Childhood memories - a box of treasure

Memories of childhood are etched forever on our hearts and minds. A deja vu is very likely to occur when you see your children growing up repeating something sane-insane without realising if it really makes sense or is an utter nonsense. As a child, in my pre-school or to be more precise, until my primary school days I was someone who was completely unaware if books existed. For me always being outdoors was much adventurous. Well, study being a mandate and I always struggled being an average student. Anyway I have some terrible memories and now when I retrospect, I am disappointed by myself but then I enjoyed being crowned as a tomboy. 

Anyway, coming back to kindergarten days or even before that, we all were introduced to nursery rhymes. Commonly, twinkle twinkle little star is one first rhyme taught to a child whilst gazing at twinkling stars. I absolutely have no memories of which poem I learnt first but my favourite was Chubby cheeks, more because I imagined that I was like the girl in this rhyme, chubby cheeks I had, wasn't very keen on dimpled chin but I must have assumed that the poem perfectly describes me. These nursery rhymes are such an inevitable part of childhood, they compel a child to imagine and believe that each character is surreal and does exist somewhere. Be it black sheep, humpty dumty or Mary with her little lamb,  I am convinced that a child imagines that these characters are living in some parallel world. Funny it is but I always thought that writers have a special hiding place and watch these characters closely before bringing up a story. It is not only about rhymes but some characters in books and comics, which we assumed that we would meet them some day and share a laugh. I always wanted to meet the beautiful princess and sympathize with her about the beast from Beauty and the beast, meet Cinderella and conspire to lock her wicked step mother along with her stupid daughters in a dungeon! I so believed in this fairy tale, I almost fantasised experiencing a similar pour lot in my real life. Who wouldn't have not wanted to visit Wonderland with Alice? Nothing could have been more adventurous than this joy ride!  I won't budge from making a confession today that I was extremely happy when a slow tortoise won a race against the oversmart hare, it just boosted my confidence that one day I, albeit slow in everything would a win a race against myself. Fairy tales taught me to be positive, after a sad day comes a glad day was to be read between the lines. 

              

                                          

                                                  

The only comic book I read was Chacha Chaudhry, a joyous read with tall Sabu who almost looked like an alien and Chacha Chaudhry who looked tiny but definitely so witty and I have always been awestruck with his pagdi and neatly twirled moustaches. Reading this comic was a respite especially in scorching summer afternoons when you had no friend to play with or you had a tiff with your buddy. Sabu and Chacha guaranteed smiles smiles, doses of anti anti-depressants required after a fight with a friend.

                                             

A little more advancement happened when television made an entry in our home. It was only humble doordarahan that was entirely responsible to entertain the entire nation. Oh what lovely serials for children. Tenali Rama ,Oshin, Saara jahan hamara, Ramayana, Mahabharat and so many simple but engaging cartoons like Jungle Book, Alice in wonderland, Singable the sailor, Duck tales with its epics title song Jindagi toofani hain... and adventurous tale of a miser Uncle and his nephew ducks. They all defined our happy SUNDAY and have succeeded to be a part of us till date. 

'Jungle jungle baat chali hain pata chala hain...' is something I try to play it to my daughter as well, it makes me nostalgic and I bet every child who has grown watching it. Mowgli, Radha, Bagheera, Kaa and all other animal characters taught me to love animals, this serial just re-defined relations between human and animals to a school going kid in me, it made relations simple and livable. 

Today as parents, we have a sort of routine rather mandate of reading stories or singing rhymes to our daughter. She loves all this, and for the past few days she has been loving 'Little Boy blue ..come blow your horn...' wherein, Little boy blue is sleeping without his shoes under a haystack and his cows and sheeps are in corns and meadows happily eating. Aadhya tells us to make Little Boy Blue wear a pair of shoes, she thinks Little Boy blue is really sleeping in the book and will wake up to blow his horn calling cows and sheeps back for home. She starts crying because we aren't making any effort of picking up a pair of shoes and is distressed as we are laughing at her innocence. But we love her innocence, we love her imagination, we love her concern for that shepherd boy who is without shoes and what I love the most is the thought that what would she feel about herself when I would narrate this incidence when she is a young girl?! She would feel stupid, cute or proud of her intelligent brain to have imagined this brilliant concept at that age? My only advice to her would be, imagine the impossible and it will grow with you, will be a part of you and will give you some lovely moments to smile or love yourself more.

