Oliver twisted!!

Another special tag that evokes fond memories..Silverine has tagged me on memoirs , when we were kids about the age of Bobanum Mollyum(mallu child heroes)..Days when we never knew what globalisation was..what professionalism was..what inflation was…ah..those days when you just had to bother if there was a power cut when Giant robot was being played

..The Wonder Years Tag
1. Write 8-10 things about childhood ( 1-12 years) that you miss.
2. Write 8-10 things that you disliked about childhood.
3. Tag a few people.

What I miss about childhood

1. The first thing that comes to my mind are those yearly summer vacations when I went to kottayam and spend weeks at my grandparents place...My cousins used to come over and we had our own hardy boys tales. Hitching to the nearby cemetery and finding out the oldest man sleeping there..It was our own way of learning maths the fun way!! :)

2. The simple basic ice cream my grandma used to make. That taste still wafts in the air as I write. Whoever said Baskin Robbins is the best...I remember my grandma saying years later that I never used to drink anything cold. The feeding bottle had to be wrapped around a towel and I still cant believe I did that!!

3. The jigsaw puzzles which I did many times over again and again..The novelty and enthusiasm never was lost even in the nth time..I stll have a 1000 piece puzzle which was a precious treasure for me…er..is still a precious..

4. I miss going to the beach with parents..When my parents seemed to be more wary of us going careless deep into the waters..Those silly attempts to touch the wave at its edge..and watching your name disappear in the next wave..cross checking if the sun sets in the east or the west..The trip wouldn’t be complete without a masala dosa from the nearby coffee house..

5. I miss Christmas times..That seemed to be the only time when I was master superior at home..I was very conscious that I run the crib making process..That feeling of being the architect when your parents just watched how far we did go..I barely survived a full mass during christmas and most often had to be carried back home on shoulders..

6. Watching new year programmes in doordarshan..Might be the only other day when I must have been awake till midnight..Prannoy Roy if I remember right used to host “the world this week”..I used to watch with dad even though I barely new anything happening outside trivandrum ..

7. I miss the camel color painting competition..Those rare days in school when I felt like "Elvis Presley." When I eagerly waited for teachers to appreciate my “Picasso” paintings..

8. I miss making the paper boats or four squares..or paper planes..I vaguely remember getting caught by my class teacher in 111 C , I guess for tearing half the pages in my notebook to make paper planes..

9. I miss the train journeys to bangalore…That was the northern most part of the country for me those days..I used to stretch my neck outside the coachwindows lest I don’t miss anything ..the sounds..the sights..the smell..

10. I miss the sheer joy when Amma or Appa comes back home after they had gone somewhere..nowadays we are so limited by the so called beingness of “maturity”!!

What I disliked about childhood

1. Drinking milk. I disliked being forced to drink milk and almost every time I vomited it out but my mom wouldn’t relent…Ditto..dint have to edit Silver’s post

2. Long prayer sessions at native place...I always wondered what so much to pray for..For me it were just 3 things which I repeated daily..

a) Give me some brains to study
b) Keep Dad and Mom happy
c) Keep all of us healthy

I couldn’t think of anything further then...

3. I disliked showing my report cards to Dad..That was real nasty..I never did score those huge marks in upper primary...

4. Being forced to eat vegetables..I never liked avial or infact most of the vegetables except bitter gourd..Things I ll kill for now..

5. Hated when guest came in at home and I had to stop the television for their sake, when any of my favourite programmes were running.

6. Visiting the eye doc..I used to break my glasses very often and I was made to read the chart as many times..Towards the end it was like..”I can read the V T and U very well..F T E and Q quite easy..but am finding tough with the Y L Z and S”..The doc used to go crazy.

7. The school drill..and somehow it always happened when it was the sunniest..I thought it was torture of magnanimous proportions.

8. Combing my hair. I still remember the fuss folks made if they couldn’t see the proper parting line ..Any deviation was dealt as if the Pakistanis just tried to change the line of control!!

9. Helping father in household chores..I tried all sorts of ingenious ways to wriggle out, though with a failure rate of 99.998%.

10. Getting up in the morning for school ..I think this comes by default for all!!

I would like to thank Silverine for creating this suppa tag that takes you down the memory lane..And I invite Velu,Rama,Sreejith,Maya,Anand,Rashmi,Dhanush,Shakhi,Neers,Amu,priya and Jac to take up the journey of those wonder years.