A – Available/Single?
of course, Single.. y both the options together???!!!
B – Best friend?
i have many Good Friends...concept of BEST worked out when i was in 3rd, 4th or 5th standard
C – Cake or Pie?
Cakessss
D – Drink of choice?
Anything cold
E – Essential item you use every day?
Soap
F – Favorite colour?
Red
G – Gummy Bears Or Worms?
None
H – Hometown?
Daltonganj
I – Indulgence?
Dresses
J – January or February?
February, salary comes early. :D
K – Kids & their names?
whose???
L – Life is incomplete without?
Fun
M – Marriage date?
again whose???
N – Number of siblings?
None
O – Oranges or Apples?
Can i choose both??!!!
P – Phobias/Fears?
Snakes
Q – Quote for today?
Huh!!!....78 thousand million pounds???!!!! :D:D
R – Reason to smile?
Numerous
S – Season?
Sumer, Winter, Rainy, Spring, Autumn
T – Tag 3 People?
Apurva, Devesh, Soumyajit..my new blogmates.. :)...
U – Unknown fact about me?
Smart huh!!...y do i disclose??!!!
V – Vegetable you don't like?
if cooked well i can eat anything...i am a foodie..
W – Worst habit?
Again...smarter..!!!
X – X-rays you've had?
Chest..yes..longbackkkk...
Y – Your favorite food?
Foodie i am...
Z – Zodiac sign?
Sagittarius..remember i b'day is just a few days away...
yeaaa..this was fun.. :)
Now this is another one, "The Memory Tag", where you make a note of 9 sweet memories, i.e, things you miss the most from the by-gone days. I have many posts labeled "Nostalgia", those posts almost say the same story, but here when i get a chance again to scream aloud about what was sooo Good during those days..i think i should not let this opportunity go.. :) infact, i can never get enough of the good old, memories...so here i am again... :)
Disclaimer: Quite a lengthy one..read at your own risk.. :)
1) Luuuwwww for animals:
Now this is one thing, that my mother keeps telling me even today when she is tired of walking with me. Actually, what happens is, i stop to cuddle baby dogs, cats, cows and any such sweet creatures whenever i get to see them on road, and obviously my mother is bored of waiting for me after every two steps, when i sit down to cuddle the animals...well, this is present and here about the past....
Age: 3-6 No one in the family( no matter how dear he/she was to me) could make me have my lunch, if i didn't get to see any baby goat, cow, dog, sheep tied to a post in the courtyard. So my father and a few "help" went running after every such creature around 12.30-1 in the afternoon, so that i eat peacefully and let everyone else be at peace. Thank God he was self-employed or i would have died of hunger.. :D. Once the animal was in front, i would empty my plate within minutes and then would let that animal go free.
2) Brasso
Age: 3- 15 In retrospection to the 1st point, My father started buying artifacts of every animals known to human, made out of bronze, iron, clay or anything, to relieve himself from the duty of running behind animals everyday. and as the number of these artifacts increased, it was a tedious task to polish those pieces and to keep them back in the show case. In a year, there are 2 occasions when these artifacts are polished, Durga Puja and Bengali's New Year. So during these occasions, me, my father and mother used to sit together and polish all these stuff with "Brasso" and keep them back in place.
I miss that act of sitting together and polishing the animals. Now, my parents continue to do it religiously minus my presence.
3) Guardian Angel
This is when i was in std. 1st/2nd. Foodie that i am, and given my love for rice, i can sit and have it at any given time of the day. So there were these maids, who would sit and have their lunch together, say at around 2-2.30, as in when the family members were done with. So everyone used to bring their plate, sit in a circle and have their lunch in the courtyard. They sat with a jug of water, a bottle of pickle, some onions, chillies and salt. Now, yours truly, went silently and sat beside them with eyes on plate, movement of their hands from plate to mouth and vice-versa and would give a smile if anyone happened to look at her. Seasoned that they were with this cheap habit of mine, they didnt bother much and continued with their lunch. But there were days, when i proved lucky and someone would just give me a gulp or two to munch. Silently haan..if anyone from the family gets to know or see this, i will be beaten to death and needless to say they were more concerned about my well being. As fate had it, it was my mother who saw me from the veranda upstairs, came down, dragged me without saying a word and the maid who fed me, left her plate and came in shouting.."maine use diya hai, wo nahi mangi thi" and on hearing this, slaps went on my cheeks, back, legs and where not..left, right and center.
This is to say, i miss all of them and more with passing time, i miss their warmth, love and care. They have been in our house for generations and knew family members better than one's own brother, sister, mother or father. They were like Guardian Angel as at times they were the only one to save you from getting some real bad bashing for something foolish or bad you have done.
4) Green and red basket
Age: 4- 6. There were two baskets, green-mine and red-cousin's. These were our dress baskets, stuffed with simple and beautiful dresses, frilled, sleeveless white mini frocks with flower and bird motifs sewed on the chest and at the fall. Invariably, my cousin after the bathing ritual..which was of course an elaborative and exhaustive one for my mother and aunt. It was really tough for my mother and my aunt to make us stand still and scrub because once the soap was applied on our face, me and my cousin would run around with our eyes closed to catch each other...and after bath, my cousin, without fail, would pick a frock from the green basket and i would stand happy as she chose one from my basket and not her own. so her basket was always neat and tidy as neither of us touched the basket. On the contrary, my Basket look Tsunami-struck as she would choose one lying at the bottom. Last time, i went home, i saw two baskets kept one upon another and all empty.
