The Wonder Years

I have been watching Wonder Years for quite some time now, a series which used to be aired on TV in the mid seventies and early eighties. Its every episode has a small and a simple story with a deep meaning hidden some where in its simplicity. I am wondering as to which episode might have struck my writing chords & inspired me to write this post.
Here is a small story about two kids Priyanka and Sumit or Chinky and Mickey.
Yeah! you got it right. Thats my sister and me :). I had one of those wonderful wonder years.
By the time I was 3 I got an admission in one of the city's school Holy Ganges Children Academy. My sister was already studying their. The two kids were not so popular among the common population of the school, but they always figured in at least the top 5 or 6 ranks in the school, that was one of the reasons why Mr. Nautiyal (the Principal) sometimes refered them as "The Rathores" while distributing report cards at the end of every academic year during the morning assembly. As a kid I had some very good friends too, they used to play during the lunch hours but not after the school timings. They were a mix bunch of people naughty people. I always wondered that some of them were very intelligent, not because they got good grades in report cards but because they always completed their home work on time, unlike me.

Getting back home was fun. Every day we used to get back home together on the rikshaw & the rikshaw wala bhaia waited for us every day at the school gates. The school was'nt as bad as we thought it to be but no happiness of the world could have matched the happiness we used to get at the time when school used to get over.

I was as brave in the house as I was in school. But for one thing, fighting battles with my elder sister was tough, I mean very tough. With all my tools I was always ready for the battle, you never know when the enemy would get angry and for what reason, be it switching on the lights or closing the door behind or for that matter just for bringing a glass of water when mom asked for it. Considering our up to date knowledge of the technology, we used highly efficient rocket launchers made of sketch pen caps and pen springs, light hand granades made of crumpled paper and the deadly white chalk pieces, the lucky one used to have the colored chalks gathered from the school's art/biology classes.

Summer vacations were never boring for the duo. Right from building secret houses in the empty almirah to making the world's best soups out of water and syrups during the hot sunny afternoons. At times during such afternoons we used to keep onions (to avoid the effect of hot dry air of summers) in our pockets & travel to the nearby places within the society discovering new houses and parks.

Winters were fun too. I and mom used to sit on the terrace trying to bask in the mild sunrays. Having a book or so or my home work in hand was necessary. My sister also religiously studied during that time. It was just that we never happened to concentrate on a particular chapter. The moment mom used to leave for some work, it was time again for us either to have fun or fight.

Times passed by reading and learnig those chapters, mugging those never ending spellings and byhearting those mathematics table,,two one-za two and two two-za four. We left the holy city of ganges and came to our hometown. The house changed, the friends changed, the neightbourhood changed and so did we. With every parting year we became more mature and sinciere. The amount of our fights reduced & their type got changed.

My elder sister got elder enough to travel hundreds of kilometer to study in Manipal. While it was then that I went to Lucknow. we some how got seperated by distances and time. We got new friends and new college and thus we got busy in our own lives. Ever since our graduations we were hardly together. But with the distances we did sensed our responcibilities, towards us, toward our family and towards our future.

I knew this day will come once in our life, but never happened to have paid attention to it ever, untill now. I have been thinking, how does it feel like when some one from the family leaves us to be a part of a family which one probably has never seen or met before. I mean after so many years how could one leave and just go one day. My head makes me realize that there are certain greater responsibilities on her shoulders now, she is ready to live in the world of her own. But the heart does not support the analysis presented by the brain. For parents I believe the heart would hardly support any analysis even though aparantly it may appear so.

With all those good and bad times we had together and the happiness and sadness we shared together, it was time for us to move on. We will only be left with fading memories of days we used to build our own houses, those day dreamings, those superman and batman fights, those summer vacations and discoveries, the bigger cake and small cake quarreling, the tipi-tipi tops and the ring-a-ring-a-roses, the days when we used to watch Mowgli and Surabhi, the milk glasses we never used to like, the picnic outings with family.

On some sunny afternoon in winters I will be sitting under the sun remembering those faded memories, the only thing I can claim my authority on. But you never know when they might fade away.