“Paatti, I want red colour bangles, those rolling ones that you brought me last time. I like it most. I have never seen it anywhere else. Buy me lots of salted kaarakka (Ceylon Olive fruit), kozhundu poo (a type of flower with intense fragrance) and Chodakku (I can’t get its English name) too. Then I want ……..” Reader might be wondering what I am talking about. It’s a bit of conversation that I frequently used to have with my grandmother, whom I call ‘Paatti’ (Grandma in Tamil language). Yes, as everyone I too have a lot of colourful childhood memories and many of my thoughts of today are deeply linked with my past and those carefree days when I used to spent with my grandparents, uncles and aunt. Now my grandmother at the age of 71 is counting her last moments of life, following a stroke and when this article will be published, she may or may not be alive on this earth. In the past 3 days I might have travelled through my childhood several times as those memories are deeply linked to my grandparents. This article is a tribute to my grandmother as well as a journey to our childhood days, both the people of yesterday and children of today. I have tried to find what changes have occurred in society that our kids are not able to experience the childhood days the same way we have done two or three decades back.

Rains, paper boats and mushrooms

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I often feel that old palm thatched houses, lakes, ponds, rains, chirping birds, flowers and green plants are linked to our childhood days. They share a unique relation as well. Kids are more interested in such things than adults as they are observers. When they get experience of such things for the first time in their life, those moments stay as memories in their lost thoughts forever! Yes, rains and green plants are the best instances of remote village life that our kids miss at present days most. Unfortunately we can’t do much for improving this condition. Big fields and farms have paved way to concrete buildings, commercials and shopping malls. Now it’s the time of cable channels, cartoon networks and mobile sms with which our kids’ childhood days and their memories are linked with. When earth receives the first rainfall it spreads a unique fragrance enough to refresh our old memories. When we kids make boats and float in water it’s nothing short of celebrations. Coconut leaf thatched roof of homes, mushrooms in fields and greenery all around are distinct finger marks of those old days. Making homes and dishes, fishing from paddy and playing in streams and ponds were the hobbies of children about two decades back. I wonder if kids of today living in concrete homes and flats walk forward in their life, binding with them such beautiful moments of today. Definitely not!

If I tell about my childhood days, it’s middle 1980’s, some 25 or 28 years back. It was green everywhere. Now those days have gone. Yet my village has not lost its charm yet. Mushrooms open their eyes around our farm lands and my father used to collect them fresh. Fields filled with banana, coconut trees, colacasia and elephant yams. Nothing else! But they wear a special beauty in those monsoon days when our school days had just begun. Everything is there intact! But soil has lost its essence, fragrance of first rain and of course, those mushrooms.

We lived in a thatched roof home in those days. Later we constructed a two-storied building exactly in the same place. Yet I have never felt the same way that I used to feel in my childhood days in the old home. Yes, old traditional homes bind something special in their old bricks and their granary. We had an old wooden pathayam, a storage box to store grains and fruits. Now also it’s there in our old storage. In my childhood days, if I open its lid, it has a special smell that I had never experienced anywhere else. We used to store mangoes and grains in it; often the best storage space of money and coins. I often thought that its smell is due to the ‘currency note’ smell. I often secretly open the lid to smell it for a while, revealing with you people a secret. But years later when I opened it to refresh those memories, it had a rotten smell. Like those faded good things, this one too added to my memory. 

Can today’s kids feel the same thing?

If I tell similar things to kids today they may laugh at me. They may ask me “What is a pathayam?” or “Can coconut leaves used for roof? Can’t believe”! We provide our kids the best facility we can. Yet I feel we can never pass those impressions what have left in our minds of those old days to new generation kids. They have already moved many steps away from those traditional days. Those old days of fairy tales, mango tree and swings in courtyard and lot of friends to play have already disappeared. Many old games have already disappeared.

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Let me recall once again my memories related to grandmother and old days. Whenever I used to go to their agricultural fields, I will be busy in making toys of coconut leaves, jack tree leaves and even tapioca leaves too. Those days were definitely not of soft toys! Today everything is instant made. If you have money in hand, you can buy anything in ready made packets even at remote villages. But if we go back to decades, most of those things were not easily available in markets and people had to travel a lot to buy their necessaries from next market. 

The person who I mention in this story is my mother’s mother. We used to visit grandparents once in every month and stay with them for two days, also on special occasions like Onam and Christmas. So, I have a lot of childhood memories related to those days when the village was remote in those days. Whenever she goes to market for a purchase (in those days they travel by foot) we will make a list of our requirements. Those things are not expensive. The things that I have mentioned in the article beginning never cost more than 5 or 10 paise, except the bangles. Yet when she buys such cheap things for me, they are more worth than gold coins when we are at an age of 6 or 7. After all, scarcity of commodities ruled all over that time.

That’s why I asked, want to discuss with you people too, though we can buy/meet requirements of present kids more easily than before, definitely we can’t buy the happiness associated with those things in the same way our parents and grandparents have done a few decades back. Do you agree with me? Very often when I hear the childhood stories of my parents, in their younger age of poor economic conditions I feel that ‘we have lived in ultra modern condition’. If so what definition should I give to my kid/kids’ childhood days?

