A walk down the memory lane
I woke up at 10:30 a.m. (Sat). That’s not much sleep since I went to bed at around 5 in the morning. Did I go partying? I WISH!...I was meddling around with my FYP. Dare I say, it is looking absolutely voluptuous right now. If I pull this off…Dr.M, Mr.R, watch me waltzing around at me demo.
While having my morning doze of caffeine, I was trying to remember the last time I was free of absolutely any burden. Thinking….into mid teens…nothing….thinking a bit more into early teens…zilch….10,9,8,7,6…BREAKS! Yes…I remember now. Before age 6 i.e. before starting formal education I was a free human being. I could do absolutely anything I wanted (except murder) without thinking twice about it because I got away with it even if I screw up. Maximum punishment would be a small whack on the butt from my parents (is that legal?)… Comparing to the crap I get today…it was a dream.
People always say that they realize how good their younger days were only when they grow up. When I wanted to do grown-up stuff like driving my father’s Jeep when I was 5…he said…”all in due time honey…just enjoy being a little girl right now. I will let you drive when you are old enough.” CRAP! I thought. I refused to have my bed-time bottle of milk that night. Take that for a come back! The next day I realized what he meant, when he had to go to Trinco for some office work. (that was and still is not the safest hang out in the country). I knew since then, how important it is to live every day of my life to the fullest thanks to my father (now that sounds like a perfect answer to a beauty pageant Q).
I can remember as far into my past as age 3. Weird? I am not kidding. I was living in a very remote part of the country where they grew sugar cane for a living. Roads were carpeted, wide and almost empty except for the Jeeps that fly-by once in a while. During the harvest seasons you see parades of cane-carts and smell the freshly-cut sugar cane.
Fresh air all around. Plenty of space to play in my garden. Skies were always so clear and bright (except for the rainy season). Sometimes, I get so high on the clear, skies…I run outside the house spread my arms and spin around looking at the blue sky until I get dizzy. (NO, I don’t smoke weed now).
At the end of the day when my father came home after a tired day at work, he used to sit on a garden chair starring at the night sky while my mother prepared dinner. I used to lie on my father’s tummy and watch the stars with him. It was so beautiful. I have never seen so many stars in the sky since then. He showed me a moving satellite for the first time in my life one of those days. I thought that it was totally out of this world (at least out of the world of a 4 year old). As any curious kid would do, I asked him how they travel like that. I still remember the little sketch he drew on the sand with a stick to explain. I thought my father was the smartest man on earth even though I couldn’t quite understand why the satellites were not falling down. I could understand why the stars wouldn’t fall…that was easy…they were pasted in the night sky with super glue. But never could understand the moving objects.
I played with my two friends from the neighborhood all day. We used to catch fish with our bare hands from the puddle of mud at the edge of my backyard (and my back yard alone was about 1 acre…beyond that was the forest). Climb trees, play catch, and everything else except play house. I’ve never done that when I was a kid. Probably why my room is a mess right now. I could never figure out the fun in playing house when you get do it for real when you grow up. Why should we waste time as kids, playing house when we can do something we can’t do when we grow up?
I grew up surrounded by total wilderness. Heck, I even had a little wild-boar as a pet. That was one crazy pet. I have seen peacocks dance in the rain through my parent’s bedroom window. Seeing herds of elephants in the wilderness when I drive around with my parents was just a normal thing. Peacocks, hedge-hogs, deer sightings were like seeing Nissan vehicles on the Colombo roads. I have bathed in rivers…camped with the awesome wild-life officers, hung out with my father’s cool army friends, gone on boat rides in Trinco, almost got killed when our driver reversed the Jeep into the Maduru Oya reservoir with my sister, mother and myself in it. (No we didn’t fall…).
So many things to remember…
This time blogging worked…Getting back to my FYP.
While having my morning doze of caffeine, I was trying to remember the last time I was free of absolutely any burden. Thinking….into mid teens…nothing….thinking a bit more into early teens…zilch….10,9,8,7,6…BREAKS! Yes…I remember now. Before age 6 i.e. before starting formal education I was a free human being. I could do absolutely anything I wanted (except murder) without thinking twice about it because I got away with it even if I screw up. Maximum punishment would be a small whack on the butt from my parents (is that legal?)… Comparing to the crap I get today…it was a dream.
People always say that they realize how good their younger days were only when they grow up. When I wanted to do grown-up stuff like driving my father’s Jeep when I was 5…he said…”all in due time honey…just enjoy being a little girl right now. I will let you drive when you are old enough.” CRAP! I thought. I refused to have my bed-time bottle of milk that night. Take that for a come back! The next day I realized what he meant, when he had to go to Trinco for some office work. (that was and still is not the safest hang out in the country). I knew since then, how important it is to live every day of my life to the fullest thanks to my father (now that sounds like a perfect answer to a beauty pageant Q).
I can remember as far into my past as age 3. Weird? I am not kidding. I was living in a very remote part of the country where they grew sugar cane for a living. Roads were carpeted, wide and almost empty except for the Jeeps that fly-by once in a while. During the harvest seasons you see parades of cane-carts and smell the freshly-cut sugar cane.
Fresh air all around. Plenty of space to play in my garden. Skies were always so clear and bright (except for the rainy season). Sometimes, I get so high on the clear, skies…I run outside the house spread my arms and spin around looking at the blue sky until I get dizzy. (NO, I don’t smoke weed now).
At the end of the day when my father came home after a tired day at work, he used to sit on a garden chair starring at the night sky while my mother prepared dinner. I used to lie on my father’s tummy and watch the stars with him. It was so beautiful. I have never seen so many stars in the sky since then. He showed me a moving satellite for the first time in my life one of those days. I thought that it was totally out of this world (at least out of the world of a 4 year old). As any curious kid would do, I asked him how they travel like that. I still remember the little sketch he drew on the sand with a stick to explain. I thought my father was the smartest man on earth even though I couldn’t quite understand why the satellites were not falling down. I could understand why the stars wouldn’t fall…that was easy…they were pasted in the night sky with super glue. But never could understand the moving objects.
I played with my two friends from the neighborhood all day. We used to catch fish with our bare hands from the puddle of mud at the edge of my backyard (and my back yard alone was about 1 acre…beyond that was the forest). Climb trees, play catch, and everything else except play house. I’ve never done that when I was a kid. Probably why my room is a mess right now. I could never figure out the fun in playing house when you get do it for real when you grow up. Why should we waste time as kids, playing house when we can do something we can’t do when we grow up?
I grew up surrounded by total wilderness. Heck, I even had a little wild-boar as a pet. That was one crazy pet. I have seen peacocks dance in the rain through my parent’s bedroom window. Seeing herds of elephants in the wilderness when I drive around with my parents was just a normal thing. Peacocks, hedge-hogs, deer sightings were like seeing Nissan vehicles on the Colombo roads. I have bathed in rivers…camped with the awesome wild-life officers, hung out with my father’s cool army friends, gone on boat rides in Trinco, almost got killed when our driver reversed the Jeep into the Maduru Oya reservoir with my sister, mother and myself in it. (No we didn’t fall…).
So many things to remember…
This time blogging worked…Getting back to my FYP.
2 Comments:
Excellent post. I wish I had such a wonderful child hood like yours. It made me think about my child hood too. I still remember some stuff from my child hood, like my mom eating mangoes hiding from me(since it was not good for me at that time ) and finally getting caught to me, but I am not sure how old I was at that time. Should ask my mother when I return to SL this time :-)
I can't belive that u had such a wonderful child hood
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