सुबह अख़बार पढने का समय नहीं है अब,
एक छोटा सा चेहरा, नन्हे हाथों से
पलकों को ज़बरदस्ती खोलता है
सुबह सुबह मेरे चेहरे पे अपनी प्यार की स्याही से
एक खूबसूरत कहानी लिख देता है
चाय को टी कह कर पहचानता है
चाय के गरम कप को छु कर खिलखिलके हंस पड़ता है
फीकी भी बनाओ तो चाय मीठी कर देता है
जिद्द पकड़ के रोना, गुस्से मैं ,चीखना
छोटी सी बात पर आंसुओं का झर झर बहना,
"मम्मी ऑफिस नो" कह कर माँ को रोकना,
और कुछ ही पल में खेल में फिर बहल जाना
वक़्त के साथ बदल जाओगे तुम भी,
बदलाव ही एक सची है आज और कल भी,
पर माँ बनने का गौरव दिया है तुमने,
मेरे लिए "नोनन" ही रहोगे तुम सदा, आज और कल भी!
Friday, June 11, 2010
The Toys We Played With!
Watching my son play with his toys always make me think about toys I had as kids. Now that I think of it there few toys and games that are so clearly etched in my memory.
Mona Doll, stands out like a doll would for any girl. I didn’t name the doll Mona. The doll came in a transparent plastic cover with a paper stapled to close the cover mouth and on the paper the name was “Mona Doll”, so Mona it was.
It had blue eyes and big eyelashes. The eyelids used to open and close when the doll was moved horizontally and vertically. Every girl has a doll like that. Clear skin, golden hair ,lips painted pink just parted in a beautiful perfect smile. Oh how I loved her (mind you people love “her” not “it”). She came with a brown frock. With white lace and a flowered brown apron kinds covering the lower half of the frock. She even had a white soft Lycra underwear (Lycra had not been branded as “You Either Have It Or You Don’t” , till then, hence a little girls doll had a Lycra underwear). That was one of the highlight because all other dolls just had frocks and no one bothered to put an underwear. By gods grace no one had done a Barbie like detailing to Mona. So she had a flat plastic body. And thank god for that, our dolls didn’t tell us more than we were required to know at that age.
So Mona was the apple of my eye. I must have made a mess by washing her clothes and then covering her with other clothes by the time this brown frock had dried, that it prompted my mother to stitch a frock for Mona. Ma stitched a blue color frock. What surprises me that in the busy schedule that my doctor mother had she had time for taking out sewing machine and stitch stuff for us. All our white under frocks or slips as we call them now were stitched by her. She ones bought some readymade stuff, but somehow we went back to what she used to stitch. So Mona had two dresses, but one underwear. The zealous but disorganized kid that I was I eventually misplaced the underwear somehow. So here was Mona without an underwear. Must have been the biggest blasphemy of my life then. I must have pestered my parents enough for my father to have taken the project of giving a permanent underwear to Mona.
I clearly remember Baba with a pair of scissors, needle and cloth that ma must have discarded for us to waste. But what a perfect job he did. He gave Mona a blue underwear which made to fit. The little girl in me was happy and my parents were peaceful now that I couldn’t take out the garment and misplace it again!
When and how and where did Mona go, I don’t remember. But I guess we just grow up without realizing.
I don’t have memory of any other Toy per se. But I remember various board games my elder sister and me grew up on.
Scrabble, every kid of our generation has owned it. Played and fought over the words being proper nouns or spelling being checked in dictionary, which was allowed or disallowed depending on how generous the other sibling felt that particular day. Now being the younger one who till today is miserable with spellings, I was the one who had to beg didi to let me check the spelling. And oh! it was so so disallowed to check other words in dictionary other than what you had planned to make. What quarrels would ensue if you broke that rule. Oh my god, it makes me laugh so much now. How important was all that then! Life was so much simple but seemed maha- complex because your sister was on 120 points while you had a paltry 40 points.
