SWINGING IN THE MEMORIES

 

                     The wistful memories of Dilip Chitre portrayed in  his poem "The house of my childhood "  brings the readers to a nostalgic aura.  "Nostalgia "is a  greek word expressing the sentimentality towards the past, a period or a place and severe longing to the good old days. 

                        Even a single photo which copies the warm childhood is powerful to escort a smile with dewy eyes.  We 4, in the lapse of nature swinging through the branches enjoyed those moments to the fullest. We called it 'Erappu' . The  hours of  fun in the fields making branches to seesaw , swinging in the roots, sliding through the terraced grounds, playing with our kids (goat) and finally sweating in the interdistrict game of batminton is a time where all the worries fade and recollect our innocence.  I called it interdistict because erappu is a field where we from Palakkad, Malappuram and Eranakulam get together and laugh loudly for the echo. There comes the refreshment, our mango with a wonderful combo with salt and chilli. In the green pasture, in the shade of clouds with a melody of breeze it tastes far better than the pizzas. Next is the most  challenging time for us, to catch even a single fish from the nearby stream .  A perennial stream which sustains the biodiversity. It includes varieties of snakes - the main villian in our stories , butterflies,  insects,  shrubs ,amazing arrangement of flowers and leaves etc. When images of exotic and endangered species came in the newspapers my Papa proudly says it is there in our erappu . 

                 What we all have to finish the challenge will be a turkey and a bottle to put our fishes. The  pleasure and satisfaction we enjoyed when we get one is beyond the words. Imitating Bear Grylls was our another game while exploring the hilltops.  With a hours long bath in the fresh stream with a  small waterfall through the amazingly placed rocks by nature, we tread back to our nearby home . 

                       From the scorching heat  of Palakkad we yearns for a vacation to reach our erappu . 

            But what waited for us was a clean erappu ,no more  branches to  swing ,  the big trees laid down across the thinning stream . The expressions of us can be predicted by the ones who realized  how much we loved that place . I used the word ' clean ' intentionally because it was a part of cleaning by the nearby school as a part of NSS activities.  I don't know weather they considered the play ground gifted by the nature as a waste. We were never able to bring back our erappu because there is no point of artificiality . It is a part of memories of centuries. Finally we adjusted and our small room  substituted our erappu .Now there is a  pentecost church also ,rising ' Hallelujah Hallelujah ' .But do you think the God ,The creator is happy?