As I see sonny excited for yet another transition – graduating from pencils to using fountain pens – I wonder why the memory of a shiny silver fountain pen has been poking me vehemently since the last few days and making me silently smile!
One of those childhood memories when my father handed over his much used Chinese pen (with Chinese nib!)….and I had felt as if he had bequeathed me a fortune! Along with this are memories of many small things and the emotions accompanied ….A small Texla t.v.- the first tv set of our house for which me and my brother waited for months , my first pocket calculator that a dear uncle (now my father- in- law) gifted me on one of his visits when I was around 10 or 11 years old.
A Vespa scooter that carried four of us- papa, mama, my brother and me (perched on a steel carrier seat ) to our ancestral house every weekend. That – almost 20 km ride in glaring sun was such fun that I remember finishing many story books on that steel seat and my brother playing his simple water game tucked between mummy and papa! And I can keep going on and on!!!
Wonder whether our children flooded all the time with new age gizmos and gadgets – will have any memories of things they longed for and then finally got! Without advocating deprivation, I feel we were luckier than our kids in this regard. I guess it is not the material comforts but the emotions attached with every event and acquisition that etch them in our memories….for– my warmest memories are of the innumerable journeys by non-Ac buses and trains to meet loved ones and cousins during holidays!
Guess we sacrifice and overlook many emotions in our quest for material comforts……We shall leave our kids much richer if we bequeath them a fortune of warm and rich memories of apparently small things! And I myself know it is not that easy – to practice :)))
Jasmine Khurana 