Looking Back With A Smile : Those Wonderful Days

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.
Tom Stoppard

This Saturday was different,as i woke up early for a breakfast meetup with my dear friends Shama and Rasheekh.

On my way back – i saw few kids playing cricket and few others shouting a screaming as the batsman was about to score a fifty(50 runs). I decided to wait and watch the celebration.As soon as he scored the fifty – everyone cheered for him – just like we see on TV. I enjoyed the celebration and continued to walk back home.

As i sat and browsed – it appeared to me – its been a while i played cricket or celebrated like that.It took me back to the cricket fest i played with my colleagues in my previous company.We played our hearts out and enjoyed every bit of it.

Just like a movie flashback i allowed it to take me back and i realized – as kids we cherished everything – those precious small yet important moments.

We celebrated that we will be allowed to use ballpoint pens and finally we can get rid of those ink pens.We were happy to use big registers instead of tiny notebooks and bringing fewer books to class was more of a “school fashion statement”.

As kids our super hero was always Amitabh Bachchan and whatever he did was a big deal for us. Honestly tell me can anyone pull off the role of Shahenshah and still look convincing.
Fact: Story of this movie was written by Jaya Bachchan,wife of Amitabh Bachchan and directed by his close friend Tinu Anand ( famous for his ‘mera viju beta’ dialogue from Agneepath and in my group fondly known as Nakli Amitabh).

Given below is the dialogue which was all rage at that time.

The days of Mowgli,Bagheera,duck tales and who can forget Rangoli in the morning with tea,Ramayan with breakfast and sadly followed by homework if any.

My sister trying to imitate me and asking mom for another chapati as soon as i did – because if bhaiyya(Elder brother) can eat it so can i :), or my evil Maggie trick to get bigger portion.

Let me share it – as always it took 2 minutes or so to cook Maggie – then i would serve it in two bowls – now please take notes on : “how to put a fork to use” – i used the fork to press down the noodles in bowl 1 and it would make it look like the bowl with less portion. Then i would dig the fork deeper into noodles in bowl 2 but this time pulling the noodles up – giving it the Fluffy illusion and in-turn making it appear as a bigger portion.Then i called my sister and asked her which one she wanted – as a kid she always chose the bowl with bigger portion(at-least it looked like it 🙂 ) – though she got the trick later and compensated it with the chocolate shares ( i got the smaller one – though she won’t admit it) we are even now and divide & rule policy is out for good. Mom use to enjoy these moments and laugh out as she knew we were learning in our own ways and it was all part of the learning process.

Simple bets with my Dad were a big deal to me – it went like this – If you get me out you get to buy a new ball,or you can go for a movie.I bowled and bowled and he batted like a test batsman(i still miss watching him play those leg glances) – when he saw i was tired or about to give up – he would trick me into believing that i clean bowled him with superb delivery – truth being he would just miss the shot – watch my celebration and hand over the bet money.

The rules were also simple – we liked or we did not – we never pretended.

I realize i am talking to myself as of now 🙂 but it doesn’t hurt to look back and smile – i choose to look at the good memories ,pause to acknowledge them and get back to my present.

The key takeaway out of this flashback for me is to keep things simple and enjoy those small victories,set the counter to zero and start again with the renewed energy.(you can tweet this if you like)

Your Turn:

I am sure all of you also have moments like these and they inspire you,motivate you or just make you smile.

Please feel free to share and discuss it here and i am sure we can extend this conversation even further.