Skip to main content

Happy Days of Long Ago

 My school days ended long, long ago. Those were days when there were fish in the rivers, birds in the trees, and oxygen in the air. Now one of the two rivers in my village is almost a drain and the other washes all the filth dumped on its banks every day by Development [Sabka Vikas, Sabka Saath - like Delhi Police, Always With You]. The birds have vanished except a couple of crows that come to drink water from my cats' plates occasionally. Food is not much of a problem for them since a lot of garbage lies piled up on roadsides. I miss those dragonflies and fireflies with which I held conversations long, long ago.

Those were days when people went to temples, mosques or churches and came out feeling compassion for other creatures. At least without hatred in hearts. They didn't bother about Akbar or Macaulay. If a Narendran saw a Hyderali in need on the roadside, he would rush to help. Gods weren't bloodthirsty in those days.

Viswanathan, Muhammadkutty and I sat on the same bench in school and merrily recited Ulloor's lines about love being the driving force of the planet. We were in class 8. Romance was longing to dance in our hearts. But romance was forbidden. Moral police flourished in those days too though not as diabolically as now. Love was divine while romance was devilish except for those who wielded the powers. We, the little students, were not even expected to throw as much as a furtive glance at the other side of the classroom where the girls sat. 

But Elsa (not her real name) had entered my heart furtively. Without her knowledge, probably, though our eyes were trapped in wistful gazes more frequently than the catechism lessons would ever permit. I wrote love letters that were never delivered to Elsa. Viswanathan delivered them to Vanaja.

One day Viswanathan caught me writing a love letter. All my love letters were inspired by Vayalar's movie songs which our battery-run transistor played whenever father decided to listen to the radio. I wrote about the fish that swam in the deep pools of Elsa's eyes. My love letters expressed my longing to build a Taj Mahal with the marble of my ossified dreams. 

Adolescent and romantic (foolish?)

Viswanathan threatened to publicise my love songs. Elsa's name was not mentioned in any of them. But I would be flogged anyway for daring to rush in where the devils would fear to tread. Viswanathan suggested a compromise. "Write similar letters for me to give to Vanaja."  

I don't know whether Vanaja allowed Viswan to tread into/upon her heart. I don't know where Elsa is now. I never met any of them since 1975. Do they long, like me, for the simple goodness that prevailed in those days? Do they long for fish in the rivers and oxygen in the air and the dragonflies on flowers?

No, I don't want to go back to those days ever. I love my present with its mobile phone with the internet. I love the virtual reality today, the distance given by that virtual reality between you and me. Proximity is dangerous in our present world. You don't know when someone will drive in a knife behind your back. In those good ol' days, people attacked from the front if at all they attacked. 

PS. This post is a part of Blogchatter Blog Hop of

www.theblogchatter.com


Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanJune 30, 2022 at 11:09 PM

    Hari OM
    Ah, nostalgia... a Utopian place even though we know it as imperfect! I am still in touch with a handful of childhood pals; we all remember differently the same things (if at all we remember). To each their own Utopia and to each, their Hell... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 1, 2022 at 6:30 AM

      It wasn't Utopia really. That's why I said I didn't want to return. I know the past is not history but a fabrication of our imaginations and longings.

      Delete
  2. magiceyeJuly 1, 2022 at 7:08 AM

    Nicely woven past. Acche Din was in the past.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SuchitaJuly 1, 2022 at 2:30 PM

    Gods weren't bloodthirsty in those days. - what a line. My friends and I often say we were lucky we were in school in the before social media era. Classmates are cruel enough without the social proof or validation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 1, 2022 at 4:01 PM

      Today in one of my classes (12),in connection with the lesson, I asked whether the world would be a better place in future. No was the instant and unanimous response. The young students think we're making it worse and worse. Happy days are really gone.

      Delete
  4. Deliciously AliveJuly 1, 2022 at 10:35 PM

    You are a wonderful writer, TM! This was such a brilliant read, wrapped up in nostalgia, longing and beautiful memories.
    Mayuri/Sirimiri

    ReplyDelete
  5. SonaJuly 2, 2022 at 6:32 PM

    In our childhood, when we met someone and asked their name, we never made a connection with their religion. Sadly, it's different now. Our religious and ethnic identities are more under scrutiny today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 2, 2022 at 8:53 PM

      It's a tragic situation. People are so suspicious of each other now because of religion whereas the purpose of religion is just the opposite.

      Delete
  6. deepti menonJuly 3, 2022 at 9:04 PM

    This post is a wonderful read, written with your usual dose of sarcasm! :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rajeev MoothedathJuly 5, 2022 at 7:32 AM

    Memoirs are always fun to read. I enjoyed this one too. A nice picture you have posted too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 5, 2022 at 7:49 AM

      This is the earliest pic of mine I could find in my collection.

      Delete
  8. GeethicaJuly 6, 2022 at 11:31 AM

    Yes, I agree that the old days were truly better than today. Evety era some postives and negatives to its credit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 6, 2022 at 1:02 PM

      Entropy is the law here and evil will only increase.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

The Call of Islamic State

A year ago, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT) reported that about 4000 people from the West left their homes and countries to join the Islamic State (IS).  Many of them are women.  The reporters had made a special study of the women who joined the terrorist outfit and found that it was difficult to categorise which type of women were particularly drawn to IS. “While most of the girls are young, some as young as fifteen,” says the report,  “there are also mothers with young children who make the trip. Some of the girls have difficulties in school and are said to have an IQ below average,  but there are also women who are highly educated. It also appears that even though a relatively large portion of the girls had (or still have) a troubled childhood, there are some who come from families with no known problems with the authorities. Most of the girls come from religiously moderate Muslim families,  yet some converted to Islam a...
33 comments
Read more

Why do good to others?

Courtesy: polyp.org.uk “Most people would rather die than think and most people do,” said Bertrand Russell in his characteristic witty way.   Professor of Philosophy and author of many books, A C Grayling, is of the opinion that religion has continued to survive even in today’s scientific world because people don’t want to think.   They would rather accept readymade answers given by religion.   God is the ultimate readymade answer for a whole lot of problems.   And a very easy answer too. If we really think and evolve our own moral systems instead of borrowing them from religion, we will be far better human beings, says Grayling in his latest book, The God Argument.   If we think sensibly (common sense would do if we cared to use that faculty), we will realise that we all have a duty to contribute to the welfare of the entire human species.   The simple logic is that when the species is “flourishing” (Grayling’s word) we too flourish.   ...
33 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more