Colorful Childhood Days

On the eve of independence   day, we were busy decorating our Office   ODC (offshore development centre) this weekend and in the process we shopped for lot of things right from balloons to poster colors. After a long time I got an opportunity to play with colors or rather try my hand at painting. We were trying to paint the map of India in tri color and there I tried my hand at coloring. Wow  !! it was indeed a great feeling.

All my childhood I always craved for those stylish boxes of poster colors. But then my parents would always tell me that it’s too costly and I always had to settle down with the not-so-stylish water colors. I was never good at painting and am still not, which my parents understood long back I guess  ; but then there was always this craze for Camel’s poster colors. Having them was a matter of pride in those days.I remember one of my friends Dipti nair (dunno where she is now!!) always flaunted her big box of water colors. We used to envy her for the same. We would always look at her box of colors with eager eyes wishing to have the same one day.

Today as I painted the tricolor I checked the cost of the poster colors and it was just Rs.125; an amount which was too big 10 years back. I was like poster colors are so cheap?? Only to realize that it was really costly 10- 12 years back.

I was terrible at painting then ,as am now. But then getting ma hands all soiled with colors was a pleasure.I could never agree more with surf excel fellas who said “dag acche hai” .I loved those colors on ma hand, my face but my drawing still ugly.But I was proud of them because then they were my paintings. I remember we had our drawing books with images on them and we just had to replicate them. There was a drawing of a lion and we had to replicate it.I put my heart and soul while drawing, but then my lion looked as meek as a lamb and I had got the beating of my life for that disastrous painting. These are some of the sweet and sour memories of my childhood. But then they were the best. And I have vowed to buy poster colors and try ma hand at painting no matter how meek my lion looks or how courageous my cow looks!!! It is just a matter of recreating the magic of childhood days and being a child again.

You can never be a child again but then who’s stopping you from getting your clothes soiled in mud, getting those colors on your hand ,dress and face, relishing a lollypop, jumping in the puddle of mud water , making paper boats and then putting them in a puddle of water…guess that was life…!!!

Let’s live those days of innocence again !!!