The Wonder Years - move over Kevin Arnold

I grew up on a farm. Well, actually, by the time I was born, there wasn’t much of the farm left. The rice wasn’t harvested anymore; the three acres were now just fields, but for us four little cousins, they were fields of fun! There were mango, tamarind, jambul, chickoo, guava and love apple trees and we boys could spend hours frolicking around underneath the open skies. I also remember filling the centre of green mangoes with a mixture of red masala, salt and vinegar, and either burying them underground all wrapped up in newspaper for a few days, or just keeping it somewhere safe. Eating those pickled mangoes was one of the highlights of our summers. We just didn’t care, band-aids were in good supply and we never got tired of having fun. There wasn’t much to watch on TV in the early eighties, so playing cricket, football, hockey or just running through the fields was the thing to do.

I remember catching snakes. Oh, that used to be another highlight of my childhood, especially during the summer holidays when we would scour the fields for snakes. We were terrors then too. One day we would be fighting, and the next day we would be laughing about it, making fun of what we said when we were angry with each other. It was a different bond then; the only video games we knew of were the little hand-held ones that had 'Donkey Kong' and the amount of fun and games we had outdoors surpassed anything else. Those were simpler times.

We had to break down the massive bungalow in the late 80s, owing to the buildings that were coming up around us, and the buildings that would soon come up on the fields where we played. Looking back then, I guess my mother and her siblings would have felt as if their childhood was breaking up into pieces. I wasn’t even ten then, perhaps too young to comprehend how good and valuable memories are. But little by little, these memories come back. When my cousin came down from New Zealand, where he’s now married and settled, we sat back and talked about all the naughty things we did, and how, as the eldest, he would prey on us from time to time. And we laughed about it now, those precious memories.

As we grow older we change, most of us lose that inner child as and when we start moving up in the world — some consciously, some unconsciously. I know of a few people, who at 26, act like they’ve just retired from their job of 25 years and love to sit at home in pure geriatric ambience. Or some who are so obsessed with their jobs that they can’t stop talking about it, even on the weekends!

Balancing responsibilities came early to me, more out of compulsion and necessity than anything else. I left home at 18 to go out there and learn what I had to. Today almost nine years later, in spite of the strife and struggle, I can smile, because it made me who I am. Those were the days, when I lost that child in me. Today, I can feel him, the little boy who didn’t care about material things, who just wanted to float through the green, green grass of home. Today, looking out over the hills in Goa, I get the serenity among the trees, the tranquillity at my parents little home amongst the Sahyadris, or the beauty by the river at Kala Academy. It brings back memories. Memories that I don’t ever want to lose.

It’s important to be a child sometimes, not act childishly, but just forget the bills that need to be paid, or the story that needs to be completed by five the next day and just envelope yourself in a different world, quite alike the one that we lived in when we were young. Back in the days, when we were carefree, living free.

So, here’s to the good times, wild and free, when we had a song to sing and a different life to live. When we didn’t know about the differences in religion, about black or white, about racism or communism. We cared only about today, and which tree we would have a party on tomorrow. I can still taste the fruit, I can still smell the fresh air, I can still see the four of us, frolicking among the trees…

Jan 18 - Gomantak Times, Goa