I miss someone happily wearing my dresses. Now no one can, for the unique girth that i have acquired over the past few years.. :) and also we dont get any more such simplest and most beautiful dresses now.. :)
5)The Monkey Act
Age: 10-15. This is something i miss most from my childhood days...Trees, fruits and squirrels. Summer afternoon were spent in the mango tress...all younger cousins standing below the tree and the elder ones on the tree. we would pluck mangoes and throw it to them..the younger ones would collect and then all together we used to go to the kitchen, offcourse, when parents league were taking a nap. Then we made that khatta meetha aam ka chatni with salt, mustard oil and red chilli and then quarrel our ass out while having it, because as per the rule..people who climbed the tree were suppose to get more than the one who were standing below collecting the fruit.. :)
With the weight gained, let alone climbing on the trees, i can often hear trees wailing if i pass by some huge tree and a secret desire of climing on the tree flashes my mind.. :D:D:D
6) The School Rickshaw Van
std:I/II This was one fascination i had...i loved to push the rickshaw van..Now there was this road, slight steep and up-hill, so senior students as in students of std. 3-4, gleefully jumped out of the rickshaw at a particular point and then used to push the rickshaw. i always looked at the act with an eye "when will i reach std. 3rd!!!"...as it was, i couldn't hold on for long and then one day bribed the rickshaw puller(bhaiyaa- as we called him) with a sweet smile and "mere ko aata hai rickshaw dhakelna" talks. so bhaiyya agreed and i also jumped out of the rickshaw along with other boys at the right point and time....(there weren't any girls in the rickshaw as far as i remember.). so what happened was..there were no students left inside the rickshaw van, and it was super easy for bhaiiya to pull the rickshaw up the slope. so everything happened pretty fast and the rest jumped into the rickshaw in a fraction of second...so all climbed up pretty quickly and as i was the last one, one of the student i remember told me to hold his hand so that he can pull me up quickly..but given the degree of my adamance, i refused and in the mean time the rickshaw pulled up fast and i laid fallen on the street, scratched my knee and elbow, and crying to wake up some deaf beggar too if there were any around.
So i reach home with knees and elbow cut, blood flowing et al. but as i remeber the incident, it makes me laugh because, i wasnt crying much about the fact that i fell and had hurt myself, rather because, as i entered the home still crying loud to deafen anyone around, i knew how will my mother react to it and more because of the thrashing i would get now. My mother and grand mother standing next to each other, my grand mother was almost there to hug me when my mother snapped in and gave me a brutal tight slap, as she knew (rightly, i use this word now, it didn't appear "right" to me back then), it was mistake of none under the sun and whatever happened, happened only because of my desire to be the smart ass every time.
I still miss my primary school, that rickshaw van and that ride along the steep road just at the turn from where you could see River Koel.
7) The Trio
Me, my grandmother and grand father. i remember we three sat together, me on my grand mother's lap. grand mother (Dida) and grandfather (dadu) would talk about anything and everything under the sun, and he also cracked some foolish jokes i believe, because what rings in my ear till date is my grandmother's hearty and loud laugh. i used to sleep with them too. i didnt need my mother and father, grandparents mattered to me the most at that age. i also remember my parents used to go anywhere keeping me with my grandparents at times also out of station, i had no complains, neither do i have one at this age. had it not been my parents i would have never got to know what love of grandparents mean.. :). i used to cry my lungs out when my grand parents went on tour or visit some places. My grandmother died suddenly, when i was in std. 3rd.
She is the one i miss the most in my life, infact, honestly, i haven't coped up with her death till date.
8) My uncle's marriage
Me and my cousin, (as mentioned in point 3) were the center of attraction during this event. we were the youngest and tiniest of all in the whole get-together. i remember wearing a white, sleeveless frock with pink embroidery on the wedding day and both of us wearing bermuda on the reception day. now when i see the photographs, i find us both the cutest thing in the whole event. Straight neck length hair, with chinese cut in front (as in hair covering the forehead), white tee shirt, blue bermuda. Cousin: unruly wavy hair, two pony tails, white tee and red bermuda. eating to glory, pampered by one and all, no studies and all fun and frolic. needless to say i had my quota of bashing because i climbed up the bamboos which were tied to build the samiyana. i still remember i reached a height where no one could reach me and people standing on the ground and asking me to get down and me shouting from top, "tell me you will not scold me or beat me, only then i will come down."..i was said i wont be scolded when i was up there...moment i came down...promise was history.. :D
But one thing i miss now is that, no matter how much i was bashed and beaten, i miss that closeness, that bonding in today's family. let alone uncles and aunties treating you as their own children and feeding u, beating u and scolding u....today i know families where one cousin doesnt even know much about their own cousin.
9) Lastly and most importantly: Joint Family
I miss the joint family structure. It had its share of bad and ugly, but it also had much positive aspect to it. The togetherness, the occasions and festivals celebrated together, gloom shared, laughter spread. it taught me discipline(though the post doesn't say much about my disciplined childhood rather me being a disciplined child), but on a serious note it teaches you to act on time, it teaches u patience, it teaches you meaning of words like respect, honour, faith, trust and many similar words which are less in use today. i remember on weekend morning the constant reminders from any elders dragged us to have a bath on time. Any elders would just say it loud and we knew the instruction went for all. keeping all our stories to rest for half or one hour, we took bath right on time, we woke up on time, we ate on time, we ate together, we slept together. No matter who said what, even if you dont accept you have to act in a way so that the one in front is not hurt or disrespected and that applied for people of all age and class.
There was quite a bit of fun in that disciplined and restricted life which i fail to get today, as an independent person.
