velu ka tag, part I

velu nair, the good teacher tagged me for the first time. and as all obedient students, i took the work home and did it at leisure. its another thing that i did only the first part, ‘cos i was more interested in the happy memories than the sad ones.

the tag says, list 8 things about your childhood that make you grin, and 8 others that make you groan. i didn’t think, i’d many, but i was mistaken. thanks velu, for reminding me those good times. to be at ease, i kept the age limit till 12 years, as the teen that grew up later was a profoundly bored one. perhaps from there i’ll find the second part of this tag 🙂 and i’ll increase the tag things to 10. a little bit of liberty with rules is allowed, i guess!

10 child things, i still smile at:

01.) sleeping on my pa’s stomach. or in his arms. that was heaven.

02.) my little, blue rubber slippers. i loved them so much that i wore them in my hands. had a song for them too. ye dekho, meri choti-choti chapplein. roughly translated, that goes like, ‘see here, my little-little slippers’!!!

03.) sliding on staircase railings from the 4th floor where we lived to the ground floor. it resulted in lots of torn half-pants though.

04.) my leo-mattel cars, local made cars, vehicles, trucks, tanks, anything that moved on wheels and household junk. plus, to a lesser part, the g.i. joe and he-man stuff too. coupled with some imagination- whole cities, armies, civilizations used to come alive. and were destroyed as rapidly too.

05.) bringing all the stray puppies in the locality home. feeding them, bathing them and when mummy threw them out threatning to put me n my brother out too, making temporary shelters for them. with red bricks or with wet mud. they didn’t last a day though, and neither the puppies. perhaps, they didn’t like their new homes much.

06.) roaming around ‘after’ my brother. he never took me along. and i never left him alone.

07.) sugar. the only blame in my otherwise pious, subdued, shy childhood. used to steal sugar from my favourite neighbourhood aunt’s kitchen. so much, that she shifted the jar to the topmost shelf and i got worms. but then, the homoeopathic medicines i got, were sweet too.

08.) a scolding from pa was so rare, it made me do a little revolution of my kind. i ran away from home one evening. ran away two blocks apart, sat there watching children play, felt cold and scared that ma & pa will forget me. so came back after half an hour. but, i still stand by the fact that i ran away from home.

09.) cricket. scoring runs, foxing batsmen with spin bowling, fielding- like my life depended on that one run… nothing felt more engaging than the game itself. i love cricket.

10.) qayamat se qayamat tak. we were certified movie addicts. and the rented vcr wallah, bansal videos (i remember the name till date) were very happy with us. watched qsqt at 9 years of age, fell in love with the lead actress, juhi chawla immediately. my first love. and i imagined myself as the hero, amir khan. perhaps till date.

i guess 10 are enough. although i’ve a few more. and i would like to add reading as the most enjoyable thing i ever did. ever. but, not many here will associate it with ‘fun’. the second, more serious part of the tag will come later. then i’ll tag other children too 🙂 the new kids on delhidreams mostly. till then, have fun.