Looking back at my childhood, the most fun I remember having was when we were extremely reckless.
Like going for a walk in the forest in Simla with a group of friends and being told by a woodcutter that we could encounter a bear, then scrambling back towards the hotel only to lose our way, then having to be rescued because the mountain side we were trying to climb up was slippery with saw dust.
Like playing chor-police with scores of colony kids and running wild on the streets even as the sun set.
Like getting drenched in heavy rain and doing pretend swimming in the muddy garden dug up for planting grass.
And like cycling on the main road along Moti Bagh towards Chanakya Puri to get to the isolated railway tracks, and using mummy's chunnis to catch fish in the dirty nallah there.
Our parents let us do all this because mostly they were unaware of what we were up to and of the danger we were putting ourselves into. Now ourselves super-aware parents, are we depriving our kids of similar fun by over-protecting them and stopping them from doing anything remotely risky? I wonder.
Like playing chor-police with scores of colony kids and running wild on the streets even as the sun set.
Like getting drenched in heavy rain and doing pretend swimming in the muddy garden dug up for planting grass.
And like cycling on the main road along Moti Bagh towards Chanakya Puri to get to the isolated railway tracks, and using mummy's chunnis to catch fish in the dirty nallah there.
Our parents let us do all this because mostly they were unaware of what we were up to and of the danger we were putting ourselves into. Now ourselves super-aware parents, are we depriving our kids of similar fun by over-protecting them and stopping them from doing anything remotely risky? I wonder.
My God I wish I had known all this earlier. No wonder my chunnis were so dirty despite my not using them. Di karta hai khub pitai karun.
ReplyDeleteHa ha mommy! You are just too funny!
DeleteWorried about the chunnis and not the kids!!!
Mom – FYI : One evening Puja and I had decided to give up the service lanes and experiment cycling on the ring road ! Either out of nervousness or sheer excitement, Puja did the PIT maneuver on my cycle and we both fell in the middle of the main road. As we lay sprawled and entangled in our respective bikes, we saw a truck coming from Dhaula Kuan side at high speed! Fortunately in the early 70s drunk driving was not so rampant and despite the fading sunlight, the trucker managed to spot us and swerve clear from the terrified clowns in the middle of the road.
ReplyDeleteI can’t recollect clearly which was more scary…the fact that we had to tell you that we were cycling on the main road or the fact that we were lucky to be alive!
However that incidence didn’t drive any sense in us, it only added the term “Greenstick Fracture” to our vocabulary !
We told them years later, to their utter shock.
DeleteThinking of this, maybe it is better we watch our kids like hawks!
My God I did not know that my children were such dare devils in addition of being great fibbers. I only knew that Arun used to dip the thermometer in the hot tea to run 105 C temp to frighten Bauji. Also hide in the gutter next to road when his school bus came and then expect dad to drop him to school. I am really aghast!!!
Delete