Summer Diaries

Chapter -9

“When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.”

The kids are the epitome of curiosity. They love the word “WHY”. If their hunger is not satiated, they go on for their own ventures. And this is a tale of some such interesting pursuits.

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It was a gentle refreshing rainy day. The little girl of four got up from her cot and went out to relish the showers. She saw something moving in the grass. She leaped forward to have a good look at the moving object. She was amused by the moving creature. She got up and started searching something. But she couldn’t find it. Suddenly she saw the big mango tree and the fallen twigs lying beneath it. She rushed to pick one. Holding a small twig in her hand, she again took her position. She sensed the feeling of power that has come up by holding that little piece of wood. She starting diverting the path of the little fellow and this made her happy. This power of controlling gave her immense relief. And an idea struck her. She ran inside the house.

She (in urgency) : I need a polythene bag . Please give me one.

Granny (apprehensively): But honey, why do you need one?

She (smiling): I am collecting something for you. It’s a surprise and you need to wait for it.

Granny (amusingly) : Ok. Here is one for you.

She snatched the bag and darted out.

Granny ( from behind) : Darling, don’t forget, I am waiting here for the surprise.

She (huffing) : Coming soon !

She quickly reached the spot and did the needful. Happy with the outcome, she slipped inside the house.

She (clutching the bag behind her) : Nani , Please close your eyes.

Granny (Smiling) : Oh so surprise is ready.

She (making an annoying face) : Yes ! Please do as I said.

Granny: Okay dear .

Granny closed her eyes. And waited for the next instruction from her little grand daughter.

She kept the bag on the floor and put her hands in it. There she stood proudly with her cupped palms full of surprises.

She (enthusiastically ): Now, You can open your eyes.

Granny ( Shrieked) : What is this?

She (Happily) : I don’t know, but they look beautiful. Don’t you like them.

Granny (angrily) : Throw them out, now.

Hearing loud voices her mother reached there and saw her baby with a handful of earthworms.

Mother (calmly) : Baby,why have you collected them.

She (sheepishly): I like the way they look and walk. And I can change their walking directions too.

Mother (sweetly) : Please keep them inside the bag darling and I will tell you a story.

She loved hearing stories from mom. Her mother was a wonderful narrator.

She emptied her hand and went near her mom.

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Once there was a boy, who was about twelve years old. One day while playing he found an insect on the ground. And he out of curiosity inflicted injuries to insects by piercing thorns in their bodies. And the insects died because of the miserable pain.

Later, in his next incarnation, he took birth as the eighth son of King Shantanu and Goddess Ganga. He was named Devavrata who is delighted in Gods and is pious. Eventually he became famous as Bhishma meaning He of the terrible oath, referring to his vow of lifelong celibacy and of service to whomever sat on the throne of Hastinapur.In the great battle at Kurukshetra, on the tenth day Bhishma who has put down his bow and arrows was felled in battle by Arjuna, using Sikhandhi as a shield, piercing his entire body. He then awaited his death on the bed of arrows witnessing the entire destruction of his lineage.

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She was too small to grasp the moral of the story .

She (with a puzzled look) : So??

Mother (grinning) : So the moral of the story is, never harm others if you do so, then you have to pay heavy consequences for it. As you are trying to capture the earthworms in the bag, you are taking away their freedom of moving freely on earth. If you do so, you may have to lose your freedom of moving in this life or the other.

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She freed the captured earthworms admiring their locomotion.

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The lesson was learned. It changed her outlook towards other living beings. Some lessons are given in an early age, but they remain part of our soul for ever.

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To be continued …..

Please read the other chapters if you have missed them from below :

Chapter-1

Chapter-2

Chapter-3

Chapter-4

Chapter-5

Chapter-6

Chapter-7

Chapter-8

 

Summer Diaries

Chapter-8

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”

It was usual Indian summer noon, quite hot, but the constant brisk breeze made the environment pleasant and beautiful. And then the clock struck two. The girl was sleeping on a charpoy, caressing her silky black hair, she looked up at the clock. She briskly got up and started getting ready to go out. Looking at her dreaming beauty, she declared that she is going out to meet her old friend and would return in an hour. Her mother smiled and advised her, to enjoy her time with friends without worrying too much about the kid. She walked out in a dignified gait leaving no dust behind.

