Those Were The Days........

Those were the days......I mean this by going back to my school and college days......
Running to catch the school bus and elder sis howling at me to hurry up......
Having fun at class right thru the day...........Buying gooseberries and kamarkat at a road side shop.........Having Ramu diary icecream( the only brand available in Coimbatore)in those days,,,,,,
Coming home for a hot plate of Rava uppuma and instant tea.........
Chatting with your best friend over the phone as soon as u reach home.......
Playing dodge ball with friends every day for more than 2 hours.............
Listening to old songs at nights after switching off the lights and drifting off to sleep.
Come Sundays,it was a nice hot head bath along with sambirani to dry plus a good afternoon's sleep followed your homework session listening to your favourite dramas........
Hurrily tucking away off story books underneath our pillows as soon as we hear our father coming in as he was against reading books lying down.
Cleaning up the rooms as his car horn is heard.......
Waiting eagerly for his return from his official trips,as there will a packet of writer's chocolates,or lovely clothes or tins of rasgullas.Never an empty box..as he knew what pleasure children get thru small things of life..........
There were yearly holiday trips visiting cousins,attending weddings and even yearly death ceremonies of my grandparents.........Seeing new places...........
Chatting with my neighbours hours together sitting on the wall.........
Listening to the chats between my father and his,as well as the conversations between my grandpa and our old servant.......
Going for old black and white movies was a weekly affair...........
Visiting lot of temples and being allowed to taste bakshanams of those temples.......
Father reading Ramayana and Mahabarata stories wvery day.
It is unending days of no responsibilities,,,,,,,,,,,,Those were the days..........

Originally Posted by kanaka Raghavan

Those were the days......I mean this by going back to my school and college days......
Running to catch the school bus and elder sis howling at me to hurry up......
Having fun at class right thru the day...........Buying gooseberries and kamarkat at a road side shop.........Having Ramu diary icecream( the only brand available in Coimbatore)in those days,,,,,,
Coming home for a hot plate of Rava uppuma and instant tea.........
Chatting with your best friend over the phone as soon as u reach home.......
Playing dodge ball with friends every day for more than 2 hours.............
Listening to old songs at nights after switching off the lights and drifting off to sleep.
Come Sundays,it was a nice hot head bath along with sambirani to dry plus a good afternoon's sleep followed your homework session listening to your favourite dramas........
Hurrily tucking away off story books underneath our pillows as soon as we hear our father coming in as he was against reading books lying down.
Cleaning up the rooms as his car horn is heard.......
Waiting eagerly for his return from his official trips,as there will a packet of writer's chocolates,or lovely clothes or tins of rasgullas.Never an empty box..as he knew what pleasure children get thru small things of life..........
There were yearly holiday trips visiting cousins,attending weddings and even yearly death ceremonies of my grandparents.........Seeing new places...........
Chatting with my neighbours hours together sitting on the wall.........
Listening to the chats between my father and his,as well as the conversations between my grandpa and our old servant.......
Going for old black and white movies was a weekly affair...........
Visiting lot of temples and being allowed to taste bakshanams of those temples.......
Father reading Ramayana and Mahabarata stories wvery day.
It is unending days of no responsibilities,,,,,,,,,,,,Those were the days..........

vow kanaka
mother going on a rewind button today nice yaar anyday those days are our gems..sunkan

Dear Kanaka,

Couldn't agree with you more...
"Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end.........."

Thank you for such a nostalgic trip down memory lane....

Alas ! all those carefree little girls with shiny long plaits, jhumki's and pattu pavadais had to grow up and shoulder the responsibilities of Life and become grandmas themselves..... but nobody can stop us from dreaming about those good old days
......somehow, I feel the present day kids do not enjoy the same innocent fun that we had....everything was a marvel and a wonder for us ...fathers gifts of chocolates or tins of rosagollas ....planning what outfit to wear for the cinema theatre visit to see black and white movies and all the umpteen lovely things you've written about.
Today the pace of life is too fast and everything is SMS ,mobile or net and what ever gadgets are the rage ,that the simple pleasures of life we enjoyed have faded into oblivion. Anyway with each era comes whirlwind changes.

Lovely reading .

warm regards
PAULINA

Hi Kanaka,

Those were 'the' best days isnt it?

My niece studies in the same school where we 3 sisters did our schooling, but she has not experienced buying kamarkat and gooseberries from the vendor lady or the 'poti kadai'..no jumpin over the wall to get 'kuchi ice' and no fun of go in the rickshaw. She now has a mini dept store next door, a tiffin shop. There are poti kadais, but they are of different kind. But children now a days have different kind of entertainment..amusement parks, home theater, etc etc..a luxurious life which we would have to only dream of those days.

Poornima

True Kanaka, those were the innocent days enjoying life to its fullest...with no responsibilities...
siiting on the thinnai and chat with friends,
play 'koko' and 'nondi'...
waiting for ice-cream kaaran,
getting permission to go for movies, which at times gets cancelled.
preparing to visit a marriage function with full enthu....

the list is endless..

sriniketan

Dear kanaga...
.
Very nice and sweet .....
Your words brought back all my childhood memories...
thanx for posting...

Love
brindha

Thanks for those replies ,friends.Playing medda ,pallama was one more I forgot,not to miss the occasion wherein we buried a dead sparrow in our back yard and laid the entire with orange flowers and mourned the whole day..........My daughter wonders how we had no comp or tv at home.But we survived it and simply enjoyed it............

dear kanaka,

enjoyed your post..true indeed those were the days of FUN...the carefree,innocent wonderful life with friends and enjoying the small pleasures that life offerred....will spend the next one hour going down memory lane,i think...

Mindi

Dear Kanaka,
Yes the yester years are always written in ones memory in golden ltters.I spent two wonderful years of my childhood in our native village(kolinjivadi)near coimbatore.I can never forget those funfilled days.My friend Vedha and I would roam around the whole day during holidays,pluck marudhani leaves from an old man's garden just to irritate him,play sozhi on any available thinnai,play pondy .The main thrill was taking bath in the Amaravathi river,pluck kodukkappuli bunches and on that pretext cross over to the other bank of the river,mother would hear of my adventures,and give me a sound thrashing once I reached home.
School was fun.A slate on which the teacher would draw lines with a sharp nailone side for writing and the other side for doing maths.
Evening the school would turn into Village library.I would go sit there with my brother and read tamil magazines.
There was a jamun tree in the schoolompound and all the time our eyes would be rivetted below the tree to see if any fruit had fallen and there would be a mini war if more than ome person spotted a fruit.
Oh my God,my friend they were woderful days.Hope I have not bored you
mithila kannan

Oh.how did I forget the days when we cooked food from choppu.,in our lovely garden.Sneaking into the kitchen without my mother's knowledge,we used to get sugar and pootukadalai.Keep it on so called plastic stove and on the other ring it used be hibiscus leaves along with water.We used to pretend eating the so called cooked food and wash the vessels in the tap water and go off to sleep under the jasmine pandal..........Friends thanks for those responses...........