I grew up in Calcutta. Every bit of my childhood memories is in the lanes of North Calcutta. We used to stay in a place called ‘Dum Dum’ Cantonment - ‘Dum Dum’ from the noise of the empty firings from the British cantonment. Our family had transformed from a traditional joint family to a ‘modern day joint family’ where multiple nuclear families stayed under the same roof. In Bengali, we say that it was not a “Ek Haadir Henshel”!
I enjoyed my childhood to the fullest. Well…obviously I am referring things beyond studies…I remember, when I was very young, every evening, we used to go out cycling. Whenever, there was a stretch of empty road, we used to race. As I grew up, I needed a bigger bicycle, but dad was unable to give me one at that point of time. One of my ‘Pada’ grandmas gifted me with a bicycle that was lying idle at her house. I really don’t know how many cities have these kinds of warmth!!
We went to play cricket/soccer in a huge ground called “Wireless er maath”. Basically it was a restricted area with wireless towers. We also used to play in the gully (Only after the lanes were pitched). And unfortunately our gully had drains (it still has!!). And we didn’t have enough money to buy a ball every now and then. So we made sure that the average lifetime of the ball is higher…How? Whenever the ball used to get drowned (because we played with rubber balls rather than the costlier tennis balls) in the drains, one of us (the fielder who missed it or the batsman who hit it) had to put his hand in that deep shit…searching from right to left…and the smell of it…yakk!! Nevertheless, the desperation to get the ball was much much greater than all of these. My aunt used to shout from the window, “You dirty fellas; I will not allow you to enter the house.” In the monsoon, we could not play as all the grounds were muddy. We used to play golf then. We found out a small patch of shaded land….made a hole in it and played golf with the cricket bat and ball.
Indoors, apart from carom, cards etc. me and my elder brother used to play a special kind of lawn tennis in the room. We used to tie a rope in the middle of the room some 2 feet above the ground and cover it with a bed sheet. That was our net. We used to use the floor tiles demarcations as our sidelines. TT bats were our rackets.
With time I learnt how to fly a kite. It’s such an addiction to me…shouting from “Bo-katta”, “Duyo Duyo” to running after kites….I always wanted to give “manja” (the process of making kite threads more sharper), but mom never allowed it as the process involved dealing with tube light pieces.
I went to school by rickshaw. I called the puller as “Rickshaw Kaku (uncle)”. He was such a nice guy. He used to buy me Re. 1 roadside kulfis, pickles, mouth-coloring ice creams and what not. But he never took an extra paisa from my parents for that. And he was a great fan of Mithun da. One day he raced me back home because 'Disco Dancer' was being shown on DD. Right after school, it was either cricket or the kites. Whatever be it, the study time started from 6:30 pm until 10. And quite normally I used to fall asleep while studying. The more I got scolded by mom, the more were the desperate measures to invent new styles of sleeping.
In those days, the cable TV penetration was very low. In our pada (the lane), only one or two houses had them. We were more used to the DD programs. I remember I missed the cable TV most during the Sharjah tournament. The nearest cable TV was at “Bappa Da’s” house. So I used to go there and we used to have a great non-stop fun of 7 hours. Thanks to Jethima, there was non-stop supply of homemade snacks. We loved Sachin’s centuries, we hated the Pakistani bowlers and we cursed the Indian team whenever they lost.
I had many pets (if I may say “Pets”) during my childhood. Started with Fish…. Big glass jars were the aquariums. I had Gold fish, Black fish and Fighters. It was fun watching them playing and jumping on the food. But I couldn’t continue with them long. Most of them used to die during the summers because of the heat. It was painful giving up on them. Then came the rabbits – my most beloved pets till date. They are the cute little creatures. Chasing them and feeding them Spinach, carrots and other vegetable was real fun. I had 2 of them. The rabbits used to stay at the porch. One of them was a real mischief. He used come down and sit in our vegetable basket having a cocktail. You should see the baby rabbits. The only visible things were their marble-like red eyes. Amazing stuff!!! I had to give them up when we shifted to our new apartment in Salt Lake.
Today what I am socially - may be because of those beautiful childhood experiences. They have taught me a lot. I owe a lot to all my friends, my pada uncle and aunts and everyone else around me. Thank you for shaping up my childhood days and ......Wish you were here !!
