Halva Erasers

My sister wrote about her children, playing 'under' the table. 'Under' the table is a marvelous place long lost, yet so dearly, and, i hope, will stay on dearly forever.

I count my childhood days as the most wonderful time I had ever spent. Then, we (me and my brother) too were very imaginative as any other children of our age. And surprisingly many a time our imaginations matched. Be as a 'physician', with all the plantain plants as patients, who gave quite a lot of injections to all :) or as a 'malik' of all the brick buses of the toilet wall. Our favorite bus was a bus(brick) with a different look, a deformed brick.

We had a cupboard car, we both used to get inside and drive. It was near perfect darkness inside when the door was closed. And a little hole on the door offered a ray of light. My brother always occupied the side seat, for he feared the darkness, i guess. The only others who ventured into the cupboard were innumerable cats and rats. For cats it was a place safe for its newborn kittens. Rats found it a heaven with lot of old cloths to test how sharp their teeth was.

And there comes.. the muddy world.. It was real fun. We made quite a lot mud houses but the condition of the nearby whitewashed wall got pathetic after all these plays, not to tell about 'us':) But surprisingly we never got punished for any of these:) During the rainy season we never got any rest, as we were having the sole responsibility of all the irrigation related works.

Once we made a two storied building with palm leaves and wooden planks. We even used to sit on the top of it in chairs:) One day it collapsed :( After that only pinku was able to be on top, he being small. We had two guava trees which we used as our buses. One even had a seat shaped branch. Unable to withstand our increasing weights or so one of them collapsed while we were on the move. I dont remember any toys as such, nor we had much!! But then what more is needed apart from all those living playmates of nature :).

Then comes the 'erasers'(rubber), our parents used to bring when they were back from their workplace. Those had a very beautiful appearance, transparent red, green.. colours with a very sweet fragrance making it nearly impossible for us not to taste it. We called it 'halva eraser'. So each time our parents left for work we always reminded them of the 'halva rubber' which they were to bring at the weekend.

Now only few of our old playmates are left, many perished with the passage of time:(. For me nostalgic moments, memoirs of a world lost for ever, always comes accompanied with a great deep sadness. I don't really know why.