Business, or Monopoly, I am not sure if we bought it or someone gifted it. The summer holidays that we have spent playing this game are some of the fond memories I have. The monopoly we had, had paper currency. Most of our friends had plastic coin currency. The plastic currency was easier to manage, then the paper one we had. Plus if you had me as a sister you had the work of threatening her with dire consequences if she tore the paper currency. Oh how I would be careful while playing and year eventually I think I tore a 2000 note. It was red in color. I even remember that 20 was indigo blue, 10 was yellow. You could buy Indore, Delhi and some other cities. Indore I remember cause it was one of the first few cities which if we got the dice right.
Chinese Checkers, we actually had this long wooden board which had Chinese Checkers at one end and the Ludo on other. It had nice pink, blue, red, yellow and green color. The board was very sturdy indeed it survived me. I even remember the texture of the colors on that board. We must have played a zillion set of games of Ludo and CC on this.
Snake and Ladder. We had this folding board made of hard paper which folded in the center. Somehow the snakes hated me. I remember loosing this game almost to all and sundry.
Peg 5. Now this was not a very common game. I have seen different versions of this game with various people. We had a 10 by 10 peg board, with black and red pegs. The players were supposed to create line of 5 pegs horizontally, vertically or diagonally. One could put one at a time and the other user had to prevent this while trying to create his won line. So basically it was tic-tac-toe of 100 squares rather than 9. Ours was plastic board with grooves in which the pegs would fit. The other version I have seen is a vertical board where player has a flat coin that they have to drop in the slot from the opening on the top of the board. I remember this game in so much detail for the reason that while I was bed ridden with jaundice in class 5th, ma played it with me to give me company and keep my spirits. But if I would loose the game, I would burst into tears feeling as miserable as if I was a total looser. A bed ridden child with his / her sibling gone to park to play is any parents nightmare. I remember chiding my mother for giving me all the bland food and giving didi good food, knowing well that in Jaundice I was not allowed oil and all that yummy food.
Carrom. I have no fond memories of this board game. I was pathetic at it. I was so hopeless that my father though taught my sister all tricks of playing the game; he just tolerated my horrible strikes. We had two strikers one white one red, I would keep changing the striker thinking that would help my luck. Once in a blue moon if would be able to get the queen and the cover too, but that was so rare that I would be on cloud 9 whenever I was able to achieve that feat!
We have played hide and seek, badminton, general running and catching each other, and all the other girl games with kitchen set and all. I thank god for giving us a wholesome childhood and all these fond memories!
Add on Didi if I forgot anything here!
Mona Doll, stands out like a doll would for any girl. I didn’t name the doll Mona. The doll came in a transparent plastic cover with a paper stapled to close the cover mouth and on the paper the name was “Mona Doll”, so Mona it was.
It had blue eyes and big eyelashes. The eyelids used to open and close when the doll was moved horizontally and vertically. Every girl has a doll like that. Clear skin, golden hair ,lips painted pink just parted in a beautiful perfect smile. Oh how I loved her (mind you people love “her” not “it”). She came with a brown frock. With white lace and a flowered brown apron kinds covering the lower half of the frock. She even had a white soft Lycra underwear (Lycra had not been branded as “You Either Have It Or You Don’t” , till then, hence a little girls doll had a Lycra underwear). That was one of the highlight because all other dolls just had frocks and no one bothered to put an underwear. By gods grace no one had done a Barbie like detailing to Mona. So she had a flat plastic body. And thank god for that, our dolls didn’t tell us more than we were required to know at that age.
So Mona was the apple of my eye. I must have made a mess by washing her clothes and then covering her with other clothes by the time this brown frock had dried, that it prompted my mother to stitch a frock for Mona. Ma stitched a blue color frock. What surprises me that in the busy schedule that my doctor mother had she had time for taking out sewing machine and stitch stuff for us. All our white under frocks or slips as we call them now were stitched by her. She ones bought some readymade stuff, but somehow we went back to what she used to stitch. So Mona had two dresses, but one underwear. The zealous but disorganized kid that I was I eventually misplaced the underwear somehow. So here was Mona without an underwear. Must have been the biggest blasphemy of my life then. I must have pestered my parents enough for my father to have taken the project of giving a permanent underwear to Mona.
