Fuzzy thoughts from childhood...

As a grad student in US, I can tell you that there are a lot of sporadic moments when you go ballistic with joy, like the end of a midterm, the starting of fall or spring break, an internship call or the occasional good sambhar(when you are cooking of course)! But I can safely say that there aren't a lot of those moments when you feel at peace with yourself, wrapped up in that comfortable aura of smugness or satisfaction with the general world outside, moments that linger like the early morning mist which creeps in unannounced and disappears gradually without your knowledge as the day brightens and hots up. These slow but more enriching, fulfilling pockets of time that have dominated a significant part of my life unknowingly were not remembered or recognized as the happiest times of my life till this day. It took three assignments, two phone interviews, an evening when I wanted to stop working for saving myself from going insane and finally a bad coffee for this humble epiphany to strike! So now I embark on a fuzzy tale, sitting on a stiff back ache rendering chair half way around the world reminiscing about all the things that count as those magical moments, those I would like to coin as ephemeral joys of childhood imprinted for eternity...chumma english la vetti scene podalam nu.. Here we gooooooo

My earliest memory was this hazy scene that took place in the kitchen of the first house I remember living in. I was in LKG. I was living in Karaikal, a place halfway between a town and a village, south of Pondicherry. My dad was the manager of a bank in an even more obscure place called Sankaranpandhal (the name of which i recollected after several squabbles with my memory(squabbles a word that i again had to wrench out to suit the context) ). So my dad was like a really well known guy in the town being the manager of the only bank in the region. Anyway i am digressing, coming back to the kitchen, there I was standing in the middle of it facing the stove and the big round jars on teh shelves in front of me. I remember the hardly three feet round mass of flesh and a wobbly head (adiyen, i.e me) creeping behind a bigger, cuter version of me (my mom :-)) wearing a blinding pink color nighty with black threads dangling, cooking dinner diligently. After startling her, I pose the question " Mummy, Where did i come from and how come I dont remember me being a baby?" My mom startled and confused by the round mass asking the philosophy of life question tries to come up with an answer that I can understand. She finally asks me if I wanted to see how I was when I was a baby. I nod in reply and she whisks me out of the kitchen and sets up the VCR. The next one hour when I watched my first birthday video with my parents, recognizing my grandparents, my uncle, cousins, my first fight (of many) with my brother and seeing a baby me fighting with a giant teddy bear and giggling will be my first ephemeral joy! :) Other brilliant moments in Karaikal include my first catch in cricket and the subsequent rejoicing all evening long, the weekend visits to Tirunallar temple sitting infront of my father on our reliable bajaj cub scooter with the wind in my face and the traditional paddy fields rolling past on either side, the trips to tharangambadi( travancore) fort where on a rainy day you can catch turtles washed ashore lying on their backs as if they were waiting to be tickled. Finally the dinners at the same old fancy veg restautant followed by a visit to the foreign market selling exotic and fascinating perfumes and Rs. 35 digital watches with date and stop watch functionality in downtown karaikal! :)

To be continued... ;)