Yesterday after so may days I felt that I have some leisure time now and its time to surf some TV channels. But suddenly my 1.8 year old came running to me with his demand of listening to songs. Surprisingly he knows the wording of all this latest songs "Saturday saturday" being his favourite. My elder daughter who's just 4 came running and said she wants to watch Dora. I left the tv remote to the kids and came out thinking that they will settle it themselves. Next thing that came to my mind was checking my email. As I opened the laptop, my little one again came running to me saying he wants to talk to Grandma. He thinks Laptop is medium of video communication with Nana nani.
I was wondering that what would have happened if I had access to all these gadgets when I was of their age. Thank God I didn't ! I grew up in a small town, Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir. If we had to watch songs on tv we used to wait for Sunday morning show Rangoli, wait for sunday to watch mogli and duck tales. Playing badminton, hide and seek, bat ball, run and catch were the games I remember playing when I was a kid. How sad we would become if turns out to be a rainy day. No one would allow us to play in this weather. We had alternatives to this. Business, Ludo, carrom
at someone's place with hot pakora's being served from Aunt or Mummy's kitchen. There were some stone games like stapu what we used to play. Mummy always used to get angry because all our pockets were overflooded with those flat stones and our shoes used to torn from the front in a weeks time playing such games. Now whenever I take my kids downstairs, I never see anyone playing those games. Someone's returning from abacus class, someone from drawing class, some from dance class or judo class. I see only a few children who play in groups.
We used to stay in close knit colony where everyone used to celebrate all festivals together. Caste, regional bias never used to divide people. Be it Holi, Diwali or dusshera exchanging sweets was a custom. One festival which we girls used to enjoy was Navratri, where girls were invited on Ashtami or Navmi and given some sweets and money. At the end of the day we used to count our earnings. Now I'm in Mumbai where no doubt all festivals are celebrated in great spirit but still that closeness among families is missing. Those were the days without mobiles phones, even few houses had landlines too. Sometimes people used to leave messages at the neighbours house.
the place where my shool and and house was located amidst little mountains and behind there was a stream of water.
This was the ideal holiday destiday every mumbaikar urges for. I was bsy recalling my golden old days when my little one disturbed me with his new demand of listening to Johny Jony on Tab. The joy given by nature is far more than the modern gadgets and television. Will our children ever get to know this?
