Childhood. Raised with stories older than civilizations. Epics, the wisdom of several generations, painted on a land with variation beyond measure: a sub-continent. Handed down across countless generations, to be laid at the mercy of television animation of the 1990s, and the painted panels and thought bubbles of Amar Chitra Katha.
Youth filled with cricket. Entire summer days devoted to emulate 5-day test matches, only to fall short by 4 days and 6 hours every single time. Glimpses of a few of the billion faces. A waddle in a beach, a hike up a mole hill, a safari through a forest, a tour of a monument, a drive through the ghats, a glimpse of snow covered peaks towering to the sky. The world expands and re-calibrates the senses. The sounds of a thousand languages transform and imbue memories. Every new syllable, a style of expression centuries old. Languages that mix and meld like rivers. Rivers that span kilometres, crossed on thundering railway carriages.
Adolescence. Mischief, with access to fire-crackers once a year, igniting flames that smoulder, fuelled by hormones, stifled by orthodoxy and housed in centres of co-education. The furnace of young adulthood crushed under the weight of tomes stacked up to the stratosphere. Loud voices preaching and promising a bright future, but a silent voice whispering that there can be no other present. Minds that wish to observe, explore, charm, fantasise, attract, appreciate and be enamoured. Minds locked inside study rooms, shackled by sermons, crippled by the burden of 40 years to come.
Young adulthood. Home is left behind in the vast hometown - but a mere dot on the map. Meeting, mingling and making merry with compatriots from several other dots. A view of the world's layers through their glimpses and mine, expanding mutually with conversations: thoughtful, fiery, vile, lewd and caustic, but honest. Friendships forged that outlast the vagaries of time, space and fortune. Battles of wits. Battles in playgrounds. Playgrounds in classrooms. Classrooms in hostels. Boundaries destroyed between night and day. Minds pampered with limitless freedom bereft of responsibility. Hands decorated with rings clasping fraudulent degrees. A rush of blood to the head and elsewhere. A corruption of Kipling among several others: "Ours is the earth and everything in it".
Leaving a trail to revisit for decades.
Youth filled with cricket. Entire summer days devoted to emulate 5-day test matches, only to fall short by 4 days and 6 hours every single time. Glimpses of a few of the billion faces. A waddle in a beach, a hike up a mole hill, a safari through a forest, a tour of a monument, a drive through the ghats, a glimpse of snow covered peaks towering to the sky. The world expands and re-calibrates the senses. The sounds of a thousand languages transform and imbue memories. Every new syllable, a style of expression centuries old. Languages that mix and meld like rivers. Rivers that span kilometres, crossed on thundering railway carriages.
Adolescence. Mischief, with access to fire-crackers once a year, igniting flames that smoulder, fuelled by hormones, stifled by orthodoxy and housed in centres of co-education. The furnace of young adulthood crushed under the weight of tomes stacked up to the stratosphere. Loud voices preaching and promising a bright future, but a silent voice whispering that there can be no other present. Minds that wish to observe, explore, charm, fantasise, attract, appreciate and be enamoured. Minds locked inside study rooms, shackled by sermons, crippled by the burden of 40 years to come.
Young adulthood. Home is left behind in the vast hometown - but a mere dot on the map. Meeting, mingling and making merry with compatriots from several other dots. A view of the world's layers through their glimpses and mine, expanding mutually with conversations: thoughtful, fiery, vile, lewd and caustic, but honest. Friendships forged that outlast the vagaries of time, space and fortune. Battles of wits. Battles in playgrounds. Playgrounds in classrooms. Classrooms in hostels. Boundaries destroyed between night and day. Minds pampered with limitless freedom bereft of responsibility. Hands decorated with rings clasping fraudulent degrees. A rush of blood to the head and elsewhere. A corruption of Kipling among several others: "Ours is the earth and everything in it".
Leaving a trail to revisit for decades.
