Simpler Times…

As the traffic signal flashed a vivid red , the vehicles slowly came to a halt..He was sitting all alone in the passenger seat of the car..I saw his lips moving but couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the glass windows ..Judging by the book in his hand I concluded that he was reading .. probably for his exams ..Amidst the thick traffic jam ,this chubby little kid was the only interesting object to gaze at ..His eyes wandered here and there unfocused but stubborn not to look at the book. I smiled to myself .. At that moment I was drifted back to my school days …

We travelled to School by Rickshaw – My Sister and I .. I still remember the Rickshaw-man Kabali .. A very loyal and trustworthy person …In fact I met him 2 years back .. I must say he hasn’t changed one bit .. Only we have grown old.. Anyway ,those Rickshaw rides were one of the funnest part of my school life..The Rickshaw picked us up right in front of our house.. My mum would rush like a thunderstorm packing my lunch and putting on my shoes .. Funnily , she forgot to give me my School bag once.. Ha! Nearly 7 of us travelled in that tiny vehicle.. There was Vidhya who was the tallest and most likeable girl in the gang.. Her cousins Sandhya (the irritable one but still a nice girl ) and Saranya (well I don’t remember much about her) ..My sister was in 6th standard I guess .. I was one of the youngest ones in the rickshaw.. At the end of each year all of us would pitch in some money to buy cakes and samosas .. Those dishes were pure bliss….

I wasn’t much of a cry baby in classroom ..So I had a lot of fun…Touching a Teacher’s saree was considered to be precious .. We waited eagerly for Friday afternoon for the Story telling session by our Tamil teacher .. Library was an amazing place mainly because of the big Cinema Screen .. Sometimes we watched movies or Docus…Moments like these made our day .. Life in DAV was also not bad.. My sister would come to see me during lunch breaks..Or I’d go to her class room to give snacks..In the evening , she’d meet me under the “மரத்து அடி” and we’d walk home together … The only big worries that we had as kid was to finish a 2 page home work..

With a jerk of the car engine I came back to the present day ..I just thought about the day ahead of me.. I was going to my Sister’s house to send her off to US…It seemed only yesterday as if we were walking side by side from School to Home … No anxieties ..No responsibilities .. *sigh* Those were simpler times ….

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