I clearly remember Baba with a pair of scissors, needle and cloth that ma must have discarded for us to waste. But what a perfect job he did. He gave Mona a blue underwear which made to fit. The little girl in me was happy and my parents were peaceful now that I couldn’t take out the garment and misplace it again!
When and how and where did Mona go, I don’t remember. But I guess we just grow up without realizing.
I don’t have memory of any other Toy per se. But I remember various board games my elder sister and me grew up on.
Scrabble, every kid of our generation has owned it. Played and fought over the words being proper nouns or spelling being checked in dictionary, which was allowed or disallowed depending on how generous the other sibling felt that particular day. Now being the younger one who till today is miserable with spellings, I was the one who had to beg didi to let me check the spelling. And oh! it was so so disallowed to check other words in dictionary other than what you had planned to make. What quarrels would ensue if you broke that rule. Oh my god, it makes me laugh so much now. How important was all that then! Life was so much simple but seemed maha- complex because your sister was on 120 points while you had a paltry 40 points.
Business, or Monopoly, I am not sure if we bought it or someone gifted it. The summer holidays that we have spent playing this game are some of the fond memories I have. The monopoly we had, had paper currency. Most of our friends had plastic coin currency. The plastic currency was easier to manage, then the paper one we had. Plus if you had me as a sister you had the work of threatening her with dire consequences if she tore the paper currency. Oh how I would be careful while playing and year eventually I think I tore a 2000 note. It was red in color. I even remember that 20 was indigo blue, 10 was yellow. You could buy Indore, Delhi and some other cities. Indore I remember cause it was one of the first few cities which if we got the dice right.
Chinese Checkers, we actually had this long wooden board which had Chinese Checkers at one end and the Ludo on other. It had nice pink, blue, red, yellow and green color. The board was very sturdy indeed it survived me. I even remember the texture of the colors on that board. We must have played a zillion set of games of Ludo and CC on this.
Snake and Ladder. We had this folding board made of hard paper which folded in the center. Somehow the snakes hated me. I remember loosing this game almost to all and sundry.
Peg 5. Now this was not a very common game. I have seen different versions of this game with various people. We had a 10 by 10 peg board, with black and red pegs. The players were supposed to create line of 5 pegs horizontally, vertically or diagonally. One could put one at a time and the other user had to prevent this while trying to create his won line. So basically it was tic-tac-toe of 100 squares rather than 9. Ours was plastic board with grooves in which the pegs would fit. The other version I have seen is a vertical board where player has a flat coin that they have to drop in the slot from the opening on the top of the board. I remember this game in so much detail for the reason that while I was bed ridden with jaundice in class 5th, ma played it with me to give me company and keep my spirits. But if I would loose the game, I would burst into tears feeling as miserable as if I was a total looser. A bed ridden child with his / her sibling gone to park to play is any parents nightmare. I remember chiding my mother for giving me all the bland food and giving didi good food, knowing well that in Jaundice I was not allowed oil and all that yummy food.
Carrom. I have no fond memories of this board game. I was pathetic at it. I was so hopeless that my father though taught my sister all tricks of playing the game; he just tolerated my horrible strikes. We had two strikers one white one red, I would keep changing the striker thinking that would help my luck. Once in a blue moon if would be able to get the queen and the cover too, but that was so rare that I would be on cloud 9 whenever I was able to achieve that feat!
We have played hide and seek, badminton, general running and catching each other, and all the other girl games with kitchen set and all. I thank god for giving us a wholesome childhood and all these fond memories!
Add on Didi if I forgot anything here!
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