Childhood memories

I’m feeling nostalgic today. Very much. I had lot of time at my hand and decided to clean up my cupboard, which I do from time to time. Until a few years back, I used to keep all things I used to have during my childhood days and one day I decided to get rid of all the junk. First time I did it, believe me, it was so painful. Each small item had so many memories associated with it, but I had to clean up stuff.

Guess what I didn’t have anything to throw today other than a couple of paper-cuttings from 1980s which I had collected during my primary school days. It means that I have cleaned up things many times over and all the things that are remaining are ones which I want to keep for the rest of my life! I’m sure this feeling also wouldn’t stay for a long time; I will throw away some things again.

Some things which made me nostalgic today -

• Stamps - Yeah, I used to collect them.

• Coins - have lots of them. My cousin took all of them with him without my knowledge and returned only half of them after fighting with him. He has lost all of them!!!

• Indian Coins with different pictures on one side - just like stamps, I stopped collecting them a long time ago! I could have made a very good collection if I had continued collecting, no?

• Notes(currency) - a couple of different currencies; old Indian notes.

• Photos - I look different in each of them. It clearly shows the transition between a dark kid with thick spectacles to a decent looking man. 😄 Photograph of me receiving an award for the first time in life! I can see Hrudreshayya sir in it - we were scared of him as he was a police constable before becoming a teacher.

• Sketches - most precious of all. Have stopped sketching too!

• 10th standard class photo. I’m not in touch with any of them. 😢 Last I heard, a few have become antisocial elements, one is in jail, a few in garments factories, auto-rickshaw driving, a few of them were pursuing Bachelors degree, two have become engineers and one girl (Mary Gracy - topper in my class) has become a nun.

• Marks Cards - I have almost all marks card. I was just reading the comments given by my class teachers - “ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಓದಬೇಕು” (should study well), “ವಿಷಯ ಜ್ಞಾನ ಬೆಳೆಸಿಕೊ” (improve on concepts/subject knowledge), “ಪ್ರಥಮ ಶ್ರೇಣಿಗೆ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸಬಹುದಿತ್ತು” (could have tried for first rank) etc.

• A dice - Pradeep gave it to me when I was in 5th (I guess). He found it during his house’s foundation work. He said, ‘ನೆಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿತು, ಯಾವುದೋ ರಾಜರ ಕಾಲದಿರಬೇಕು’ (I found it in the ground, might belong to some King’s era) 😄

• A couple of rakhis - not very sure from whom I got them!

• Score card of a game organised by Hero Honda during 1999 cricket world cup!

• Ophthalmologist’s prescriptions over years - I started wearing specs very early… may be from lower primary school. 😟

• Certificates - first place in “ನದಿ ದಡ”(literal meaning river-shore: when they call “river” you have to jump inside the circle, else outside. If you are on the wrong side, you are out), first place in drawing in 5th and 6th standard etc.

• Exam hall tickets - 7th, 10th, and all BE semesters etc.

• ID cards, Library cards

• Project and seminar reports.

I really miss those days. I wanna do it all over again, may be a little bit differently, may be without being too shy as a kid!

Song that best suits my mood right now -

That’s all for now. Bbye, take care.