The translucent blues, made to be rolled around in dust, if you look into those bluish glass, the sheer magnificent beauty of it will make you think as if you are glancing at the universe in the night from your telescope, the grey, blue, greens and whites spread in undefined structures made me feel that If I look at it long enough it will reveal some magical world or may be some hidden realities of the life.
Counting them before the game and after it was the most important task as our heart would break if we loose even one of these beautiful Marbles, playing with it turn the hours into seconds and time flew by in sheer laughter and silly competitions of sending those marbles flying into a hand made hole in the sand.
Such was the childhood of all the 80's & the 90's adolescents.
Year - 2014
Spotting Stars in the sky is more difficult now, forget about the constellations that we use to mark swishing our fingers to make imaginary lines to connect them, now there are as few as handful that you can spot, that too, if you have time enough to do so. Glancing out of my balcony I sometimes walk out just to stare at the sky. Why? I do not know, it just makes me a little more humbler.
I then look down to the park where some toddlers are playing in the grass, games I do not understand, some ride their bikes in the limited area of the societies side path, group of them just sit on the stairs and discuss the life (i guess) away. I know their play time is somewhere being timed by their parents, I hardly ever see children playing without seeing their parents hovering in the background. These times are not safe, the trust is running all time low, and god forbid if you have young girls, the tension hovering over parents to not let them away from their sight in public must be exhausting.
Times are changing so fast, it makes me sad and at the same time anxious. As if you are watching through hour glass and well aware that your time is running out. But instead of watching sand flowing down, I see the memories flowing away and I try to catch some of them, remembering how easy it was to make friends then, not virtually but literally, the non-judgmental rambling, playing in the dust, wounded knees & scraped palms were treated lightly by then non obsessive parents, and with absolutely no pressure of posting something cool, quirky or witty on your FB or twitter or the pressure of increasing the number of friends on the same.
Is it my place to feel sad for these toddlers to have a techo-blanketed childhood? I do not know, but I am sad. Happy to see they are intellectually more ahead then my generation when we were young, but sad to think that maybe, just may be their generation will never find out the achievement of searching a new hiding place in the routine hide and seek game, they will never know the adrenaline pumping in your veins while you wait for the unknown next victim of "Ghoda Badam Chai", or the sheer fun of running for your life playing "Pakdam Pati", or the waiting for summer vacations to play Cards, for girls to play with doll houses and miniature kitchen sets or for boys playing with G.I Joes, or playing the life and death game of "The game of life" or "Monopoly" and tear each other up for fake money and laugh till your eyes are teary.
Written By - Ritika Patel
Hey Anusia, Thank you so much!!
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