Monday, 26 November 2012

CHILDHOOD...


I see the kids around me now. Playing… with their Play stations and I Phones. Their holidays being spent with their heads buried in the gadgets. I do not envy them, but feel sad for them. These “latest” gadgets deprive these kids of “actual” and “real” fun. I find it amusing that these kids sit at home saying, “The weather is too hot”. When I was a kid, it used to be a reason for us to play cricket, get drenched in sweat and run back home to pour a jug of water on our heads. Ah! What blissful days. I miss them. Given a chance, I would run back to those memories to relive those moments.
Being a gang of 20-25, or sometimes more, our routine during holidays was playing cricket in the morning in our apartment parking lot (and we never complained about the ‘perfect place to play’.) After 3 hours of cricket, we ran home to calm the rats running in our tummies. After that, we played ‘board games’, mainly because there were a lot of people who took the afternoon nap. But the amount of noise we made fighting and laughing over these board games surely didn’t make their nap peaceful..! Games like LIFE, Business made our afternoons complete. We would end the game only when somebody’s mother called for the evening milk/snacks quota. We would again meet after 2 hours of studying. The night was the time to play Hide-and-seek. What fun it was to play hide-and-seek in the dark..!!
How blissful and fun were those days. Truly the kids of today are missing out on the actual fun a kid can have to the maximum extent. A boy I know, is in class 8, and already owns an I phone 4S, laptop and a play station. I don’t want to sound too old or traditional. Hey I too am a freak, but not at the stake of my childhood.
Kids are missing out on the joys of playing under the scorching sun, having a fight and patching up. The only fight kids are now having is with their parents to get them the latest gadget! When I was in 8th, I used to fight for the latest geometry box or Pokemon 3-D collection! Also, I would accept my father’s NO for the things he refused to buy for me at my immediate demand. I thank my father for the timely NOs.
I fear that these kids would never know “pittu” or “gilli-danda”. Simplicity is the perfect happiness. Breaking windows by playing cricket, falling and getting hurt, finding the craziest place to hide during the game of hide-and-seek, was something Great and a moment of being proud then. The scars on my feet and hands remind me of the way I fell… and make me smile. I wonder what these kids would feel proud of… having the latest gadget? Eh! Every third kid I know has gadget. Every third kid is asking me “Are you on Facebook?” while the question back then was “Are you going out of station during holidays?”
I too love gadgets. It amuses me of how people can make something like this that changes the world in a click or a press or a touch! It is the age in which these kids have to be familiarized with them!! 


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