I enjoyed my childhood to the fullest. Well…obviously I am referring things beyond studies…I remember, when I was very young, every evening, we used to go out cycling. Whenever, there was a stretch of empty road, we used to race. As I grew up, I needed a bigger bicycle, but dad was unable to give me one at that point of time. One of my ‘Pada’ grandmas gifted me with a bicycle that was lying idle at her house. I really don’t know how many cities have these kinds of warmth!!
We went to play cricket/soccer in a huge ground called “Wireless er maath”. Basically it was a restricted area with wireless towers. We also used to play in the gully (Only after the lanes were pitched). And unfortunately our gully had drains (it still has!!). And we didn’t have enough money to buy a ball every now and then. So we made sure that the average lifetime of the ball is higher…How? Whenever the ball used to get drowned (because we played with rubber balls rather than the costlier tennis balls) in the drains, one of us (the fielder who missed it or the batsman who hit it) had to put his hand in that deep shit…searching from right to left…and the smell of it…yakk!! Nevertheless, the desperation to get the ball was much much greater than all of these. My aunt used to shout from the window, “You dirty fellas; I will not allow you to enter the house.” In the monsoon, we could not play as all the grounds were muddy. We used to play golf then. We found out a small patch of shaded land….made a hole in it and played golf with the cricket bat and ball.
Indoors, apart from carom, cards etc. me and my elder brother used to play a special kind of lawn tennis in the room. We used to tie a rope in the middle of the room some 2 feet above the ground and cover it with a bed sheet. That was our net. We used to use the floor tiles demarcations as our sidelines. TT bats were our rackets.
With time I learnt how to fly a kite. It’s such an addiction to me…shouting from “Bo-katta”, “Duyo Duyo” to running after kites….I always wanted to give “manja” (the process of making kite threads more sharper), but mom never allowed it as the process involved dealing with tube light pieces.
I went to school by rickshaw. I called the puller as “Rickshaw Kaku (uncle)”. He was such a nice guy. He used to buy me Re. 1 roadside kulfis, pickles, mouth-coloring ice creams and what not. But he never took an extra paisa from my parents for that. And he was a great fan of Mithun da. One day he raced me back home because 'Disco Dancer' was being shown on DD. Right after school, it was either cricket or the kites. Whatever be it, the study time started from 6:30 pm until 10. And quite normally I used to fall asleep while studying. The more I got scolded by mom, the more were the desperate measures to invent new styles of sleeping.
In those days, the cable TV penetration was very low. In our pada (the lane), only one or two houses had them. We were more used to the DD programs. I remember I missed the cable TV most during the Sharjah tournament. The nearest cable TV was at “Bappa Da’s” house. So I used to go there and we used to have a great non-stop fun of 7 hours. Thanks to Jethima, there was non-stop supply of homemade snacks. We loved Sachin’s centuries, we hated the Pakistani bowlers and we cursed the Indian team whenever they lost.
I had many pets (if I may say “Pets”) during my childhood. Started with Fish…. Big glass jars were the aquariums. I had Gold fish, Black fish and Fighters. It was fun watching them playing and jumping on the food. But I couldn’t continue with them long. Most of them used to die during the summers because of the heat. It was painful giving up on them. Then came the rabbits – my most beloved pets till date. They are the cute little creatures. Chasing them and feeding them Spinach, carrots and other vegetable was real fun. I had 2 of them. The rabbits used to stay at the porch. One of them was a real mischief. He used come down and sit in our vegetable basket having a cocktail. You should see the baby rabbits. The only visible things were their marble-like red eyes. Amazing stuff!!! I had to give them up when we shifted to our new apartment in Salt Lake.
Today what I am socially - may be because of those beautiful childhood experiences. They have taught me a lot. I owe a lot to all my friends, my pada uncle and aunts and everyone else around me. Thank you for shaping up my childhood days and ......Wish you were here !!
2 comments:
I reckon most of the experiences that u hv stated have been experienced by most of us.. as we surge ahead with our careers finding such warmth becomes a rarity..
and i still remember those days of mahabharath when my entire neighborhood would come to a stand still and congregate at one of the houses wch supposedly had a colored TV (actually it had a red coloured TV screen ) ..
True...Mahabharath was some addiction. Sundays were fun..Started with Mahabharath/Chandrakanta followed by Mowgli, Disneyland, Stoneman. We had B&W TV - those with on-off knobs...I remember I got one big slap from mom once as I was watching Superhit Muquabla - not because I was watching it (although it was among the banned ones) but because of my bad luck :( The song that was being aired just when I switched on was some song from Daud where Urmila was dancing around with some micro mini pants :P
Those were fun days !!!
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