Memoirs of My Childhood - Those Games We Played

If I burrow into my memories further and further back, the earliest recollection of my life is that of my birth city Jammu. I can without doubt recall some of my early childhood days in my family’s ancestral house located in that city. That address of 49 B/B Gandhi Nagar Jammu, consisting of three bed-rooms, one living room, one kitchen, one splendid green lawn with a small kitchen garden and an immense verandah, is the abode with which I strongly connect. Even when my father was posted outside Jammu, visiting that house during vacations always enticed me. It was not just about the house only, but the city itself was a major attraction and is still one of my favorite cities. This first part of the series describe some of childhood days in that house.

During my early days, we were five occupants of the house: dadi (my grand-mother), mom, dad, chacha (my father’s brother) and, of course, me. I can dimly recollect our Labrador that we used to have, called as Ceelu. And I was afraid of that dog. So I don’t have very warm memories of him except that he was all black and, now I that I think of his actions, the most decent pet dog. I might have grown affectionate towards him if he had survived a little longer till I was seven or eight. They say that I used to spend most of the time in the big verandah at the front. As far as I remember, everyone else also used to spend most of their time in that area. I know I needed nobody for company because I was pretty much capable of occupying myself in my toys.

As years went by, number of dwellers of that house kept increasing. My brother was born, chacha got married and subsequently their two children were born. And as we all grew up together, that verandah was no longer my sole territory. Now there were cricket matches in that quarter and numerous new games were invented in that verandah, or that lawn, or anywhere within the perimeter of that old white house.

Then there was the roof-top without any side barriers for protection and which was connected through broken stairs. It was the destination during kite-flying season. I remember when that stair came down right in front of my eyes. I saw a mass of cement and bricks falling down and my dad landing on top of that. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt but thinking back it was a funny scene. How he escaped unhurt through the iron rods of broken stairs is beyond my understanding. Afterwards, it was totally prohibited to go to that already restricted space without any supervision.

Those stairs were not the only thing that came down. Our neighbors were almost like a family. My chacha and their eldest son had grown up together and were best of friends and consequently their eldest sons also turned out to be very close friends. On one stormy night as we were busy watching TV inside, we heard a loud bang. The wall connecting the two houses had come down just like the stairs but unlike stairs it didn’t involve any human being. The wall like the stairs was never re-built, as long as we lived in that house. Surely, it gave us unlimited access to more ground for inventing new games.

I being the eldest of all was the leader in all those games except in few occasions when my elder cousin was visiting us when I had to give up that position. Sometimes, it was cricket or football match in the lawn or sometimes it was plain old hide-n-seek. But surely, every time there was a scolding from my grandmother for ruining the kitchen garden one way or the other. Later that garden cease to exist as it was impossible to control 4-5 children trampling the newly laid plants or saplings. Those were fun days whether it was scorching June heat or chilling January cold.

Those games are long gone from everybody’s memory. As we grew up, four of us moved out as it was getting small for two families. And few years later we sold that house. Nobody has been able to reconstruct it till date. It is still standing in its decrepit condition on those grounds. The wall is now built, though. But I’m not sure if the stairs met the same fate.