Of Chhota Pleasures and badaa joys...

Ask anyone and they will concur, that their most joyful childhood moments revolved around the summer break. Two months of unbridled freedom from the tyranny of homework and exams. Expectedly schools did their utmost to play the party pooper and gave thick booklets that required us to forage for twigs and compose poetry around them. Build an igloo out of cardboard and cotton wool. Or better still, practise two hours of Maths daily. The smart alecs we were, we conveniently consigned such trivialities into the deepest, darkest corner of our minds and pretended they did not exist.

Now when I see parents trying to make most of summer break by enrolling their progeny for myriad activities, in a bid to transform them into a deadly combo of Einstein and Beckham - I feel sorry for the kids. Sorry that they are missing out on the simple joys of doing absolutely nothing. Sorry that their parents are happier to keep them out of their hair.

For me summer vacations were always special. That’s when I got my working Mom all to myself. She would read out stories to me and my brother, cook our favourite dishes and try to teach us Bangla. Lessons we would promptly forget the moment we returned to school.

As a parent, I have stopped measuring up myself to my Mom knowing that I will fail miserably.

My parents were and still are avid travellers. Come summer and they would get into a huddle and plan our next trip. Should it be Kodaikanal, can we squeeze in Pondicherry? Nah...lets stick to Kullu Manali this year. Baba would triumphantly arrive holding our tickets in hand, Ma would frantically start packing and I would dance around her in gay abandon.

I was about to touch thirteen when we all went to Ranikhet with our close friends. Sunil Kaku, Kakima and their kids, who were nearly our age.

Dawn had just broken when our bus driver announced that we had reached Ranikhet. As I rubbed my sleepy eyes, all I could see was tall deodar trees peeping from behind the fog that had enveloped this tiny hamlet in its embrace. It seemed I had arrived at a magical land atop the Faraway Tree.

Courtesy :Clipart.com

Our forest rest-house, located on a secluded spot on a hill, was going to be our abode for the next seven days. Surrounded on all sides by gently sweeping slopes and lush forests, our charming bungalow had its own pretty garden; crammed with flowers in full bloom, flower-shaped cacti and terraced slopes with flora in all imaginable colours.

Our accommodation had no television, no phones, no neighbours but for the cranky caretaker and few stray cattle chewing cud and ruminating on world peace. Every day we would trek for miles to have our lunch at a simple joint in the marketplace – where you could say Hi to all the visiting truck drivers. Yet, I do not remember any one of us complaining. “I am so bored” had yet to register itself in our lexicon.

In the afternoons when our parents would retire for the siesta, the baccha party led by yours truly would chase alarmed butterflies, look for hidden treasures in the pine forest, organize who- can fall- the- hardest contests, pretend there were ghosts in the vicinity and run around in mock horror. One day when I was feeling particularly reckless, I tied a red band around my head and voila I was Phoolan Devi with her band of followers plundering unripe guavas and pomegranates from the not- so- amused- caretaker’s little patch.

I even masterminded a clever strategy to pillage Amul Spray from the kitchen. Does anyone remember it’s sweet, gooey taste and how it would get stuck on the roof of the mouth! Ah...the sheer delight of licking it off with our tongue! At that time, it was like manna from heaven for us. To hoodwink the parents, we would pretend to have a loud dancing session behind closed doors. The youngest was assigned the duty to sing loudly, while I would shovel spoonfuls of the milk powder into eagerly waiting mouths. Being wicked never felt this good!

This was the era, when the weekly movie on Doordarshan was the highpoint of our weekend. Licking jam out of the nearly empty jar was Nirvana. A bag full of sand and assorted sea shells, colourful postcards from Russia, odd shaped buttons, stamps ripped off from airmails, were my prized possessions. The space under the bed was my private world where I would curl up with my favourite read. We had friends and a not a social network. The real world was offline and not online.

When I called up my Mom to get her version of our Ranikhet trip, all she could recall was how scary it felt to be cut off from civilization. Every night they would barricade the glass doors with heavy chairs and spend sleepless nights worrying about intruders. The noise of falling insects on the tin roof made it worse. It was too cold, it felt too lonely, they felt insecure.

Strangely all I remember is the sunny afternoons. Squinting my eyes against the sunlight and jumping high to catch the yellow frisbee, sounds of laughter and excited chatter, the beautiful meadows and the stately mountains in the horizon. A skinny dark girl barely into her teens, a mop of unruly hair framing her face - she didn’t need an excuse to break into laughter. A gypsy at heart, free as a bird, unmindful of the future that lay ahead.

Those were the days when the simplest of pleasures gave us so much joy. Joy that no amount of money can buy.