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The clock ticked three in the noon. Boohoo! The girl was blubbering. The Grandmother came running from the kitchen and picked her up in arms. She was a half and year old charming girl with big black eyes and chubby cheeks, wearing a plain white frock. Grandma tried to appease her, saying that her mother would turn up soon. But to no avail, she kept wailing. After all it was the first time, she woke up without seeing her mother’s face and upon that she was missing from home too.

To soothe her bursting up, granny asked “Would you like to have a big ripe mango? She smiled and cupped her small palms to receive the heavenly fruit. Making her sit on the floor, grandma rushed to the backyard. There laid a bucket, full of mangoes, dipped in water. She quickly grasped two mangoes and came inside the room. The girl beamed, seeing the mangoes. She snatched them from her granny’s hand and starting eating them. In Indian villages, people eat mangoes with their hands, without slicing them.

Within half an hour, she finished two mangoes. Her face smeared with yellow mango pulp. She gazed at granny as if asking for some more. Granny grinned, seeing that lovely expression on her face and ran outside to bring some more for her. This process of getting mangoes by grandma and eating them up by the granddaughter, kept going until mama came home.

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As she set her foot inside the house, the girl came running towards her. To her horror, the child was wearing a yellow dress instead of white. She smirked seeing her face, which too had the design of yellow color. The girl excitedly told her mom that granny gave her mangoes to eat and she like an obedient girl ate them all 😛 .

Holding the child in her arms, she went inside the kitchen. She apologized to her mom for getting so late. She than asked her whether her daughter was troublesome. Upon hearing this her mother smiled and said “Mango is solution of every cribbing mama’s baby”.

Mother (Happily): “Guess, how much your little one adjusted in her small tummy?”

She (Smiling) : Not more than two, she generally doesn’t eat much.

Mother (Chuckled) : “This time you are wrong, darling, she had crossed an elderly appetite for mangoes”.

She (angrily): “What”? Tell me, how much she laid hands on?

Mother(Casually) : Just, ten.

She (Furious) : What?? Are you insane, why did you give her this much?? God knows, if something happens to her, his father is going to stop sending me for these vacations. And probably, he will kick me out of the home.

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The vacations passed smoothly and the time came for returning home. Father came for a day to pick them up and they headed back the next day. Two days after reaching home, the girl was sleeping in her father’s lap, suddenly she woke up and complained about having pain in her cheek. He touched her face and realized that she was having small inflammation.

And after a few days the inflammation turned into a big boil. He was furious with the mother for being so negligent with kids. The doctor suggested incision will be the instant and the best cure.

The day of incision arrived, it was a minor surgery procedure. Her mother went to the doctor accompanied by her uncle(father’s brother) as her father had to go urgently somewhere on a business trip. As soon as they reached the hospital, her uncle inquired the doctor whether this surgery will leave any mark on her cheek. The doctor gave an affirmative response saying that in future they can go for plastic surgery to remove the mark. Hearing this, his uncle started taunting her mother that it’s because of her that their beautiful daughter won’t be so beautiful after this operation.

The operation got over after an hour, but, yes, it left a mark on her face forever. Now when she fills any OMR form, in the Identification mark column she writes “ a mark on left cheek”.

The mark

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Though her father never stopped them from going on vacations to their heaven. Neither were their adventures of being mangolicious got stopped nor the occurrence of  small boils .

One summer picture when me , my brother and my cousin had a boil 😉

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To be continued …..

Please read the other chapters if you have missed them from below :

Chapter-1

Chapter-2

Chapter-3

Chapter-4

Chapter-5

Chapter-6

Chapter-7

Summer Diaries

Chapter-7

“It’s not so much about the shoes, but the person wearing them”

On a one wonderful summer journey she lost her doll shoes. It didn’t occur to her till she reached her home. She frantically started searching her doll’s black shoes. The doll was the apple of her eye more so because the gift was given by her favorite person. Her mother’s friend, Mathur aunty. Mathur aunty hasn’t had a child and she loved her immensely. She was like a second mother to her. She often pampered her with different gifts and on her fourth birthday, she gifted her a beautiful Indian doll. Mathur aunty often said that the doll was her replica. Straight, silky black hair, a healthy body and big beautiful brown eyes.

At that time barbies were not part of the usual Indian market. They were beautiful dreams of a middle class Indian girl and reality of a rich Indian girl.

