Flashback into childhood

Finally, prayers for a relaxed weekend were answered. Spent the weekend in the laidback town in Gujarat to be with my granny and uncle/aunt. It is a nice township like a college campus with greenery all around. Pleasant scents emanating from tall eucalyptus trees, shade-providing age-old banyan trees, smooth winding roads, peacocks astray all over the place, variety of birds, nicely maintained lawns and shrubs and a nice huge house with a lawn and a swing and truck load of books and goodies to eat. That's Bharuch for you.

Have a lot of pleasant childhood memories associated with the place. There was a time when my parents, my bro and I used to visit the place almost 4-5 times in a year. This was when my parents lived in Mumbai and any long weekend or school holidays translated to a trip to meet "Paati and Thatha" (grandmother and grandfather for the non-tam's). For us kids, it was a fun trip to paint the township red with the cousins. Waking up at 6AM in the morning was never a tedious task during vacations. We used to go for long walks looking for the peacocks in the morning. There was this spot where lot of peacocks used to, collectively, dance with feathers spread out - Totally fascinating sight. We'd be gone practically the whole day (except when tummy growled for attention) doing 'adventure' things like getting into the eucalyptus jungle, rolling down the sloped lawns near the township temple and be itchy the whole day after that, playing for hours in the parks, quizzing each other on country capitals, playing name-place-animal-thing, 20-questions and all such kiddy GK stuff, swimming, table tennis etc in the local sports complex, playing cards, Mille Borne, Scotland Yard, battleship etc with the family in the evenings, watching movies in the open air theater, ice creams and juices in the shopping complex and so on... Everyday was something exciting to look forward to. While moms and granny dished out yummy stuff like cakes, sweets, munchies etc, dads spent time watching TV and discuss work and other boring stuff and thatha kept busy with his poojas and shloka sessions and relentless hours of writing "Sriramajayam" in his notebook everyday and we, kids, had our own gang of friends and most afternoons were spent playing games with the neighborhood kids.

It was a mixed bag of feelings this trip. Some things have changed and some not. The kids have dispersed to far-away lands to shape their destinies, thatha passed away, uncle/aunt shifted apartments within the township. But the parks remain, the peacocks still lurk around, the roads still are winding and smooth, Paati's bhajans still ring through the ears in the morning, the temple still have sloping lawns. Some things will definitely not change. Our fancyfree childhood memoires and the immense fun that came with the baggage.