A century back, when I was a kid

Remember those days, years back, when the only thing that mattered and the only thing we would look up to would be those Sundays? 

Primarily, the routine would involve waking up very late, to the smell of freshly cooked and ready to be served breakfast! And dad would be sitting on the sofa reading the morning newspaper, and simultaneously following the news on the Television, intimidating me with how grown-ups could naturally multitask.

Having got over with breakfast soon enough, the next part of Mission Sunday would be to sneak out of the drawing room to go play cricket with colony friends till the moms would come and drag us back home. A nice little shower and yummy lunch later, would be the best part of my week – the lazy Sunday afternoon!

Mom and Dad would go relax in their room, watch an old movie, perhaps. And I would have the whole house to myself! So I would make best use of this opportunity and satiate my inquisitiveness on life. The television would be the first victim of my quest. But, given how fickle minded I would be, the TV wouldn’t keep me interested for long. So, I would go look up some of the old games and toys I had, stacked up over the cupboards.

A moment of inspiration would then give birth to an engineer – breaking up toy-cars to see just how on earth did they work?! Of course, the engineer wasn’t qualified enough to assemble the parts back again. And so, the car shall then be disposed off, very carefully, among other useless trash, somewhere in some cardboard box in the store room. There was enough conviction that it could be passed on as “that car which somehow broke down, so I had to throw it away” later.

Still another hour or two before the kids would be back. And two more hours to kill.

Maybe I should read a book!

And off to the book section. I lose count on the number of times I wrote how I would spend an ideal Sunday afternoon lazing on the bed, reading an excellent work of literature in, my essays at school – every single time hoping I would actually do that someday.

And yet, I never really had the patience! The book section did attract me but I always thought – yeah, enough of reading. Let’s go write something!

And that was the birth of the author. The author would settle himself down on his study table and take that old copy out which had a number of empty pages. He would have his pen and entered in complicated chains of thoughts.

The arrangement would be perfect. Enough light in the room to allow ideas to come in, and the fan would be just about fine. The only question that would remain unanswered would be hey, what do I write?

The next 45 minutes would be a tough battle between two sides of the brain. One would say – Detective story. The Indian Sherlock!! And the rational side would argue, What on earth would I write on that?

By the time the author could come to a decision, the watch would appear through the corner of the eye and adrenaline would pump in.

4 o’clock!!!

The author would suddenly forget everything about his writing and rush to the cupboard to take those football shorts out. Once dressed up in shorts and a presentable T-shirt, the author would slowly transform into an excited kid running out of this house to go play football with colony mates!

Today, it seems all that happened nearly a century back. Where did that innocence go? What happened to that kid? What happened to all his characters? His security and his innocence?

And soon enough the answer to those questions strikes down as a realization;

Life happened.