After sometime when she couldn’t find the footgear, she started weeping hysterically. Her mother came running to her and asked the reason behind such a behavior. She told her that she has lost her baby doll’s shoes. To pacify her, the mother agreed upon buying a new pair of the same design and pattern.

The days passed by but she didn’t forget that her doll was living barefooted. Every day she asked her mom when she will take her to market and every time her mother would say soon. She kept waiting patiently for the day to come. Alas! It never came. Soon the time came for her next summer vacations and she got buried under all the preparations, forgetting that her doll was without shoes.

Once again, they were all set to leave for their month-long vacations. So while picking up the luggage she remembered her doll. And pleaded her mother to allow her , to take the doll on their voyage. The Mother agreed but asked her to keep a watch on her doll and her belongings. She nodded her head in acknowledgement.

Again, they were on their beautiful journey to their heaven. But this time it was a bit different as her darling doll was sitting on her lap throughout her journey. She had taken her mother’s advice too, seriously. She didn’t leave her doll alone, not for single second not even when she went out to attend the call of nature. Finally, when they sat their foot on the marvel of the world , she ran towards home. This time her grandmother was standing at the door. She leaped and hugged her granny tightly. Grandmother held her in her arms and took her inside the house. Unlike always grandmother opened her locked Almira and pointed inwards.

She stood there bewildered by the sight. Their on top shelf laid, her doll’s black shining shoes.

She cried out of joy and kissed her granny because she has given her the lost joy. She ran towards her parents and expressed her happiness. She saw that her parents were smiling, amused at her as if this was not a great piece of news. She felt annoyed. Seeing her expressions mother revealed that she knew about this information beforehand as granny has already written about it in her letter to the mother.

She hugged her mother for giving her this beautiful surprise. This indeed became a wonderful lesson of her life.

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To be continued …..

Please read the other chapters if you have missed them from below :

Chapter-1

Chapter-2

Chapter-3

Chapter-4

Chapter-5

Chapter-6

Summer Diaries

Chapter-6

“Since nature is a beautiful temple, a beautiful temple inside the nature is a temple within the temple, it is a pearl within the pearl, a diamond within the diamond!”

In our month long stay a day was fixed for the visit of Garjiya. It is a beautiful temple of goddess Durga in the midst of the flowing water of Kosi. This temple was three kilometers from our house. We generally use to walk to the temple. In those days there was no facility of cabs or auto rickshaws in villages. People either used to travel by bus or paraded on their feet. My grandmother used to pack a small bag full of fresh flowers from our home garden, sandalwood paste (Chandan), kumkum (vermilion powder), rice grains and leaves of holy plants like tulsi, bilva and ankado to offer to God.This is called as Archanam.

I used to walk a few meters and would start cribbing to my parents to either stop a bus or take me in their arms. I was a lazy kid and I am still like that 😛 But you know how parents are , they know ways to distract you from the nagging 😉 So my father would ask me to recite counting from one to a hundred, but in reverse order without a mistake 😛 And it was not at all easy when you are four or five years old 😛 To add up to this pursuit of diversion ,my mother would start telling me the story of the temple.

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One day a big rock that got cut from the Himalayan range came floating in the river and stood at the place where it is right now. On the same day a man of the village got a dream that Goddess Shakti was telling him about her presence in the same rock. He discussed his dream with the people of village. So they took the decision that they will check the rock for the same. But there was one problem. It was a huge rock and there was no ladder of that size in the village. Then someone suggested that they should climb the rock to check the authenticity of the dream. A famous climber of trees was allotted the task. It took him several hours to reach the pinnacle. And when he reached the top, he was bewildered to see the statue. He yelled that their dream has come true. The goddess has bestowed her blessings on the village. For a long time people always climbed the rock to pay a visit to the temple. After a very long time the temple was renovated to its present form.

