I spy , Ice water ,Kites Vs NFS , AOE ....

Had a kid around in office today morning and yay i see him all amused and confused with his eyes searching for something in my aisle n here we go talking :)
Speaking to kids always always brings me a smile that tad bit wider. They know just how to perk up a downward bound day and turn it around.

And each time I talk to them, it brings back so many memories!

Memories of holidays spent together with my siblings. Of our organized midnight sessions,playing tictac-toe ,dot-dot where invariably we would be the only ones awake and thus the only ones to eat the chocolates stolen from the refrigerator ahem ! in the end .The big asoka tree with next to boundary wall for us to climb from… The countless cycle races… Our n number of club and competitions we'll arrange … The picnic three of my friends plotted about for ages, before finally settling down to eat the goodies right on our rooftop… Our mock housewarming where I promptly melted the tiny play cup while attempting to boil milk over a candle flame… Devising ways and means to run away from bed in the afternoon with mom holding hand tight ... Walking past the vegetable vendors and finding it ridiculously funny to mock them …… Our frantic trips to the library and get all comics to make sure we had ammunition for the night to come... The pact to go have ice-cream from Cool Corner every evening … And then, weeping bitterly on the last day of the holidays.....

Darn! Those were fun days. How much we used to play! I don’t remember stepping into the house until it was dark and/or we were too exhausted to lift a finger. And such fun games they were too. Cops and robbers, hide and seek, blind man’s buff, tag, lock and key, dodge ball, cricket, shuttle, flying fighter kites...Oh I m so missing kites today :( :(

But today I look at kids around. They still stay in the same amazing place. But they are so tuned out of all that beauty. Or is it, say, a lack of imagination? Is our Ashoka Tree just an old trunk for them? Our Fairy Forest a scratchy thicket perhaps? Our Memory Lane just a silly grass path?

They don’t read. They don’t play in the mud. They don’t run around the house like we used to, laughing like mentally retarded hyenas. They don’t jump from furniture to furniture pretending to be pirates escaping from crocodiles. They don’t organize plays, magic shows and poetry recitations (with the boundary wall of our rooftop as our stage) for the family and charge the adults for tickets to sit patiently through our valiant efforts (lol! )

Today all the kids turn their noses at all this. They like their TV’s. Not to mention computer games filled with machine guns and sports cars (somehow I like the pillow fights Kittu and I used to have much better that projected ones). Their wish list reads like a Japanese shopping list. They like Beyblades and what not . (What on earth is a Ni Hao, Kai-Lan by the way? I was too embarrassed to ask :D )

Sometimes I feel like I’m a kid and they’re the grown ups. Anyway, if they’re happy, then I suppose it doesn’t matter what they do. But every now and then, I can’t help wishing that they would run outside and actually PLAY! Get dirty… Get yelled at… Laugh uncontrollably… Just be CHILDREN and not the grave little adults they are today.

PS : this post contains excerpts i shared with quite a few friends since last few days with nostalgia striking in .....