MEMORIES & THOUGHTS!

Chapter 2. The little one.

I was the same 'little one' at my mom's house too for four or five years until the younger cousins were born.

Being the little one 'there' meant a lot of care and attention from everybody I knew, unlike the kid gang of rental days!!!!

Being pampered and loved and carried by the elder cousins and aunts and uncles wherever we went together!!!

Haaa...

Those childhood days are so precious!

When they went to fish in the pond, I also went. They fished and I watched the fishes, both caught ones and live ones in the pond. That was the only thing I was allowed to do.

Whenever we used to go by that way I loved to watch them swim! I would be looking deeper and deeper into the water to find larger ones and will be as ectasic as if I had won a Jackpot, if I got to find even one pearl fish. But, I haven't yet learned to fish successfully.

That way lead to a large backwater body, where we spent our evenings, at times. It was a very nice area. I loved to watch fishes there too.

Here, I had the privilege to enter water as there is a shallow beach. I was allowed to enjoy the water from there.

I could watch those fishes which swam near the banks, I could try picking up fresh clams, I could collect shells of dead clams etc.etc.

At times jelly fishes would swim over there. I was told that, when the salt content of the water increase they might be seen. For fun, I would pick some out of water and would check what is going to happen to them.

Thus I learned that jelly fishes will dry up in sun.. 😄😄😄, that they have no bones and they are made up of only water.

I would wait for the motor boats ( tourist boats and fishing boats what us cousins used to call 'Yamaha') to pass, to feel the waves they make. It was much fun to sit at the banks and plunge foot into the waves. Again, I would wait for another, until my call comes. Sometimes I was lucky enough to have even three boats go!!!

In the calm inland backwaters, there would appear garfishes like a sharp piece of silver in the black colored water. It would swim very calmly that, the ambience becomes so serious.

At that place, there was lot of water around. In that area there was a coir production unit and the ladies over the neighborhood would be working there. I would think, "what are they doing, and how are they making these long ropes by rotating a wheel and walking back with a small basket of something? "

There was actually shredded and cleaned coconut husk in the baskets.

To make the husk softer they would plunge large groups of coconut husks in these calm inland backwaters, for some weeks. It is like a sort of treatment. At that time it produce a stinky, offensive odor all over the area.

Oh! Oh! I could just feel it now also! It was quiet nauseating ! I know that everybody will be having the same feeling 🤢.

At times, I could even go to the beach with a large group of relatives.

We would start from the 'Tharavadu'- the house where my grand parent stays, and walk upto the backwaters. Then there is a boat journey. The sea is on the other side of the backwater.

For the first few minutes in the boat, I would be thinking, how deep the water could be, could I just put my hand in water, would some creatures come out of water to bite my hand off, would I fall into the water if I loosen my hold on the boat , and a lot sort of questions would be there. Yet, I would be enjoying the ride.

While deboarding the boat, someone would offer a hand to get to the land, or there is a chance to fall into water, with the big sway we create in our effort to get to land.

Again, we walk towards the sea and I would be joyous to see the sand dunes which are the sign board showing ---📢📢📢--- "Sea ahead", with lots of fun awaiting!

And when we are back at home, we would have already carried lots of sand with us, that would stay on us and our clothes, even if we wash oueselves and the clothes a few more times.

Those days were so nice. Just because that family was too big, the get togethers were so big too. There was a pleasant awaiting for the festival seasons.

I could wander over many places safely at mom's place, because everyone knew everyone there and they cared for the other. It was unlike the rental house days, as we were alone there, and as mom would be busy at our house construction site, there were less chances of her assisting me. At mom's place one or the other would be there as the get togethers were very big.

Comparing with my kids days, I'm happy towards the creator for giving me such days like 'Dora the explorer's'.

My kids get to play and go only around their house and their mom's house, both of which are on hills and nearby too, and they were born to parents, who were born the era of nuclear families.

Thanks to the maternal grandparents for making such a big family 😁😁😁.

All that region were inhabited by mom's family members from the previous generations, that the family covered a large area.

I could remember a lot of paddy fields. One elder cousin once brought a large green field frog, which later became in Red list in our state. And he even taught to make a trap for it just with the midrib of coconut leaflet (eerkili).

In the recent years when I visited there, all the paddy fields were changed to housing plots, and the place got a different makeover from what it used to be.

It was similar with the beach too. The sign board was not there, the sea encroached upto the road on the seaside that, the sea is so nearer to the resident area.

The change our generations experienced with nature in these 30 years is drastic.

May be, my childhood days were at the verge of the stage where people lived according to the rules of nature and loved nature, and entered a stage where exploiting started, and in these thirty years we constantly hear that the natural resources will be out of supply soon.

Now a days, the word climate is always associated with 'global warming ', extinction of much more species occurred than the earlier times, sea levels rising, and much more.

The attitude of people changed the living conditions, exploiting nature to the maximum, everything seems to be at stake.

Even at my place, while seeing new buildings rise near a very natural place, something uncomfortable occurs in mind. Within a year or so, there will be a lot of constructions completed at that place making us forget what used to be there. Where is the naturality that was present there?!!

I regret!

That land is not mine to protect it, as it was, or to keep it green! That's where I fail, considering the subject. If I was empowered, I would be buying all the plots around me to keep it green and will write in my will that no construction is possible in that land. Only plantations !!

I used to hear a lot in my childhood about Planters. Due to the interferences which had no forevision from the bureaucracy, that species is becoming extinct and a new dangerous species evolved, called 'builders' which are leading us to the era of Anthropocene.

( Anthropocene-The period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on the climate and the environment ).

We, the current young generation have very little to pass on to our children other than the information like, " i/n near future earth will become uncomfortable to live. Let's explore other planets in the Solar system for the mankind to live".

So they have started asking our parent generation, "HOW DARE YOU??? "

('How dare you?? ' were the key quotes from the speech made by teen activist Greta Thunberg in September 2019, at United Nations Climate Summit.)