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The road to the temple was serene and beautiful. No vehicles on road. Lush green forest on one side and peaceful village on the other. And there was one shortcut too, which used to cut our journey by half kilometer. On this shortcut was a small bridge that we needed to cross to reach the other side and it used to land us at the back side of the temple. Now a day’s this bridge is the home of many adventure sports like Slithering (one wears a harness and slides from a bridge with a help of a rope into the river) , River Crossing, Rock Climbing etc. I always loved standing on the bridge and hearing the sound of the flowing river.Now when I stand on that same bridge I feel as if the bridge is muttering something in my ears with the whistling wind …as if it is saying that our life is just like a bridge we need to cross it from one heaven of birth to another one of death without any fear .

real view

the photoshop view

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After crossing the bridge we reached at the back side of the temple.

back view of temple

After walking for a few more steps there stood a beautiful white temple with its more than hundred stairs to step on to reach the almighty.

There was one distant relative of my mother who used to own a stall in temple vicinity. My parents always bought Prasad from his shop.

And the next thing, I remember, slithering on the steps tiredly just because dad promised that he will buy bangles for me from the nearby stalls. As soon as we reached on the top it felt amazing. We use to chant mantras and sing prayers in praise of Goddess Shakti. Then we did three Parikrama ( circumambulation) of the temple. After finishing the ritual we use to stand there at the top for some time. It was so blissful to watch the flowing river and blue sky above it.

While getting down from the staircase I used to feel so energetic. The enthusiasm of buying and eating things pumped energy in my lethargic body 😛 We use to buy deity lockets for us and all our cousins. Sometimes my mother used to buy bangles or clips or bands for me. On our continuous persuasion we were given a glass of fresh juice or lime soda and some snacks too 😛 Then we were dragged from there on to the road. I use to straightforwardly deny walking back home. So we waited for the bus to take us back. Once on the bus I again became the cheery soul.

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To be continued …..

Please read the other chapters if you have missed them from below :

Chapter-1

Chapter-2

Chapter-3

Chapter-4

Chapter-5

Summer Diaries

Chapter-5

“A happy childhood can’t be cured. Mine will hang around my neck like a rainbow, that’s all, instead of a noose. “

Sometimes when you try to recollect your past, you stumble upon some beautiful, few funny and a bit disappointing memories. I fiddle with my nerves to bring the memory threads on my pensive.

So one day we all were sitting on our porch and like always there was a power cut. My brother and my other elder cousin sisters were missing. I was too afraid to go inside to check their whereabouts. I could hear their giggles but when I called their name they stopped making noise. I asked my mother to bring them out as I thought I was missing something really important. My mother called them and they said they will be out soon but with a surprise for all. Now we all got excited to see what the surprise was?

Suddenly the bunch of my cousins came out giggling and to my utter surprise behind them was the cutest girl I have ever seen 😉 . My brother stood there giggling wearing a beautiful long red skirt and a colorful black and white top with it. A broad red color plastic hair band was shining on top of his head beautifying his black sleek hair. He curtsied to us on which everyone started laughing loudly 😀 .On receiving such a response he further enhanced his acts and took the ends of his flare and started taking circles doing the common step of a famous dance form called Ghoomar. This act of his left us in splits 😀 and we all were rolling on the floor 😀

ghoomar

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On another day I was sitting on the slab of the porch when my brother suddenly came and pushed me to frighten me. I must have been about 3 years old then and suddenly out of fit of rage I abused him by calling him Dog. The next thing I remember is a red flash on my face and me bawling loudly until my mother came out. She looked at my uncle and asked him what happened on which he answered I slapped your daughter as she uttered abusing word on her brother. I have forgotten that slap long ago . It was my mother who retailed me this incident when I once told her that how much I hate people using abusing and cursing words. Sometime some simple incidents even without your acknowledgment , do change your life for betterment 🙂

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After sometime when my little diaper cousins started growing up they entertained us in various manners. One of my cousin (he reads all my memoirs) use to sing songs for us. Now you would say what is so funny about singing songs. The fun part is the kind of voice he had at that time. He had a husky voice which is rare for kid of three years old. And he had a favorite song which he used to sing in loop until someone hushed him to stop. This song is still intact in my memory “Duniya mai aaye to love karo…thoda sa jee lo thoda mar lo “ (If you have come in this world than take the flavor of love and live a bit and die a bit ) How true it seems now when I understand the meaning behind the words.