Lost things are lost forever

Till now, I have quoted those moments I remember first. I now recall the taste of grandma dishes. Why are they so special? Why can’t we make them the same way? No answers for a few questions. It’s true our kids are often deceived of grandma dishes, love, care and her fairy tales. Same way, children of today can’t connect themselves with society and its people like before. Those days have been the period of scarcity and difficulties with less communication and transportation facilities. Yet in most we people’s thoughts, childhood memories are the best that we love to carry throughout our life. Even a single flash of an old thought can keep you fresh and happy a whole day throughout. Perhaps the less availability and less use of technology make a few things so fond to us. Best instance is a received letter or a received call. Now when each kid carries a mobile (with camera, GSM and blue tooth) in his hand always, such old things have lost their significance a lot. Even if we try a lot we can’t bring those old days back. 

A childhood story in fiction

Let me imagine what my daughter may tell about her childhood after 20 years.

In my childhood days I used to see cartoon films a lot. Chota Bheem was my favourite. I was addicted to Dora too, that I never felt interest in playing outside. I too had no friends at home. If I need to search for something, I just browse for a while; whether it’s my favourite game or favourite song, it’s not difficult to find. My parents say they had played a lot of games in their childhood. They often tell me about many games which I feel funny. When they say they used to play outside in their big courtyard with lots of friends from neighbourhood I never believed them. I see only big flats and homes and nothing else. No big playgrounds. No gatherings. No waste land or tall green trees. Everyone is busy in studies, projects and tuition only. Then how can kids find time to play in those days? My mother used to visit library regularly. But I can easily access books through net.

I visit my grandparents and family during vacations. Yet vacation ends so quick and most time I spent time by fighting with my cousin. It’s the only nice childhood memory that I have. Grandfather asks me what I want. But what should I ask?  My parents buy everything that I want. I get anything from malls and supermarket. My parents may use debit or credit cards for purchase. My mother has told me several times, she used to demand some special things from her grandparents that she never gets anywhere else except in their rural village. I often wonder how it can happen. Whenever my grandparents have given me something I never felt that it is rare and nice. I demand them expensive things like bicycle or soft toy and they are willing to buy anything for me, even now. Yet till now, I have never found anything that I can ask them what my parents can never purchase for me from a shop. I feel that distance between villages and big towns have already disappeared and it’s not possible to point out a rural village in present century where people had to travel on foot for long distance to reach nearby market.

My father often tells about the nearby shop from which he used to buy lemon candy for 5 paise. He says, though the shop is so old, he has a deep bond with it. Why so? I can’t understand. I have seen only big shopping malls like City Centre and Big Bazaar where everything is available in a single shop; you need not wander from one shop to another too. Then how can my father be right? I think he is lying. 

Once my mother has told me that my grandmother used to travel 5 or 6 kms by foot to buy things for home as transport facilities were comparatively less during 60’s and 70’s. But if it’s the case of today we depend on an auto or car to travel to the next bus stop. Yes, everything has changed a lot. I often feel that my parents have got more facility than my grandparents and I too have received much more than my parents. Yet I feel I have missed something precious in my childhood days that parents and grandparents have got abundantly. Yes, technology has advanced forward. Standard of living has increased. Yet values and thoughts have definitely depreciated. That’s what I feel right now.

An end note:

In the first paragraph, I have mentioned about ‘Chodakku’. I searched a lot to get its English word, but couldn’t. Even google couldn’t find it for me. I couldn’t even find an image of it. I definitely want to buy a bunch of Chodakku for my daughter. She will definitely love it. I think it’s a bunch of flowers or stalk that resembles the stalk of a shoe flower. We need to blow to fill it like a balloon and press in on hands or forehead to produce sound. You might be laughing while reading it. Yet when young, we kids have loved and cracked it a lot. I have never seen it anywhere in the past few years. Perhaps among those disappeared things, ‘chodakku’ has also gone before anyone noticed it!

Though I have started with my conversation with grandmother, I have travelled through several points to the final destination. Yes, “Old is always Gold”. Nothing can replace its beauty and charm. Only thing we can do is to treasure those moments and pass a few lessons to our kids if we can. Perhaps new generation may not agree with me and fix me as ‘a person with foolish thoughts’. Yet I enjoy those nostalgic moments whenever I go to my childhood days, a feeling that modern technology can never bring, like old rice cooked again and again.

My grandmother is definitely a part of my old memories and when I had a talk with my brother today over phone, I felt that we two are the persons who love her most. Why not? She is one of the powerful persons from whom we have learnt a lot of lessons of life from our early childhood. I started calling her ‘paatti’ before she reached 40. I was the first one to call her grandma. I don’t know how long she is to stay alive. Yet I treasure her memories a lot, because she is one of those lovable persons who have definitely given a new shape to my childhood. Perhaps a treasure I may not be able to give to my daughter or future generations today or tomorrow.
If you are interested in reading an article about my grandma I have submitted about one year ago, click the link below. 

http://www.boddunan.com/articles/health-fitness/232-aging-and-longevity/20593-survival-strategies-of-my-grandmother.html

Image source: Wikipedia


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