Little Boy blue without shoes is in deep slumber. Oh! look at that cute cat and rabbit..they all look surreal. 

After all, childhood memories are special and precious and our Apple has just started her journey where she will sow some seeds of imagination and reap some lovely moments that would bring a smile on her face...

Till date whenever dark grey clouds with a silver border gather, I can't stop myself singing Ye Re ye Re paavsa..., or looking at the moon, so calm and a friend of every child, I often hum Chandoba Chandoba bhaaglas ka?

Please share if this write up has touched you and opened a box of such hidden memories?

Chai...Chai and Chai

Even before the thought of waking up strikes my mind when in bed, I start visualizing a hot steamy cup of chai! Am I an addict? Not really but an ardent lover of chai and I bet most of us are. As a teenager I reminisce those days of having chai enjoying cool crisp mornings where flowers of Paarijaat covered a small part of our garden, bird chirping and such solitude. A few more years later, enjoying tea watching sunset and a few more year later chai with friends in college canteen and those non-stop and nonsensical gossips and chats, those were fun days! 

We Indians are hopelessly in love with chai, remember asking your guests if they would prefer chai or coffee? Probably considered as a part of mannerism rather good one if you ask your guests for one and if not then be ready to hear the rant followed by your inhumane behaviour. Something like, how mean he/she was, never asked us for chai! Clearly he/she doesn't know or hasn't been taught to welcome guests...phew. Such is the important of this beverage, which looks inviting in a delicate and decorated China clay chai, or wait it tastes refreshing in any ware. Don't believe me then visit any Punjabi and they would merrily serve you elaichi chai with less milk in a steel glass. A Punjabi friend of mine once shared with me that his Aunts in Punjab make a Thermos of Chai and keep sipping in small portions as and when they wanted to indulge in gup-shup.

It tastes even better in earthenware known as Kulhad, let me remind you about our former railway minister Shri Lalu Prasad ji, he had a vision and whatsoever people say or media reported about him I will always appreciate his decision on inculcating Kulhad culture on our national railways. I appreciate him for this eco friendly thought and undoubtedly giving a style statement to our normal chai served in paper glasses or plastic non-degradable glasses. The thought of having chai in Kulhad has been so inviting and appealing to me that I persuaded my mother buying kulhads at home and she till date uses them. Chai and railways share a perfect bond, do you remember those chai wallahs  on trains running with their portable chai tanks shouting chai chai and luring us to buy one? What a sight to see chai being poured from taps!

I can have gallons of Chai in Kulhad!

Living in any first world country, a common sight would be seeing neatly dressed people sipping their hot drink from tall paper mugs and these mugs have their brand name printed - Starbucks, Costa and so on. It doesn't matter if you are having an exotic or fair trade drink but it does matter if it is Starbucks or Costa or any other. It has become a style statement, is my impression. Travelling on a particular train, I know some faces - my fellow passengers who always hold these precious mugs. One question always pops up in my mind...do they know that they are harming the planet? Once when I was at Starbucks, I read something in a tiny font and I focused by bringing my upper eyelid closer to my lower, it read - if you get your travel mug 25 p off on your drink. It made me feel wow but at the same time the innocent myself questioned that why wasn't it printed in bold and large font? Clearly, sab kuch paise ke liye! 

Fact : The desire to sip and move around leads to more than 2.5 billion cups per year in rubbish in the UK and hang on if you say that they are recyclable then absolutely not, they end up in landfill as there is a thin plastic cover within the mug preventing it from being soggy. So now you got my point, this relaxing and refreshing hot drink is a sinful cuppa due to the threat it causes to environment!

Undoubtedly, I adore our Indian chai stalls - In Pune, tea stalls outside Kamla Nehru Park was one of my favourites. Behind the scenes how cleanly these reusable small glasses are being rinsed is one question but it does give me a satisfaction of sipping my chai from a re-usable cute little glass. During my college days, it was Jaykar's tea we would literally gulp down discussing lectures, social issues, movies and pretty much everything. Chai was panacea to boredom and it is still the same for many as we all bond so well on this little delight made in several ways. 

If you are enjoying this piece of my write-up with a hot cuppa then I am sure you will relate with every word...but are you enjoying it in an eco-friendly way?