When you think of it, we had a very different childhood from the ones that kids of today, are experiencing. And as I pen down that line, I am amazed at the length of time that has passed, at the enormity of the differences that have cropped up in the childhoods of then and now and also, at how things remain the same, the more they change!! Indeed, when I was young, my Maa would speak of her childhood with the same prefacing comment – “We had a very different childhood” and her descriptions would seem scarcely believable. I am sure that Gurhgurhee would feel similarly, when I speak of mine.
But amongst all the other things that have changed – and there are plenty – the most disheartening, I think, is the slow disappearance of the bonhomie and the accompanying fun and frolic with the wider family.
I grew up in Kolkata and we had many cousins around. The wider family was more or less concentrated in and around Bengal and East India and many would be in Kolkata. Meetings and get-togethers were frequent and there would be many opportunities for the younger lot, like me, to have fun. The fairly regular visits to Patna were the highlights of our holidays and the occasional visits from Mejo Jethumoni and family, from Bombay or our vice-versa trips, would be more eagerly looked forward to, than anything else in life.
Dada used to have so many posters of sportspersons & superheroes stuck on the walls of his room - his stories of Mike Tyson and Clive Lloyd and his interest in comics from Phantom to Flash Gordon to Captain America, rubbed off on me too. Weekend visits to Baromashi’s place at Garpar would be so much fun – if there is ever a place that I would associate with constant hustle and bustle and the unfettered fun that children so crave for, then Garpar would be the place. We would never want those visits to be over J
Afternoons at Pishemoshai’s place in Mahendru, devouring all available Enid Blyton books of Rintu Didi’s (and what fun they used to be, with their odd titles – Rub-a-Dub, Rat-a-Tat and what not); Didi visiting us at Salt Lake and writing down lyrics for the songs of Sound of Music [I still remember – she wrote – “Doorbells and sledge bells and something with noodles” – and I still don’t know that missing word ;)]; Kolaghat at Mejo Mashi’s place – my first ever outstation trip without my parents – always outdoors with Bapi Dada and playing so many sports - and tasting those heavenly Chilli Chickens and Roomali Rotis that Mejo Mashi used to make with such aplomb; my earliest hazy memories of Bhagalpur, riding pillion with Chhotomama and Shejomama and wandering around in the gardens – so many of the memories that make up the montage called childhood in the mind, invoke cousins, Aunts and Uncles.
Today alas, children have fewer cousins, they meet them far too infrequently to develop any lasting bonds and we, ironically, have become far too inward looking and self-centred in an age when the world is supposed to be coalescing.
Guess, I must give my parents and my Uncles and Aunts and everybody of their generation, a lot of credit for giving me a childhood, with so many memories to cherish.
