There is
always a sense of nervousness, anxiety, excitement and also a fear associated
with anything done for the first time or experienced newly. Those are the
moments that make your life and they remain with you throughout your life. Be
it your first day at school or your first interview, your first job or even
your first business. Well frankly, I am not that grown up to write my
autobiography, but definitely would like to share these few finer moments of
our life which we all live. We have all enjoyed these moments at some point in
our life but somewhere in todays rat race we have just forgotten the essence of
these few important ones.
MOMENT NO. 1: -
WHEN 1 OUT OF 32 SOLDIERS
FALL......
As we grow up
from a baby to a toddler, one peculiar period that we are all shocked and
surprised to experience is that of falling of our milk teeths. I remember that
first moment when my teeth started to shake a little bit and I immediately
complained about this to my mum. My mum astonishingly replied on this saying “Wow
my boy has slowly grown up..... his young teeths are going to fall now and new
strong ones will arise”. I was wondering how on earth a 2 year toddler can be
called grown up suddenly because of teeth shaking. Which scholar designed this
rule in the first place? But later on in life, you realise and accept that it’s
just one of those universal holy motherly emotion to which you won’t find an answer
anywhere. Keeping the motherly emotions aside, back in those ignorant days, falling
of my own teeth was a shocker to me. I was wondering, how am I going to eat normal
now? Nuts and sugarcane were miles ahead. And they say I am growing up. With
the teeth falling, comes all the blood and that feeling of some part of yours
being taken out, or lost. It was really tough to throw that first of many teeth
in my backyard garden. (It may sound all funny and foolish while writing or
reading this but trust me back then in the nineties it was not at all normal).
Soon you become the talking point in your
relatives. I don’t know how and why the falling of any toddler’s teeth is like breaking
news for all of them. They come and tell you to open your mouth and ask
rhetorical questions like how come you ate your own teeth or which devil stole
them from you. Or show me your India Gate (a historical monument in India), how
is the air passing by now. Arrrrgghhh.... You feel so angry when the entire
world comes to celebrate your pain or have that strange happiness. What fun do
they get out of it especially when they know what’s the truth? I still remember
how conscious you become when someone tells you to smile for a picture. You
just don’t want to open your mouth fearing the huge gap between teeths getting
exposed. Recently, while driving back the memory lane through old albums, I came
across one such picture wherein I have unabashedly opened my mouth. I remember
I was tired of those teeth taunts and I just gave it all.
But gradually you grow up, you realise it’s
just a part and parcel of our life. The weaker teeths have to be replaced by
newer stronger ones. It’s nature’s gift to us. And then one fine day all your
sorrows get covered with happiness when you get all your teeths back and now
you are ready to say cheese to any damn camera. Well back then the popular
selfie craze was not existing which the toddlers have access to today and I
must say most are pro in it.
P.S.: Just yesterday, I did a similar thing, pulling a
toddlers leg by asking him about his lost teeths... (ummm a a a.......I guess
one of those ways of fighting back childhood memories, these naughty unwritten
traditions-they just don’t leave you and in fact get carried over to next
generation unknowingly.)