There is one other cousin of mine who too is an avid follower of my blog did something that remains in memory. One day he was asked to call upon us for lunch. He was a very cute looking with long curly hair and very sweet voice. He used to talk in very low volume with pauses in the sentences like elders do. So he stood outside our gaming zone and knocked our door. I opened the door and he politely told me to come down for lunch. I told him we are busy in conversation and would come only after ending it. On this he said to all of us “Dear sis and brothers…Please let’s have lunch which is waiting for us and then we will have conversation and discussions”. We all got up and went downstairs for lunch. A kid of 3 years old taught us the lesson that god resides in food and we should eat it as and when offered. We are fortunate enough to get our meals of all times. So respect it 🙂

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To be continued …..

Please read the other chapters if you have missed them from below :

Chapter 1

Chapter-2

Chapter-3

Chapter-4

Summer Diaries

Chapter-4

“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”

With every sunrise there is a new beginning. And every morning brings its own flavors of life. Our usual summer mornings would kick off at 6 in the morning. Jumping out of our beds, we would run towards the washroom to get a place in the long awaited queue 🙂 . And that time toilets were modern concept in Indian villages and we had only one to our rescue 🙂 To add on to our problems our elders would push us last in the queue by saying our freshen up could wait 😛 as we have nothing important to do 😉 After waiting for long we hurriedly finished our business turn by turn 😛 and raced towards the kitchen to get the delicious cow milk. Our grandmother had a cow named LALI who was Jersey cow and use to give about 10 liters of milk in a day. A glass of milk was accompanied with sweets made of khoya (is a dairy product) and white misres (Sugar cubes) 🙂 .

cone shaped sugar cubes

After relishing our mornings with sweetness we would rush to our GAME ZONE.

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Every day was different for us as we played different games each day. But the most played and exciting one was “Ghar-Ghar”(Home-Home). My elder cousin who was our boss usually decided who would play which character in the game 🙂 As I was quite obedient she used to make me her baby .Sometimes when someone else wanted to be her child she would become my mother-in-law and made me a newly bride 😉 At that time being bride was so beautiful I just had to wear beautiful sarees (a garment consisting of a length of cotton or silk elaborately draped around the body) that were taken stealthy from my grandmother’s closet 🙂 . They were my first lessons towards understanding Indian married life :). Those days taught me how to wear sarees and saved me in my initial days of matrimonial life 🙂

cotton saree

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Sometimes when my male cousins didn’t oblige we would decide to play shopping game 🙂 Here all boys would become shopkeepers and sell something 🙂 we girls would simply do our favorite work 😉 by playing shoppers 🙂 . My brother always opened a Paan shop 🙂 making a different kind of Paan with Litchi leaves having tulsi and sugar in it but the most amazing part was that the spit and stain was exactly of RED color 🙂

Our paan ingredients and original meetha paan

We would keep eating them until we were caught doing this by some elders. One of my cousin would become saree shop owner and would drape sarees on his body 😀 and would beg us to buy one from him 🙂 .The currency was made out of old newspaper with numbers written on them 🙂

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At times when we got bored of playing all the games we would accompany our grandmother to paddy fields and would get in the mud to help the labors in ploughing 🙂 .

paddy field

It was less of help and more of fun for all of us 🙂 . We drenched ourselves in mud and would be pleaded by labors not to help them anymore :P. After being dragged out of the fields we were taken to canals for quick showers 🙂 .After doing so much of work we were given roasted corns with sprinkle of lime and black salt on it.

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There were days when we would just roam on our village streets. At times we were entertained in other people’s home where they gave us their home grown fruits 🙂 Some were quite loving lot who would ask us to have lunch in their homes and we dutifully obliged to their insistence 🙂 . According to my mom and my relatives I was a very cute kid and people would love to hold me and use to take me to their home 🙂 One such time I went to someone‘s place and they offered me lunch and I said OK I will have it but let me call my other siblings too 🙂 In village my sibling grew from one to seven 🙂 I called them all from home and they had to offer lunch to all of us 😛 . After that they called us for snacks 😉 but never offered meal 😀

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To be continued …..

Please read the other chapters if you have missed them from below :

Chapter 1

Chapter-2

Chapter-3

Summer Diaries

Chapter 3

“You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.”

