Life Rocks

 
August 15, 2008
Independence Day!
Days are gone when I used to go to school in white dress with PT shoes for the parade at school ground. Going to school 7 a.m. in the morning and do the parade and get two laddus packed in the brown paper bag. No studies and coming back to home and watching prime minister addressing the country at Red Fort on T.V. mostly Doordarshan channel.
Gone are those days when I use to play Holi, celebrate Diwali at my home in sgnr. I remember I used to collect different kinds of fireworks at least 3-4 months before the festival. I used to compete with other people in my neighborhood. Gone are those days when I used to play Holi with neighborhood people and kids, Arun and Ridhi. Ridhi used to be scared and arun used to play with us and Rocky was little tentative. Arun used to be in the younger kids group. I used to play with Rocky, and than there were intruders from Delhi who used to come to Arun's place for summer vacation, and steel all my friends from me. I was little shy to play with them.
I had an accident one day I was going to Tiny Tots school on my white scooter on the highway near govt. hospital and I was driving fast and like most of the other youngsters do doing stunts and something happened and I was on the road and had scratches on my body and than bobby came and took me to the school and called dad, he came and I went home and rested for couple of days. After that I was driving slowly.
Another Incident I just remembered was when we were all playing cricket on the Tiny Tots School ground in the sports period. Sharad was bowling and I was batting. Everything was going on smooth and than he gave me full toss and I swing my bat and the boll was way over the boundary. Everyone was looking for a boll but no one could find it. That was first and last six of my life as I never played or play cricket. I am not a sports person.
It's summer time here and you will find all kids of Ice creams, but you will not find the Kulfi here. Summer days in sgnr were killers, but I lived my 20 years there and I believe other people live their whole life in that hot weather. I had no A.C. and I lived with a fan and a cooler. I remember every summer beginning I with Ranbir and dad used to clean the air coolers and put new accessories in it and check it and install it in our windows. We had custom made stands for the coolers which were designed by my dad (B. Tec.). he designed them and they could be installed on the outer side of the windows so that we can just put the cooler on the 2nd floor hanging outside the window. The waster pipe was attached with some instrument to automatically fill the water and stop when it's full. That thing never worked, so we had to fill the water manually. Dad also designed the Centralized A.c. or Cooler for the whole house. Like you will find in big hotels or
homes in Toronto. But to have to working we needed a big size A.C. or Cooler with big blower. Could not work out with that scheme and had to leave it like that. There were so many plans in place but lack of resources made them unsuccessful.
Hot summer days and sun coming direct in the room through windows. It was hot especially on the 2nd floor. I survived and now I get irritated with 30 degrees. I think it's the body that changes with time. Now I am more used to the cold weather like -40 degrees in Toronto. It's crazy it's so cold that if your nose of ear is out you don't feel that you have them on your body. It's so cold.
Sometimes the coolers used to give electric shock. Sleeping on the top floor of the house on the custom made beds called "Manji".
Gone are those days when I used to help mom setup Manjis on the Chaat in the early evening so that the beds get little cooler by the night time. After dinner and drinking roohafga (pink Milk) we all will go to chaat and what I used to do was go little early and sleep on other's bed and make them warm and at end when everyone comes than I sleep on my colder bed. Lol
I was impish boy really I was. Than we had a big open cooler on the chaat for night time one cooler for all. I always demanded to sleep in the front manji, but sometimes my bro or sis used to sleep there. It was set up in such a way that if the person in the front miss fires everyone sleeping in the line can smell it. Lol