Today is the last day of summer vacation for my son before he starts his Middle School. It was a long, arduous and eventful dog days of summer for him, where he lost her grandmother. Missed the company of his mom for few weeks as Taekwondo, Web design classes, Piano and swimming lessons gave him company.
Vacations are supposed to be light, fun filled and an opportunity to recharge the batteries, to shrugg off the jaded nerves. Heckuva vacation it was for him, not to mention how much fun filled it was.
When we were students our summer vacations back home used to be a lot lighter. No lessons was forced upon us. Web then was the abode of a spider, best left for the octo-legged insect to design and implement it for his privacy, never a public domain.
Taekwondo was the answer to the GK/Quiz question "What's the martial art of Korea ?" which can fetch you some brownie points. Piano was a musical instrument we saw in movies and CHITRAHAARs (a popular collection of Hindi songs on Doordarshan, the only TV channel those days), invariably played by a rejected lover in front of his now married beloved while her husband curiosity watches with cigar between his lips.
On summer evenings back then in Bhubaneswar, after a game of cricket as cool southern breeze (now a rarity) starts wafting in, it's time to spend at KHATTI (NUKKAD in Hindi, ADDA in Bengali) clustering around a half broken cement culvert where we found solutions to many local and global issues pertinent to our times.
Our early teen discussion centered mostly around Amitabh Bachman, the one man Bollywood industry of that time, character assassination of our cricketers who were frequently beaten by Pakistan in Harjah (I mean Sarjah which was the venue where we got frequently vanquished by our traditional rival) and of course girls.
No specialized classes for us, not a single penny spent on them. Swimming lessons were limited to jumping inside a muddy pond aptly called GAI GADIA (cow bathing poodle) during the summer trips to our village. Few sips of those yellowish water was enough for me to learn swimming the hard way.
My son swallowed a few gulps of chlorine laced blue waters of the swimming pool, but I wasn't so fortunate. Same H2O, same lessons but different milieu, different times. Nevertheless those were the moments, those were the memories to cherish forever.
Time and tide wait for non, as years have passed by twinkle of eyelids. The KHATTI culture and social bondings are pretty limited in America - replaced by iGadgets connecting to the world of social media. As the son ventures into the Middle School, the dad nurtures his Middle life blues with memories - blast from the past.
Vacations are supposed to be light, fun filled and an opportunity to recharge the batteries, to shrugg off the jaded nerves. Heckuva vacation it was for him, not to mention how much fun filled it was.
When we were students our summer vacations back home used to be a lot lighter. No lessons was forced upon us. Web then was the abode of a spider, best left for the octo-legged insect to design and implement it for his privacy, never a public domain.
Taekwondo was the answer to the GK/Quiz question "What's the martial art of Korea ?" which can fetch you some brownie points. Piano was a musical instrument we saw in movies and CHITRAHAARs (a popular collection of Hindi songs on Doordarshan, the only TV channel those days), invariably played by a rejected lover in front of his now married beloved while her husband curiosity watches with cigar between his lips.
On summer evenings back then in Bhubaneswar, after a game of cricket as cool southern breeze (now a rarity) starts wafting in, it's time to spend at KHATTI (NUKKAD in Hindi, ADDA in Bengali) clustering around a half broken cement culvert where we found solutions to many local and global issues pertinent to our times.
Our early teen discussion centered mostly around Amitabh Bachman, the one man Bollywood industry of that time, character assassination of our cricketers who were frequently beaten by Pakistan in Harjah (I mean Sarjah which was the venue where we got frequently vanquished by our traditional rival) and of course girls.
No specialized classes for us, not a single penny spent on them. Swimming lessons were limited to jumping inside a muddy pond aptly called GAI GADIA (cow bathing poodle) during the summer trips to our village. Few sips of those yellowish water was enough for me to learn swimming the hard way.
My son swallowed a few gulps of chlorine laced blue waters of the swimming pool, but I wasn't so fortunate. Same H2O, same lessons but different milieu, different times. Nevertheless those were the moments, those were the memories to cherish forever.
Time and tide wait for non, as years have passed by twinkle of eyelids. The KHATTI culture and social bondings are pretty limited in America - replaced by iGadgets connecting to the world of social media. As the son ventures into the Middle School, the dad nurtures his Middle life blues with memories - blast from the past.
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