Holding hands of our mother’s we stood there engulfing the beauty of the giant river. Somewhere it flowed with force and somewhere it lay with all its serenity, burbling its story in our ears. Coming close-by we saw beautiful fishes, small and big of different color’s dancing to the melody of river music. Slowing loosening ourselves from the grips we ran towards the magnificent rivulet without paying heed to the elderly voices 🙂

River Kosi

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Dipping ourselves in the tranquility of the goddess river, we screamed with happiness. Most of us didn’t knew how to swim then so we use to sit on shoulders of our elder cousins who use to give us watery walk 🙂 Sometimes we use to bring junk car tubes and used it as swimming tube. But our swimming tube worked differently 😉 Here we made one to sit on it while others pushed it like a pram 😉 it was so much fun 😀 seeing our cheerful faces our mother’s use to join us in this game 🙂

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My mother who was quite a good swimmer use to show her mermaid skills. She taught us the beautiful “Red Mermaid” game .The game was one has to throw a red stone in water yelling “who has the red mermaid” simultaneously other’s had to dip inside the water to get that red stone 🙂 The one who got it was declared as winner and threw it in water for the next game. It was fun game 😉 where everyone tried to show their breath holding and swimming skills 🙂

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We use to comeback only after sunset babbling about that day’s game. Our mother’s prepared dinner while we recited tales of our courage to my uncle. He is my mother’s youngest brother who lived with my grandmother in their ancestral home. He pampered us so much that we never felt that we didn’t have our grandfather who had passed away when my mom was 18. He is an entertainer, to this date he never forgets any of ours birthday, he is the one after my parents who congratulate me on every achievement of mine. He truly holds a very special place in my heart.

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Dinner mostly included jack fruit vegetable with curd and chapattis. Oh I forgot to tell you …. We had big jackfruit trees too.

JackFruit tree

And my grandmother use to make awesome jackfruit “subzi” which we call Kathal in Hindi.

I still love it and make it quite often during summers 🙂  . So after having our meals we were separated by our mothers and were taken to bed.

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I had the habit of listening stories from my mother till I learned to read own my own. As the night grew darker the river roared as if attacked by demonic possession. Hearing its loud growl, I clutched my mother’s hand and asked her the reason of this sudden change. She unfolded the mystery behind the river’s changed attitude.

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Kosi was amongst the seven daughters of Mountain Himalaya. Once Himalaya did a Yajna for prosperity of his kingdom and invited all his daughters but Kosi ignored the invite and got indulged in her newly married alliance. So all the daughters reached on the decided date but Kosi was nowhere to be found. She was the youngest child and thus was her father’s favorite one too. So Himalaya thought that maybe she didn’t get the message and once again invited her but this time she came but reached after Yajna got over. Seeing such discourtesy by his daughter Himalaya grew angry and gave curse to Kosi that “She will always start from Himalaya but no one will ever know where she ends and she will cry every night for the pain she has given to her father and no one will ever be able to cure her pain”. The moral of the story was anyone who hurts their parents does not live a peaceful life. And this got inculcated in my concise forever. For the story I don’t know how much truth lies in it but I got the message my mother wanted to give me.

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To be continued …..

Please read the other chapters if you have missed them from below :

Chapter 1

 Chapter-2

Summer Diaries

Chapter 2

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”

Standing there viewing the world around me made me mesmerized once again. To the one side of the road stood the dense forest where you could not find any trail of human life.

The Jungle

And to the sheer surprise another one held a village inhabiting humans. My brother used to start running towards our home but me being the shy one use to walk beside my mother. Holding her wane, I use to peep and observe people who use to greet my parents. Sometimes I use to give a wry smile to the people who called my name lovingly. Those steps from the road to our home were the most uneasy steps for me.

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My brother who was an extrovert was unruffled by this change of surroundings. He always entered from backyard and hid himself in the kitchen.

Backyard at present

I always entered from the front with my parents.

Front view at present

My mother use to pretend that he has not accompanied us on this trip to which my grandmother use to get disappointed and at that moment he use to unveil himself from behind. We use to laugh aloud on this 😀.At that time I never understood why they played this game of hide and seek each and every year. But now when I recall that moment I realize that it was to make the reunion more jovial. It was the way when two kids, one old and other young meet each other 🙂 In our custom when we meet, we touch feet of all the elderly people present there at home and in return they hug us and throw a thousand kisses on our face 😛 I use to get irritated with these kisses but now when I am on the other side I too, do the same 😉

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So after this meeting ritual we use to mingle with our cousins whom we have forgotten a bit from our last trip. Sometimes some new ones were there, who would have been born in that duration of a year. We were divided into three equal age categories… the big ones who were quite big and were in high standards and would come for a small duration of time… than there came our group which was headed by my cousin sister who was the eldest amongst us… and the last one included the crawling and diaper ones 😀.

