Well the above message throws light on a lot of aspects of our life then and now. The other day I was talking to one of my friend and I happened to mention how my son dreams of having a Nintendo soon while I quite didnt understand what its meant to be in the first place (yeah I'm quite unaware of such things :D). It also made me think how complicated my child's life is now where he is under constant peer pressure and thinks these things are absolutly necessary in life just coz his friends have it. I don't remember if I had ever undergone this kind of peer pressure.. and as rightly said Life was still beautiful. Thanks to my parents who stuck to "KISS" theory of "keeping it short and simple", my life was devoid of such complications.
I remember they brought me a Kitchen set and I used to love pretend cooking chapatis made of tulsi leaves and curry made from other flowers n leaves from my garden. I could play that for hours and never get bored of them even if I'm playing all by myself. I think most of us did try a hand at what we called "Teacher Teacher" game where we would pretend to be a teacher trying to teach imaginary students who often had names similar to our friends then. As if our mind didnt want to take additional burden of thinking for new names :). Being a girl I also got to play some girly games like pretending to be a mom to a doll.. I remember desiging dresses for my doll and trying new hair styles. We didnt get tired or frustrated then as we do now..
Going on vacations to Kerala meant a whole new world of adventures. Band of cousins.. We used to climb the rocky hills with a small pack of masala( red chilli powder mixed with some salt) and how on reaching our favourite spot we would try to gather some tender mangoes washed in pond water and relished to the core. We never bothered of bacteria and germs then as we do now...
How we used to invade into other's gardens and rob them of thier produce. I particularly remember this one incident where we had barged into someone's banana plantation to have some nectar which we can generally find in the banana inflorescence and were nearly caught :D.. We weren't bothered of brands and labels then as we are now..
The other day when my son asked me about the things I did as a child, I was quite amazed to see how easy life was for me. Climbing trees, playing hide n seek, watching the birds chirp, following a butterfly while it hopped from flower to flower, waiting for the grasshoppers to surround me before onam time, sheer joy of running around the house trying to imitate the koel bird, waking up to the morning sunshine, Granny giving me a bath in the garden with homemade shampoos and soaps and the lovely fragrance it would surround me with, waiting for grandpa to come home with hand full of sweets and delicacies, the yummy mango pickle and how I would try to get a little pickle for anything and everything i ate :D, the taste of cocunut chutney served everyday at lunchtime and how I could eat all my food with that simple chutney is simply difficult for me to put in words..I'm now missing all those simple things of life. And no matter how much I try I cannot replicate any of the same for my child now. We never bothered of complicating life then as we do now. Well, all this wasn't written to show how negetive things are around. It could be that 20 years from now when my son would be writing/talking about his childhood, he might also have some simple things to talk about yet what would be intresting to see is if those simple things till top the list. Innocence of life which we complicate as we grow...A lot around us is still simple while we are running from pillar to post to complicate us and our life.
It reminds me of this famous quote " Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
1 comment:
I so agree with you... But then, as George Orwel said, "Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it." :)
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