3. As we walk more...

Life Support System

If there is something that has changed a lot, like really a lot then it surely has to be the cartoons that we used to watch, including the likes of Richie Rich, Courage the cowardly dog (which I for some weird reason thought to be courage the calorie dog), 'Tom and Jerry'. And along with that, if anything has changed it is the way how we responded to them.

I remember that innate curiosity I had, to get see the face of Tom’s owner, sometimes wondering will getting a TV with a bigger screen solve the problem, sometimes standing near the screen peeping into the upper edge just to solve the biggest mystery ever “How does Tom’s owner look?”. Switching to Star Utsav in the evening to watch Shakalaka Boom-Boom and then having an innate urge to get that magical pen. And just for that buying those 5 rupees chocolates that had a free Shakalaka Boom-Boom pen and then getting disappointed as nothing that I drew with it came to life, the conquest was real. 

And how can I forget Pokémon, standing outside the classroom during recess searching for random opponents and then shouting at top of my voice “Jao Pikachu, Thunderbolt” with an absolute rush of adrenaline in my vein. And feeling a deep sense of failure or success in winning or losing this imaginary game. It was just so awesome to discuss and analyze the previous episode with all the seriousness that we did. 

And though I made a promise that I won’t sound like an angry uncle ranting, I just can't help mentioning how I regret nowadays to see boys of similar age group sitting together with the heads down playing mobile games, being oblivious to the presence of a friend beside.

Happy New Year

It was 1st Jan 2019, midnight 12’o clock, and my WhatsApp was flooded with messages of new year wishes, I again with utmost diligence just copied a message from the internet and forwarded to all my friends. Realizing soon that that’s not how we did it when we were in school. Actually, we never got to celebrate the new year in school because our school used to reopen on 4th or 5th of January after 10 days winter break.

But that never stopped us from celebrating it, and the way we used to do it was by exchanging greetings card. The night before the school reopens, I used to make a list of friends to whom I would be giving a card, this was basically the list of people from whom I expected a new year card. And if ever the expectations were not met that automatically meant the cancellation of the annual subscription of greetings card from my part. 

So basically, after the list was made it was handed over to my dad so that he could bring the required number of cards and envelopes, and believe me not many days were there when I waited for my dad to come back from the market so desperately. Once he was back, taking the packet of greeting cards from him and then going to my room spread all the cards on my bed and then having some deep thoughts regarding who gets which card. And there were always two cards that I used to separate out from that lot, the best two cards, one of which went to my best friends and the other went to her!! ( Blush!! Blush!! Oh! c' mon you got that).

After all these turmoil all I had to do was write names on the envelope and though every year my mom offered help, I was stubborn about writing it on my own out of love in pretty ugly handwriting. Packing each card in the proper envelope and carefully placing all of them inside a notebook, ready to reach its receiver the next day.

And now if I compare somehow, I can vouch for it that giving cards and then wishing someone happy new year was much more beautiful and sweeter then forwarded text messages.