldn't have had a spare minute to learn this great skill after birth.
So I dedicate today's happy moments to the wonderful memories of a blessed childhood to:
- The love and care of the best parents and family I could ever ask for
- The most wonderful teachers who blessed me with their selfless gift of knowledge and wisdom
- The lifelong friends that I made even before I knew what the spelling of "friendship" was
- The innocent infatuations complete with Bollywood songs for company
- Naughty pranks played on unsuspecting friends
- Proudly declaring that my ambition in life was to become a"Sweeper".... Having been duly coached by my elder brother that this was the most respectable profession
Looking back at those special memories, I cannot help but be grateful to god for having blessed me with a wonderful life. Pure happiness and pure bliss!
I will end this nostalgic blog with a poem that I used to proudly recite in front of dear ones.... Again a tribute to my elder brother's convincing capabilities!
The Nonsense Poem
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Donkeys and Mules.
I stand before you,
To stand behind you.
To tell you something,
I know nothing about.
One fine morning,
In the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight.
With their swords in their hands,
They shot at each other.
Two deaf policemen,
Heard the noise,
And came to shoot the two dead boys.
If my tale you don't believe,
Ask the blind man.... He saw it all!
A walk down the memory lane of early days of life must surely conjure up a number of lovely and tender memories for all of us.... For me, it seems like ages have passed.... I miss all those joyful moments of pranks and naughty tricks....simple bliss of summer vacations....gully cricket....hide-n-seek....colours and water balloons of Holi and early morning crackers of Diwali. I yearn for my childhood friends who have scattered all across the world and some have sadly passed on to other lifetimes.
As children, our foremost priority in life was to grow up and become adults.... Which is such an irony... We used to feel that our elders are poking fun of us for wanting us to enjoy the best phase of lives...little did we know that they were serious. Looking back now, those were the carefree days when life was full of innocence and merriment....as a child my biggest reason to grow up was to avoid having to ever appear in an exam!! Never imagined that those cute exams once ever few months on a paper would be replaced with the daily surprise tests of life with real challenges and serious consequences.
Life has indeed moved on to the fast lane. Childhood and innocence are shrinking in terms of time and quality... Parents are now completing their unfinished studies while spending evenings and weekends trying to learn and then teach the subjects to kids who have just completed long days at school followed by extra tuition and now have homework and assignments. If that's not enough, there's cricket, swimming, karate, music, dance, gymnastics or foreign language coaching.
"Abhimanyu" was indeed lucky to have learnt the secret of breaking into the chakravyuh (battle formation) while still in the womb of his mother. If he had been born in today's times, he wouldn't have had a spare minute to learn this great skill after birth.
So I dedicate today's happy moments to the wonderful memories of a blessed childhood to:
- The love and care of the best parents and family I could ever ask for
- The most wonderful teachers who blessed me with their selfless gift of knowledge and wisdom
- The lifelong friends that I made even before I knew what the spelling of "friendship" was
- The innocent infatuations complete with Bollywood songs for company
- Naughty pranks played on unsuspecting friends
- Proudly declaring that my ambition in life was to become a"Sweeper".... Having been duly coached by my elder brother that this was the most respectable profession
Looking back at those special memories, I cannot help but be grateful to god for having blessed me with a wonderful life. Pure happiness and pure bliss!
I will end this nostalgic blog with a poem that I used to proudly recite in front of dear ones.... Again a tribute to my elder brother's convincing capabilities!
The Nonsense Poem
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Donkeys and Mules.
I stand before you,
To stand behind you.
To tell you something,
I know nothing about.
One fine morning,
In the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight.
With their swords in their hands,
They shot at each other.
Two deaf policemen,
Heard the noise,
And came to shoot the two dead boys.
If my tale you don't believe,
Ask the blind man.... He saw it all!
No comments:
Post a Comment