Down Memory Lane

Gone are the days of fun and frolic, the days when nature was children’s playground. Parents were never so fussy about their children having fun in the scorching sun. They let them live the life the way they wanted. While boys catapulted juicy ripe mangoes making the bushy-eyed owner of the mango tree run on a wild goose chase, girls were busy collecting broken bangles and colorful beads to gamble with it. They mastered the art of origami by making spinning tops and watches out of the fronds of the coconut tree. They chased cycle wheels down the winding village path with a stick as if it were a Rolls Royce running at 60 miles an hour. As the hoop hurdled over hedges and bushes, making a light hum as it went wheeling through the streets was a pleasure to watch. They sledged across muddy areas on areca nut leaves as if it were a wagon. Contrary to the present day schools which are exam oriented and slave the children with the sole purpose of making them engineers and doctors, the schools of yesteryear implied to the motto ‘Learning Without Burden’. There was no stress over exams and no child sweated over too much on Algebra or Geometry. But who cares? Exams and homework are only the fragments of the education process. But childhood is just a tickle of feathers that can be blown away by the wind at anytime. Nowadays, children are getting attracted to the technological wiz like magnets while their childhood shrivels up. Have they ever seen ant lions moving around in a pile of sand making beautiful patterns as they trailed along? Have they ever experienced the sheer bliss of breathing in the sweet scented smell of the Night Queen flowers on moonlit nights? But when play stations and idiot boxes rule the world, who is even bothered to make them understand the joy of childhood? Dreams are just dreams.