Many little things linger in the mind from Childhood days. Why do I remember only those? I don't know.
Maybe today's generation may find it silly if I were to describe some of those memories. We lived in an age, when everything was scarce, and hence the value attached to any gift, albeit small, was very high. This is in contrast to the today's generation (at least in our family, which is more affluent now, though I guess many less affluent families even today may have the same feelings which I underwent all those years), who has got everything and more without being asked, and hence seem to take many things for granted.
The first memory is of me being gifted with a Polyester shirt for my birthday at the age of 6 and going to the School wearing it. This was in 1970. I felt like a Royal, as kids wore only cotton those days. I remember the Class Teacher, a nun, making me sit separately on my birthday in the class on a side chair. Why she did it, I still don't know!
When I was 8, father gifted me my first Cricket Bat. It cost all of Rs 6, was mildly damaged at the inside edge in the lower portion. It had black dots to start with and the a small portion broke off later, leading to the scuffed portion, hitting the inside of my left leg, opening small wounds, that bled often. I was brought up in an era, where we were taught to play with bat as close to legs (pads) as possible, which led to leg getting cut.
The other enduring memory is that of my father bowling overs after overs, using a tennis ball, squatting on the floor in our Palghat house, while I batted with the door as stump. With so many glass articles around, I was allowed to play only front foot or backfoot defense.
Speaking of Tennis Balls, it was beyond our means to buy a new Tennis Ball. Father, on his return from Ernakulam, will stop at Bannerjee Club in Trichur and buy one or two used Tennis Balls, that cost 50 paise each, once a year. This was the ultimate gift, as my friends didn't have even that! These balls were used till their felt cover was worn off, and patches appeared. The manufacturer, Symonds, would have cringed if they had a chance to see the ultimate shape of the Ball.
Father had a friend, Ramachandran Mama, who was running his own Car Workshop, and Mechanical Genius. Father will use his friend's skills to get some special toys made for me. Everyone those days used to run with a cycle tyre, beating it with a stick. But father wanted his son to be different. He got Ramachandran Mama to work on a Truck Steering Wheel, which can be controlled by a specially made stick that had a sleeve at the bottom welded into the stick. The frail son was barely able to lift the Steering wheel!
Father bought a Bicycle with Gears (perhaps the one of the two in the city) for me, Golden in colour. Suddenly I was the envy of the town. My friends would ask me to allow them to ride, but I never obliged, for fear of the gears getting damaged. Out of spite, once when I went to our sports club, and was playing Cricket, some of my friends took my Cycle and hid it, which made me cry for a while.
But somehow, my memory is not of this bicycle, but of the earlier rickety small bicycle I used to rent, for 25 paise per hour, whose paint had peeled off long ago, and which didn't have bell or brake. I had to walk with my Servant Velayudhan 1 Km to hire the Cycle. I was allowed to rent it for one hour every week, which was the high point of my week. Once I crashed it against the wall, coming down a slope, and ended up in the ditch, with cuts on my lower lip, which took a long while to heal.
And it was when I was 10 year old, I was bitten by a Black Scorpion, which got into my bed. It stung and hurt for a couple of days. This was perhaps the first and only time I saw my father panic. A quick dash to Dr C V Raman, our family doctor, pacified everyone.
I had a brush with death when I was 10. I had to walk to the bus stand from School, about 1 km away. The new bus stand was being constructed. There was a big ditch, size of a small pond, opposite to it full of water. I got too close to it, and fell into the water, and was drowning. Some good Samaritans jumped in and pulled me out in the nick of the time. I never told my parents till they died.
