We of the human race, every single one of us, are great suckers for reminiscences. We like to undertake trips on nostalgia's wings, mostly to relive memories precious to us. For me, the last such journey was this morning. Perhaps it was an article I came across on the Net, rich in detail about the author's many doings when he was a kid, that set off my train of thoughts. Suffice it to say that it took me, gently, and returned me to my own childhood days... Well, how do you go about describing that golden period of your life except by that cliché, 'It was simply great!'? So it was, my childhood... rich in fun and excitement. It never bothered me that I was an only child. I had a lot of cousins, and they had cousins too. Part of a joint family, we were three children, apart by 11 months. It must have been hell for my mother and aunts to manage three brats at one time. But who cared, we had our share of fun! To top it all off, one cousin, three years my senior and our gang leader, (I got to tell you this: she's the best friend one can ever have!) used to visit us on weekends. That really must have been the Agnipariksha for our poor mothers! When I was a little over 12 months, I brought the entire block to my door. All by myself. At home with mother, I managed to lock her up safely in the bathroom. Who says only Veerappan can hold hostages? I too held one, that day long ago. Like in the Open Sesame story, I knew no way to release my ma. The only option left was open my mouth and wail. Periodic instructions and the hectic banging away from inside were no help. All I did was raise my decibel level with each passing minute. Nearly two hours later, my neighbours came to the conclusion that this was no ordinary commotion. They rushed to us. One of them broke open the door to free my mother. Whew! It must have taken her a superhuman effort to resist slapping me, I am sure. I still maintain that I am not to be blamed for that incident. The Mahabharata has it that Lord Krishna taught his yet-to-be-born nephew Abhimanyu to enter the 'Chakravyuh', but not to exit it. Likewise, my uncle must have taught me to lock the bathroom door but not unlock it! To this day, my neighbour, the one who broke the door, hasn't allowed me to forget that incident. He still asks (especially when there are people around): "You still lock your mother in the bathroom?" As a matter of fact, I don't. But I do intend to try it on my husband one of these days. We cousins were largely inspired by Enid Blyton's adventure stories. We identified ourselves with the Famous Five. KK was Julian, Raj was Dick, Pri (she was a real tomboy) was George, and I was Anne. Our outstanding regret those days was that we didn't have a dog to complete the gang. We did attempt to remedy this by bringing home stray doggies, but there our parents put their collective feet down. I must say that our shortcoming finally got solved -- with the arrival of another cousin. Mahesh was so tiny and cute! We all loved him. Since he had arrived so late in life, he had to play the role of Timmy [the dog in Famous Five]. Which he did very well for the next one year, crawling on all fours! Those days I was so taken in by secret passages that opened wide at the click of a hidden button behind cupboard panels (an integral part of many adventures). I very enthusiastically went groping around our cupboards. Of course, I didn't find any. Our meetings, parodies of the ones described by Blyton, were held on the balcony. We got our parents to serve us lemonade and hot dosas (which we bit into pretending they were ginger-buns). And yes, anyone who had to enter the brightly-lit balcony had to disclose our password. This amused our elders greatly. At one time we considered giving our group a name and identity badges, and going global by inducting friends and relatives from all over. Fortunately, better sense prevailed. Our playground, I remember, was wherever we happened to be. At times it would be the long corridors in our building or the space behind cupboards. On many occasions, we have even managed around grandma's sewing machine. Cycling together was fun. The first time I sat on a cycle, I found myself in a ditch very soon. One game that I shall never forget is 'Secret, Secret'. In the course of our meetings, we used to make plans for the night. When the grandfather clock chimed 12, we would all meet in the corridor, affirm our identity with our passwords, and tiptoe to the kitchen. Then it was a free-for-all. Each would attack his chosen target with gusto. We took turns to monitor that the elders were all snoring peacefully. At night, we would all huddle together to watch some scary (if it wasn't really scary, we simply made ourselves believe that it was!) serial on television, screaming loudly at every possible opportunity. The elders never used to like that part and would try to burn us with threatening glares -- but that was our idea of enjoyment. Diwalis were fun... Actually, all festivals were fun. The importance of planning was something we understood at a very young age. Before Diwali we would have long meetings to decide what each one would buy. And then would start the parents-coaxing exercise... The only person who really scared us was grandpa. A huge, burly, dark man, he just had to say 'Aaa', which he did quite often, to have us run for cover. But he was a different man in the evenings, when he used to assemble us children, seat himself on the floor, and hum old Carnatic songs or even Tamil film numbers. We used to sit through the session without a word, lest we offended the old man. Despite his ruff-n-tuff exterior, grandpa never ever abused or raised his hand on any of his children or grandchildren. In fact, sometimes, much to our delight, he used to reprimand our mothers if they whacked us in his presence. Grandma's recounting (and re-recounting) of their life in Burma (now Myanmar) as part of a bigger joint family never failed to elicit 'oohs' and 'aahs' from her audience. Our hairs would stand on end when she described the Japanese bombings of their township in 1941-1942. They all took cover in trenches then. What a life that must have been! When the bombings increased, the elders, women and children left Burma for India. A little later, grandpa and his brothers walked all the way to Calcutta. They survived "on leaves and water". Their legs resembled the barks of huge trees when they got home, according to grandma. Grandpa passed away in 1983. After that things slowly started to change. The celebrations gradually reduced. Life became busy. Examinations were more important than balcony-meetings. Admissions and career took precedence over lemonade and ginger-buns. Before we knew it, we had all grown into mellow, well-behaved adults! Today, despite wanting to, rarely do we cousins meet. Most of us are married and we have kids of our own now. But our childhood, those ancient days, is still etched in our memory. I hope to relive those moments... in the lives of our next generation. Ranjani S K is famous for undertaking nostalgic trips while at work! Tell us what you think of this diary
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