A little while ago...

The word ‘little’ has a very pleasant ring to it. It means good times where I always leapt before I thought. Little did I know it is a joy that cannot be had once you grow. Childhood is now a distant past. But with a slight difference from other pasts. These incidents give form to your personality. They may have egged you on to become a worthy individual. Built relationships. And it may have even given you your very first brush with an ‘understanding of life’. Thankfully, human memories are retrievable and all it needs is a good spin on the merry-go-round of your mind.

Wind whipping through my face… pig tails wildly flying about..glee written all over the face… my best days… my child hood… here we go!! Wheeeee!!!!!!!!!!


I saw me, in a brown uniform that came just above the knee. I was about three feet tall. Black hair cropped short like that of a boy’s. My head was nodding from one side to another as I was performing a recitation of the rhyme “Operation... Operation... just now”

I then saw my brother. He was crying. My hands were in his as he was looking at the blood pouring from the gash in my thumb and was trying desperately to stop the blood oozing out if it. He washed it. And then applied yellow ointment on it. He cursed the blade with which he had accidentally cut my thumb, making me make me laugh through my tears. And he even promised to carry my lunch bag always if I didn’t rat on him to dad.

Dad was sharpening my pencils. He then arranged them according to size in my blue pencil box. I was being dressed. Ribbons were tied. Shoelaces were being done. And finally he put a pottu in my forehead. He chose a different colour of pottu for each day. Today it was yellow!

I was hugging my mother from behind. Walking behind her, with her, all the while with my hands tied around her. I was like an extra appendage she had to bear. I remember only but vividly the sweet, talcum scent she used to wear.

I was jumping off a great big jungle gym. Along with me were my cousins. We were posing for the camera mid air- arms flailing and legs frog like!

It was night. I woke up to go to the bathroom but was terrified by the darkness around me so much that I couldn’t even move. I whimpered in the dark and woke my mother from her deep sleep. She carried me to the bathroom. She stood by the door, guarding it, while I went about my business boldly.

I was laughing...at Some one. A bespectacled fat child was in the center of a circle who was now looking down remorsefully. She could not dash to her bench as we brats had blocked her path and were taunting her.

I was tying a colorful friendship band to my friend. It had pretty pink, blue, and yellow tassels. She tied me an equally pretty one. Then we did a kuch kuch hota hai handshake.

Brother became the School pupil leader. I was gleaming with pride and telling everyone around me that he was MY brother. I would tell my friends that I can introduce them to him. Every time I went to his class,he would become all haughty as he was with his friends and shoo me away with an air of assumed importance.

Father was teaching me difference between perimeter and area. He traced my finger along the square of a tile and said ‘That...is perimeter!’

I was dressed in a red pattu pavadai, with jasmine flowers in my hair and bangles jingled each time I lifted my hand to put the thalam. I was singing ‘Pandurithi kolu’ in the Thyagarja utsavam my pattu maami used to hold each year.

I was in awe of my brother’s friend. I kept stealing glances at him and every time he spoke to me,I answered in the monosyllables.It made my blush wildly. He was my first crush. I grew awfully jealous when my class mate used to talk to him blithely.

I then suddenly heard rapturous applause, and saw my parents were grinning at me from the audience. I was making my way upto them waving a trophy in my hand while they gave me a tight hug and proudly showed me off to other parents, who all seemed happy for me.

I was 13! Teenager! My first email id was created. ramtam13 @rediffmail.com. Ram stood for Ramya, that’s the name my people call me with and tam because I was Tamil.

After 13, things took a whole new turn. Its time to alight from the merry-go –round now… But each time I get off, the “do I have to grow up?” question arises. It is but a rhetoric which needs no answering. Luckily, the process of growing up doesn’t snatch away my merry- go – round ride and I hope it never does…