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Early morning we would accompany our mothers or anyone’s mother to a nearby canal for taking bath.

Canal

The bath had two benefits, firstly free plays in water and the most important one free mangoes 😉. The village is house of thousands of mango trees. Our home was surrounded by a three mango orchard having the most delicious mangoes I have eaten so far. It had three very famous varieties Dasheri, Langra and Kalami.

Mango orchards

The orchards had few trees of litchi and guava too. We were dragged out of the canal sometimes we came our own with the fake promise that in the evening we would be allowed to go the river Kosi. After coming back from our local swimming sessions we attacked the delicious food made by my grandmother. She was the best cook for me after my mom. The yummy mango chutneys with hot paratha was one of the best breakfast I have ever had.

mango chutney

Plain Paratha

After overloading our stomachs, we use to run towards our room for playing our games. Nobody was allowed in our zone not even our mothers 😛.We always kept a kid cousin of ours as sentinel to keep check that no other amongst them should enter our gaming zone. The prize in return was an entry to our kingdom 😉 The game was the character play where each one was assigned some character and they had to behave accordingly. We were six to seven in numbers and we never had any fight 🙂 ..Never 🙂

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After much persuasion we were brought downstairs for having our lunch, which included Dali, rice, roti and Subzi and the desert was sweet mangoes. My grandmother use to put mangoes in a bucket full of water as we didn’t have fridge at that time. We were allowed to have as many mangoes as our stomach could intake. And we have many funny stories linked with it 😉 But that will be shared later on 😛

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The evening was the best time as we were taken to the river side of the Kosi. And there the breathtaking view awaited us.

River Kosi

Note : Check here for Summer Diaries : Chapter 1

To be continued ……

Summer Diaries

Chapter 1

“Each golden day of our summer vacation was cherish-able , for we had the feeling that each could be our last.”

Lately, I have talked a lot about my summer vacations at my maternal grandparent’s house. So, I thought I need to unleash my memories bit by bit to make a beautiful memoir. It is the tale of one little girl who use to live with her family in a small town which was part of a big country India.

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My grandmother use to live in a beautiful small village called Dhikuli near a teeny town called Ramnagar,Uttarakhand in India 🙂 This place is famous as one of the oldest national park of India. It was a big house having 14 rooms. For us this was a gateway from all the worries of city life.

On the onset of summers my parents use to declare time ultimatum for us to finish our holiday homework .And me and my brother like dedicated labors use to work on it day and night. Phew …as soon as it used to get finished, we use to nag our parents to start our journey towards our blissful heaven 🙂

My father use to work in a private company at that time which didn’t had the concept of 5 days a week (for him it’s still not there 😛 ) . So the first Sunday after we finished our allotted task, we use to go for our summer shopping 🙂 .At that time we use to get new apparel’s only twice a year once for our summer trip and another one for our birthday 🙂

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Now wearing our new dresses carrying the water bottles (because it was the only piece of luggage I can carry at that time 😛 ) with a 32 teeth smile on our faces we entered in a bus. The usual fight between me and my brother use to arise …..Who will sit beside the window 😛 without making a scene my mother use to settle the fight by giving us chance to change our turn every two hours 🙂

Once the bus left the bus station, I prayed to speed fast the traveling time. I use to wave-off my hand to all the tall buildings. After passing some time looking in and out of the bus we started making puppy faces, to get something from the hawkers entering in the bus on every bus station. From orange candies to orange packet juices … roasted peanuts to eating coconut our varied variety intakes use to make our journey more happening and beautiful 🙂

It was almost a 12 hour journey if we didn’t encounter any traffic jams 😛 . A 12 hour journey at that time in an Indian summer and non-AC bus was back-breaking but nothing absolutely nothing used to break our zeal. Landing their use to give us goose bumps. We could not believe that we have finally reached our most cherished place. Dumbfounded by the magnificent scenery that lay before our eyes, we got down from bus. Down from the bus my parents used to teach us to greet every one we met on our way…

To this day I find it quiet amusing that everyone used to be our aunt and uncle and everyone knew everyone else? It was like a very big family living under different roof but one sky 🙂

To be continued ……