Be it how hot, Summer still brings memories dear. Yesterday, my ice-cream craving tongue got better of my Sunday laziness. So,I was on the road at 2pm in the scorching heat in search of some frozen chocolate. The road too bright to look upon , leaves on the trees lifeless with no sign of wind. And all I could see on the road are the food-delivery guys,soldiers in orange zooming past ,like on a tight mission.
As I walked, memories old walked along too and the craving sweetened a little more!
We are 11 cousins, and this cricket team had several home grounds where they used to meet up and play every summer. A Summer day was so distinguishable. Mornings,afternoons,evenings and nights held their own significance,had different tasks to be done. They sang their own musings to me,as a kid. I grew up in a small town called Bhadrachalam surrounded by forest cover and the river Godavari skirting the hill.
Nights had the river water all cooled up, for kids and parents alike, to go river bathing. Watching adults do small rituals on the banks,I used to suspect that may be they needed an excuse like this to come have fun in the water ,in case anyone asked. Mornings had cartoon shows with tasty breakfasts that were sometimes season’s fresh mango pickle rice that I liked the most. Followed by mother’s rants to start the project works given in the school. We used to wait for the sound of my father’s bike in the afternoon who brought along ice-creams of weird flavours that we used to try out. Afternoons held neighbourhood meet-ups under random roofs to plan what to do for the remaining day while adults dozed off quietly. Some afternoons, my mother ,her artistic mind hungry, would sit with us and we used to make various crafts.We made our own wall-hangings,painted our curtains,made customized super-hero t-shirts etc. Evenings had the roads busy with activity and fun. Once,all our gang sat together and listed the games we played. It was astonishing that the count crossed hundred. Who cared whether the sun went down or not, we were abuzz till we had no energy left. Nights somehow turned the all-day shouting parents into brilliant story-tellers. Even more brilliant were the grand-parents. And the main thing which held everything together sweetly was the never-ending number of Mangoes at home.
Now, for an all grown up, busy in the corporate life, those subtle transitions of the day are but lost in the work heat. Even for kids, free time is becoming something expensive, and freedom is slowly being turned into a mere concept.
This summer, let’s beat the heat with some refreshing summer-time memories. I have asked few people I know, to share their own favorite memories and I’ll be posting them in series. As you read them, if a memory of yours is picking at you, it would be lovely if you can share it in the comments section! 🙂
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Clouds of the Dusk 
I, a couple of friends, and my Hercules went on a biking trip to nearby hills. We climbed up as high as we could – sat there under a tree – and gossiped while watching sheep gaze around the hill.
And then we got into a river to take a dip. After which we argued how Ganguly fixed the match with Pakistan – even stretched and said how I would have played much better than Ganguly 😀
And then made it home just in time to watch a serial with a bunch of kids playing in a treehouse. That was a long day, just like any other day of my Summer holidays. All those friends are now gone, the memories are almost gone too.
Now my time flies by, uneventful, spent doing things I don’t care about. People mastered living longer by forming civilizations with cultures – but they certainly lost their purpose. I wish we could go back to hunter-gatherer days where there isn’t any illusion of purpose! Or skip ahead to UBI.
Good read, keep writing! 🙂
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