The Tricycle Diaries

"Tricycles",what do they signify ?

Childhood.

Ah Yes ! Childhood, the time when your only worry is whether your mother is going to scold you for spilling talcum powder on the floor so that you might play "SKATING". I'm 19 going on 20, and I have only occasional flashes of my blithe childhood. The sugarcane juice that Appa used to buy me after Greenwoods. The way my mother, who has one of the "most beautiful handwriting ever known to man" used to scribble in my notebooks so that it might seem to my teachers that I had done my homework. I often hear stories of my days as an obstinate kindergarten-goer. I am told that I used to sit on the window sill facing the railway track with my cheeks puffed & eyebrows making a V refusing to do any thing remotely academic. But Thank God for Hanna Barbera. Tom & Jerry would bring me the cheer back into my melancholic existence and thus the days went by.

Kindergarten was the place where I learnt the song, "HUM HONGE KAMYAAB". I guess I have subconsciously made an effort to make that the theme song of my life. But due to certain Irishman named Ronan Keating, "Life is a Rollercoaster" is what I swear by. Those were the days of annual concerts & I have been known to be very scared of make-up & give a hard time to my teachers at the Green Room. Reason: Well, you see my aunt is professional Bharatnatyam dancer & I saw some really scary looking guy who was supposed to dressed as a 'scary guy who was supposed to kidnap the damsel'. My friends who wear make-up these days can still vouch for the fact thats one fear I haven't got over. Life seems so simple. I remember the days when I used to jubilantly trot into Pauline Media Centre (yeah thats the shop adjacent to st.ann's) & buy books in which Alphabets were taught by elephants, Math by Mickey Mouse & Opposites were explained by the Seven dwarfs. Amar Chitra Katha & Noddy Puzzles were other favourites.

Thanks Ma for never saying no to any book I wanted. All this was just making a path for the future and as expected I'm still the same. Read(not a lot) all sorts of things except academic material.
My childhood life would be incomplete if I didn't mention Building blocks, GI Joe, Glo Friends & Hotwheels !!! Was introduced to movies at a very early age in life. Dalapathi was the first ever movie I saw in a theatre, I was 4 then. The bug bit me hard & has become one of the passions of my life. Used to love Nagesh comedies & Ilayaraja music, though I never understood the lyrics back then. Those were the days when I used to take my kiddie bat & play cricket with older people. Obviously I was bowled to using "under-arm throws". These were the days when I used to love scribbling on the walls of my house & my mother would get yelled at by the house owner.

My uncles, trust me these guys are hardcore. Made sure my every visit to Madras was eventful and fun-filled. Introduced me to computer games (Mario) in an office where they worked. Took me to every amusement park on the coast & made sure we went to the Marina beach every weekend.

I hated veggies back then. I still do but not that badly also. God ! Why do farmers grow Spinach ?? I was quoted to have said "so what if that one-eyed Popeye eats, he's just a cartoon." Intelligent Kid hunh **pats self on back** ! Rumour has it that I used to call a tomato, "gogli-wogli" & used to get the kick out of squishing every tomato I laid my eyes upon.

My photos prove that I was chubbier in the days gone by. My Soumi Akka used to say that I was a shy fella always running away from her friends & apparently I loved to break dance. Oh yes ! I used to play 'House House' or rather 'Castle Castle' too. Obviously I was always PRINCE CHARMING. But the castle was very weak & kept falling off because it was made out of pillows. Present parallels can be drawn to this, some say I build castles in the sky.

The company that made my tricycle was Tobu. So many memories, so little time to recollect. If I wrote more, I'm sure you would fall asleep. They say what you are is a reflection of what you have been in the past. I agree.