There is a child hidden amongst everyone. And as we keep growing up, we want to go back and relive our childhood days. Today, I would like to share a small story from my mother’s childhood days.
There are no mountains on the outskirts of my hometown. And so, to fulfill our yearning, we would make hills out of sand in the sandpits, with a cave. Two little kids could creep in that tunnel and shake hands underneath. That was our idea of fun. Those little friends who would shake hands under the sandhill- today we have all grown up and are in different parts of the world. We can no longer shake hands; instead, we wave and greet each other on social media. “How are you?” we ask each other. In reality, we are so busy in our daily lives that neither do they want to know how I am and nor do I want to tell them. We wave so that we can remind ourselves that they were a part of our happy childhood, our bestest friends.
Since we did not have mountains where we lived, we would make our own mountains out of the heaps of sand left out from construction sites, and conquer them. And when we were done playing, we would each jump on those little sand mountains until they were all plain dust again.
Those were our little moments of joy, and even ruining our creation was fun.
Jhulan is a festival of swings, song, and dance celebrating Radha Krishna. We would make our sandhills and decorate them. Since we were kids, we did not know the proper way of decoration; but we tried our best. Our decoration would be a little like this: we would keep a lion on the sandhill, and a traffic police officer right next to it, an idol of Radha Krishna a little far from them, and an old man toy who would keep nodding his head for the finishing touches.
And as the sun gradually disappeared down the horizon, the final rays of sunshine would peep through the tree branches and slowly touch the streets of our neighborhood, it was time for us to go back home.
Amidst the sound of conch shells and ringing of bicycle bells, we would come home, covered with dust, where our mothers would be waiting for us with a stern look on their faces. A lot of things have changed, but a mother’s job has not. Even today, as their kids come home after playing, covered with dust, mothers wait for them with a stern look. And this is one of those
things in the universe which will never change, even in the years to come.
