Dil Dhoondta Hai

he children of today are an evolving lot and so is the childhood. The “Childhood" which you and I remember in images is of long vacations with grandparents and callous freedom all through. However, in the last three decades of my cerebral archives I have seen the metamorphic changes our lifestyles have brought in the courtship journey to the real life. A childhood essentially in the grandparent’s house, pampered with pheriwalas, grandma stories, mosquitoes, power cuts, no television shows to decide the order of the day, bunch of cousins to celebrate festivals, sneaking in the afternoon to pluck mangoes, playing in sand pebbles, flying kite on the neighbor’s roof have all become a thing of fossil now.

The schools in those days had water, which was never mineral instead the hand pump in the playing field throwing out sand with water was the real thirst quencher. The school bus was there but childhood meant flocking together to school on a rickshaw with a wooden bench and a corner seat to fight for. The pocket money was never an easy task to get but spending to buy an orange bar, kahtta meetha churan, imli or sugarcane juice was a luxury. Playing football in the scorching sun, rain or winters not only built the endurance but also preponed the purchase of a new BATA shoe before we could outgrow them. Saturday meant after school cricket match and Sunday meant an early morning cricket match with a ritual of collecting everybody door to door and then playing till dead tired. Galli cricket taught us ultimate maneuvering skills, every time I broke a window pane and learning to ride a bicycle was a total adventure.

The classroom meant two fans, few windows, and a blackboard with lots of fight ammunition as chalk pieces, studious front benchers, naughty back benchers and a teacher who was sent to this Earth to cane you at the drop of a hat. Punishments were like a tough commando training and every muscle and bone had it’s trials with stick or fatigue. The academics were a core part of your overall fame quotient in school and family but still struggling for other interests was like an entrepreneur. Childhood with bicycles and black and white television had more excitement and passion than today’s diverse resource may offer. Mowgli, Tainali Rama, Vikram aur Vetal,Vyomkesh Bakshi still kindle the memory lanes with their typical aura and simplicity.

What we give today is not less by any standards and abilities but somewhere in the effort to strike a balance with time and emotions we, ironically end up buying a video camera instead of a still camera. We spend more money for the convenience of recording the complete sequence where as the beauty lies in watching the moment only in frames. Similarly, I somehow feel the strong urge to restore the semi infrastructure of the modern schools to prepare the new generation for a real life which is full of inadequacy. There has to be no compromise in keeping the curriculum as contemporary as possible but to create the real life experience with tolerable reality bites is a must.

Actually speaking, the rate at which the population is growing demands lot of support from the government. Even if I don’t talk about universal government schools like abroad, hassle free admissions to schools, free education the least I will expect my government is to provide a playground in very locality. And I am not talking about the green belts or parks which are mementos of the private builders or DDAs ( no plucking flowers or no sports types) but meaningful play grounds for our children to run, play an grow!

While the Internet has melted the entire info bank into ctrl C+ Ctrl V it is devoid of that arduous effort of struggling with typically redolent book shelves to actually hunt for the right pick or pinch the relevant pages clinically sometimes as a team work with your best buddy! Similarly, virtual games have dynasaured the era of vish amrit, kabaddi, chor sipahi, langri taang, gend taadi and many more. You feel good when your kid calls up your mobile in the evening to confirm your expected time….but imagine our father’s found us waiting at the door with our moms even when we had no landlines forget mobile phones…

Dil dhoondta hai…!