Celebrating Children’s Day 2010 Virtually

I remember celebrating this day with gusto when I was a kid. Every year this day would be celebrated in school with snacks (popcorn, wafers, glucose biscuits and candies), some balloons, gifts, games and same boring speech by our principle.

Every year we would hear the same story that November 14 is celebrated as Children's Day across India to mark the birthday of India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlala Nehru. He loved children very much and was popularly known as 'Chacha Nehru' (Uncle Nehru)!

Every year I would hear our teachers say “Children are the future of tomorrow, you must grow up to be good citizens” and I would anxiously wait for the future when I would be fully grown up.

But I never grew.

The child in me refused to grow up. (what to do?) I am still excited by the rainbow on a cloudy day (yayaya!!). I will still run after a colorful butterfly. (Yipeee!) I still laugh heartily at a good/bad joke (Hahhaaha). I still get annoyed when people ignore me(eeewww). I will still cry/sob when I am sad.(sniff! sniff!)

This year, children’s day was on a Sunday. Normally, my virtual world is closed on Sundays.

Sunday is the family time and I try to avoid going online as much as possible, (although not always successful). There are moments when I peep into my smart phone for a while, stealing some moments from the family time. And with BB within my reach, it is easy to do that. Actually I don’t do it but that child in me does it. (So not my fault at all)

Thus, at the end of the day, when I finally went online on my desk-top (the proper proffessional way), I saw that I had missed a great party.

The great party was at twitter board.

People had tweeted about various things they did #wheniwasakid and (I had missed it, but noworries) I was happy to tweet on this hash even though I knew none of my friends were there online.

#whenIwasakid I would steal baby milk powder and eat it secretly when aunt would be asleep

#whenIwasakid i never knew how to swim or went for any extra class

#whenIwasakid I always worried abt fan falling off from ceiling n crushing me

#whenIwasakid I was afraid of every person in uniform, be it police or a nurse or even a nun

#whenIwasakid I was terribly afraid of earthquake and had tied mom's pallu to my little finger n followed her wherever she went

People had chatted about the things they did in their childhood at #bachhpan too and had posted their childhood pics. It was interesting to read all those tweets. My friend saw me online and asked me to post my childhood picture.

I didn’t have any.

Perhaps my family was not very rich or maybe I was not that pretty enough for my parents to invest money on camera or maybe- both. I don’t have any childhood pictures. There are few pictures clicked by rich uncles and aunts who must have visited my family during that time, but there is none of me alone. But since my friend wanted me to upload my profile picture, I stole one from baby wall-papers on net and posted at a collage titled twitter #bachpan 2010.


I was happy to see my picture in that collage

When I visited google to search for a picture of babies, the picture on the google page was a pleasant surprise created by 14 year old kid from Mangalore-Akshay Raj who won the second Doodle4Google India 2010 competition!

His logo was up on Google India's homepage throughout the day. He named it as 'My dream for India in 2030'. I must appreciate his thoughts as it clearly speaks of his dream, his maturity at such a young age. The logo simply sums up every aspect of growing India

Last hour of the children’s day was spend reading about my friends childhood memories and having a good laugh, and like every other day, I need a midnight feast, walked to my kitchen to extract a box of sweets , thus ended the day with a bite of cold sweet laddoo – sinfully

Find me at twitter at pushpz

Guru, I Bow to You!

Yesterday was Guru Purnima and it was a great day to celebrate and remember the greatness of their Guru. In India, everybody has a Guru and first thing people will ask you is, ‘Who is your Guru?’. When I say ‘nobody as yet' then they are surprised and shake their head in regret telling me that there is no hope for me. I belong to a family of one Spiritual Guru, and I secretly believe and have faith in Him. He takes very good care of me. Why must I propagate my Spiritual Guru’s name in public?? Isn’t the relationship between Guru and disciple a personal matter, not to be gloated or advertised?? I respect everybody’s Gurus too. If people believe in any Guru and want to talk about his greatness, I have no problem at all but I wish they would not ask me about my beliefs. Anyways, my sister celebrated Guru Purinima in her house. Her sister-in-law is quite religious and she knows to perform many religious rites. Yours truly went to help with the decoration prior to puja Later, that evening, all the family and friends gathered in her house to sing and chant hymns while they washed the idol of their guru with oil, milk and water and then they prayed to the picture of their Guru, offering fruits and money, flowers and light from the incense coil. I was thinking of all the teachers during my school days and could not recollect any warm memories of the days with my teachers. None of the teachers ever loved me. I do remember the names of only those meanest teachers who hated me the most and they would compare me to the brightest student and point out my stupidity. Some of my teachers had promised me that I had no future at all and that I would be an idiot all my life. I have very unhappy memories of my school days cause I would be punished almost everyday and spanking was the order of the day. Some days I came home with cracked knuckles and some days with injured ear. My cheeks would always have the imprint of marks left by angry teachers. I learnt to hate them all and wanted so badly to teach them a lesson on tolerance and patience. Well, some people are lucky that they have found a good guide in their teacher and are happy to remember them on this day. It was a good feeling to see the devotion of people around me. All the people chanted happily about the greatness of their Guru and later enjoyed the feast of snacks and drink. I went away mid way, to a book store, to pay my patronage to the books at the store. Most of my life, I have done self study. Knowledge to me has come from that printed matter and it has given me all the joy. My spiritual Guru is in my heart and the printed words balms my mind. I am also grateful to my family and my close friends who have stood by me, have guided me, encouraged me and had faith in me. I am proud to be a person that I am, hopefully not as stupid as my teachers imagined me to be…...