Summers

Schools close for a month or two in summer, due to the intense tropical heat here. I wonder how heat was not a deterrent from going out needlessly, at that age.

Summer meant visiting grandparents, ice lollies, mangoes, melons and silly games. My grandparents used to have charpoys (picture given below) in the house. We could make a bed, and sleep under starlit skies in open courtyards at night, and cover two standing charpoys with a quilt to create a ‘house’ inside on sultry afternoons (I don’t have a picture of the hut we created for playing board games inside).

I’ve not seen such set-ups or afternoons for decades now. We’re all addicted to air-conditioned comfort of closed spaces, including the millennial kids. A casual mention of those halcyon days comes up in a cousins’ group on Whatsapp sometimes.

summer brings back thoughts
of easy stupidity
-those lost childhood years

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