11 June 2010

For once, the monsoons have entered our place at the right time. After humid grey mornings, in the evening we can feel cold straight drops of rain piercing your back if you happen to be out. Well coming to that, it can pierce your front too, but you wont have the grit to stand against such chattering rain that way. And then, there's grandma here, cooking hot spicy food every day. And then, there are the mangoes delicious, rich, sweet, glorious, glorious mangoes, oh god. I can't count the number of them I've had this summer. And there are friends available. Summer hols. and all. Some passing by reader would think of this as a wonderful summer, nah, no, this is by far one of the worst summers I've had, with not enough play...as suddenly all my pals seemed to remember their 'age' or rather I'm afraid I admit they're slipping into the middle age laziness at 18. Can't do a damn thing about anything if people stay stuck to their pc's all night, wake up late and again get stuck to their pc's and at about 7 in the evening, come down for a while for a little gossip and small talk. Geez! they aren't even singing free anymore and they'd probably murder me in my sleep for writing all that. But I'll write more. They're all good, happy, cool people. But I liked the confused, energetic, erreneous ones. It was nice. All those fights in the game.
I'll tell you what it was like before.
I used to wake up at 5 am or they'd call me then. I'd brush, take my 'lucky' badminton racket(s) and a book inside the cover...all the coins and little notes and stick them again in the badminton cover...then wear the shoulder strap and blue and white nike(gosh, all that play ripped one pair off).. and then...all jingling with the rattling loose change music I'd go to seven hills. And then there'd be a couple of em already awake..and we'd decide who'd go to whose house to plague and pull em off their beauty sleep. I'd mostly volunteer to go to my best buddie's house and trust me she can be the laziest slimy thing alive before waking up. Personally I believe she used to have compact Trojan wars inside her head on whether or not to surrender her precious dreams to idiot friends. And she, her sis and we used to all go down in our slacks and start the badminton...well, that was the year before...last year, after losing amazing sets of 8 matches in a row with various partners and various reasons, I gave up badminton...and took to simply running around trying to play leg-touch with all those who didnt have the space to occupy the court...but all those years before last..we used to start badminton and play like..till ten, with sore hands...and all those little stones everywhere on the road and around, used to get little black clots in our feet for atleast two of us everyday. Then all tired and stuff, we'd collect the change and buy water packets and those one or two and a half rupee maaza packets..and I'd go home dragging my feet, wishing I lived this side of the street..., 10 blocks closer, 9 blocks closer..and so on till I reached home..by that time, most probably mum would've gone to the office..and I'd sleep it off...afternoon was t.v. time... some of them in seven hills preferred to spend it playing uno and other card games. Then we'd go off in the evening, and I loved them pretty dearly too, because we'd play these chillar games with lots of running around, falling down and laughter. We'd play, out-out, cho-cho, current shock, chain cut, hide and seek and such miscelleneous games and on some ill-fated evenings we played even kabaddi. By 8.30 or so, we'd again be too hurt with all those uneven bits of tar road stones stuck into our feet and the evening wind gets simply too irresistable to be forgotten in speedy games, then we'd sit and play antakshari or dumb charade ( that's dumsharaatz you know) and they were so refreshing after all that play and stuff... they weren't those girly games we laughed about anymore. They were those group games we laughed in an entirety of good humor and happiness.
As the clock's hand starts crossing nine, one or many mums would be screaming from the apartments at one or many of their respective kids...and we'd slowly grow thinner in number. That would be when I'd realize I can't stay on the road singing with pals all night .. then I'd start the bargaining with people on how far they'd accompany me home. Usually it's the temple, but then temple turns out into the car, car turns out into the tree, and then they'd all be lined up on the left and right because I whine I'm too cluttered to cross the road and they'd believe and help me across it..then the girls go home...but the guys come on till home.. I usually tell them I'd give them lemonade, but I know I dont have to. They'll know it'll be too late to drop into. All along the way, we'd talk of all the so called 'item' candidates. The funniness of our friends, the funniness of our 'not so friendly friends' and so on and so forth, and playing around in between. I'd end up wishing home was a block away, 2 blocks away and so on and so forth. It's nice to have pals who stay close and come by with wings at the least intimation.
And now, we barely see each other every 3 or 4 days. We're busy, I know. But we had been busy before too. We couldnt possibly have a tighter scheduled plan than those Eamcet years we played through... Sigh. And there go the bacha party too Ja-kun. All too old to run. But we'd stay young, wont we dear? And weds never ever say no to leg-touch, darling darling ja, darling darling pals.
It's been five glorious summers since we started playing together.
That'd be a semi-decadal celebration for me I suppose. And yes, thank you guys for sticking by through all those times i screamed, fussed, lectured, chased, apologised and ate your heads. Whether or not we go on playing and screaming, fussing, lecturing, chasing and apologising, stay in touch. Man, I didn't believe time passed by so quickly. But I suppose, through happy times it always does and ends up assimilated into sweet memories and significant lessons.