those summers of 89'!!

I have already written before of the good old times. But I still love writing this because it helps me go back to childhood….To enjoy the innocence I once had...An era when we survived without computers..i-pods...Mp3 players…video games…mobile phones..cable television. An era which was woefully short of choices but fulsome in satisfaction...

A chat with a friend of mine inspired me to write this post.. Both of us were sitting idle in office and we had nothing much else to do... So we just thought we will mail each other some good old memories.. And Anjali has tagged me summer memories which I thought was quite integral to my childhood memories..

When I look back at those school days I first think of those first years in school.

How I used to keep my notebooks in the bag...Appa used to cover the books with that brown paper...And I had the privilege of sticking the name stickers on top of it...Then with my Natraj Pencil I wrote my name, class and Subject… I loved smelling new books. The fresh smell of paper was a huge kick for me... And after arranging books in the bag I then open my pencil box to elaborately arrange the scale...the pencil ...the rubber (hehehe..i dint know that eraser is more civilized)..And then that short walk to the school. I don’t remember much of what I did during the walk. But then I remember running back home if I had forgotten to comb my hair.. And then that lunch breaks when we tried fast to finish the lunch to save time for the precious 20 min of afternoon football or cricket.

We shared food with friends. I remember that Shaji Ram’s lemon rice..I used to love it... Asish used to bring chocolate coated sandwiches. Soon we run to the ground and split into teams...Cricket was played with paper balls. We bought rubber bands from home to make the perfect round cricket balls...And when that odd gulf returnees kid joined school..He used to bring football. I mean the real one! The gulf kid obviously was the captain and we all vouched to be in his team so that he would allow us to play with his football. I was damn envious of gulf kid’s back then coz they had shoes with twinkling lights and unlike my Natraj pencils they had those colorful glassy ones. After that quick game we ran back to class just in time before the teacher started the attendance call My goodness we might have been smelling really bad with the sweat and mud ,but there was amazing energy in us even after the zapping mid afternoon game.. Talking about those summer beverages, when we used to get thirsty after all the struggles we ran to the tap… a huge line of 30 taps... and drank the chilly water from aruvikkara …I remember drinking gallons of water.. the best and cheapest beverage those summers.. Now when u think of having water we find it awkward to drink the tap water..for many of us we have become slaves of Bisleri and their ilk .

I can relate those days to this video which essentially summed up innocence of childhood..I love youtube for this..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpT3TqsNqBY


And in between those periods we had the chalk throwing sessions.. …I remember my friends calling me ‘kutchu’ because there was the story we had to learn about someone who wore glasses and was still searching for it while wearing it. And unfortunately I was the only one wearing glasses in my class back then…

In the mornings we had those pledges.. ”though for the day”..and birthday announcements during school assemblies. I don’t how many of you took that enormous pride in wearing color dress on your birthday..You were allowed to choose one best friend of yours and distribute sweets in other classes..I remember we all secretly aspired to be the best friend of the birthday guy those days…it was like a recognition bestowed on you...Amazing feeling of pride..

And imagine the countless times you scratched yourself...after a game...After a gusti…and that damn painful pinch on the ears after being caught by that strict teacher.. There was this trend during those days... we guys used to be noisier in the class and most often the teacher punished all the boys by making us stand on the benches.. We used to gossip among ourselves about the teacher.. c’mon don’t think too much..!!!;-P
We just used to say that the miss indulged in “girls’ partiality”... My favourite period those days was art class. I loved drawing. The best gift I wished those days were just a box of crayons or sketch pens.. After school we just ran home and finish the homework’s as soon as possible to catch the favourite cartoons on television.. Thank god I dint have tuitions those days.. Summer vacation those days were in kottayam and changancherry and I still remember the heavenly Mango juice one of my favourite aunts made for me those times..I relished it more coz back home Appa insisted on eating papayas and watermelons which I dint particularly love... so those home made mango juice carried the extra tinge and aura of scarcity
..
When we reached middle school... we lost a bit of our innocence. I remember then if we guys were touched by a girl...i mean even a slight accidental brush, he would be vetoed by the guys.. He is a victim of “skin touch” and hence so he has lost his male virility...He is classified as a lesser being amongst rest of the guys who have carefully cultivated a skin touch free life..Now don’t make logic out of it...

DD in spite of being a horrible broadcaster those days bought out some simple yet meaningful messages. I loved this video which they used to telecast almost everyday..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCgTkub35fM&NR

Mid –School

Those times it was a big change…from the chunky “nikker” to trouser...from pencils to ink pens...from plastic pencil box to geometry box…from nothingness to a bicycle...it was acknowledgment of growing up. We began seeing for the first time the big chettans and chechis in school from close quarters... I had immense respect for the chettans and chechis…They were really tall, many of them taller than the teachers and the chettans and chechis talked to each other and didn’t care about the holy male virility values which we considered precious. .Some of them had badges and titles like school pupil leader... During those days we noticed that we guys were getting shorter and girls taller…all those hormones were working ...But then we never talked about why the change is happening…those were “chichi” talks…

Most of us went for our first school tour during 6th standard…Not to Ooty nor Kodai but museum grounds 3 km away from school...but that was enough reason to celebrate. We were allocated a princely 5 Rs to buy anything of our choice and that was dedicatedly given to the ice cream boy for the "Joy" ice creams.. Those ice creams were very much part of my summer memoirs..But i ll still vouch for the ice cream grandma used to make!!

Folks who have traveled by school bus must know how prestigious was catching the side seat in the bus.. The best seat was one closest to the driver. .Some times we booked seats in the bus by placing hankies ..

I had my first bubble gum and first sip up around that time with my own money.. I mean my own money stolen from home... One of us will collect all the money and in spite of our limited math we counted till 3 rupees 65 paisa... We would run to nearby “shanti” bakery and buy the sip ups, run back to school .hide behind the bushes to avoid the teachers or prying parents. Once all security checks are cleared we will enjoy the Sip-up and later with immense sense of guilt we go to our own little worlds…

I must admit that I saw porn quite early in life... Shankar bought the book to school.. That was a huge taboo broken... Many of us were shocked beyond words after seeing the first porn in our life... Madhuri Dixit’s photo in filmfare…That might have been beginning of the end of innocence…Looking back .those days were one helluva good time... times we aspired to behave like the older… times we were never bothered about taxes or stock prices.. times when a chocolate could sooth broken hearts..


Growing up is good.. But childhood was even better!!!

Thanks silverine for the tag and the memories retrieved from my nostalgia hard disk..

I would like to pass it on to Priya,Umesh,Cuckoo(sure i ll take ur tag soon.. ;-P),Alakananda and bvn...

1. Write 8 things you enjoyed doing during summer/summer holidays.

2. Tag some people with the happy memories!