~WhEn I wAs A kiD~

14june'09.

"For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;"

Assalamualaikum....

Alhamdulillah I had the opportunity to visit my ancestral town a few weeks back...the place where i spent the best part of my childhood days..

As soon as our schools would be closed for summer vacations in around april we all would gather there (my relatives from all around with kids of all age groups)...

We have Old fashioned , traditional and big havelis connected with the homes of various relatives..so that we need not go anywhere outside to visit someone's place..Moreover the women of our household there don't cross the threshold of the mansion..The men's area is outside where our grandfathr,uncles and their guests would sit in the evening discussing about various topics and we as children (who were not bound by the rule till then and were allowed to venture out there) would play all sorts of bizarre games till dinner time...From morn till night we would play,play and play... at night all the servants' kids would also come and play with us...they had a wide range of unusual and eccentric games..(we would be around 20 kids mashAllah)..

ah! i still remember those moonlit nights, the serenity of the small town,the calmness pervading the air, eating the sour ripe mangoes which came from our fields,reading the Quran in the morning, rushing to our grandfather's bro's place the moment we got the chance (as half our cousins used to reside there)...then till lunch our abode would be the terraces and then in evening we would go out to the menfolks area palying in the vast adjoining field till dinner, the frenzy of action, sitting near the traditional chulha, (a mud stove used for cooking with wood as its fuel) watching the chapatis being made, hearing stories from our grandmother, going (rarely) to see our meadows and fields and eating mangoes,peaches,jamun.....etc.., the small fights and childish quarrels we use to have on petty matters, our younger siblings irritating us...aargh!! it still makes me angry to recall how they would forever tail us and would want entry in our games..i never culd comprehend why they couldn't get to play their own games!! On top of it they would go complaining to our elders who in turn scolded us and also forced us to let those annoying nitwits enter our sacred premises..(ok i'm getting a bit touchy..)

My ancestors all being very practising and pious muslims mashAllah had many rules which were slowly detoriating by the advancement of time..As i told u before the womenfolk of our household don't venture out of the threshold of the women's quarters which comprises of the whole big house..and if we want clothes to buy then a servant is sent to a shop and she brings all sorts of clothes in the house ..then all gather round and select their favourite piece...the money is sent and the shopping is complete...haha...we are so free from the hassles of the outside world there..no need to go anywhere..big mansion sort of houses connected with other relatives places.And in earlier days when my aunts were young they tell us that they would go in palanquins to a nighbourhood followed by a male member of the family..lol...

Television was a rarity as it wasn't allowed..so we would sneak to an aunty's place a bit far off and watch TV there...only on sundays..and tell our elders that we are going to wed our doll with the male doll there...we were so stupid that we thought we fooled them!! Alhamdulillah our home there, here at my place and at my paternal uncle's place still doesn't have the root of evil-the idiot box (television)!

When it would be the time of everybody's departure at the end of summer we would run after the rickshaw of the cousins leaving first and waving our hands like mad as if we would never met again (man .. we were so stupid...............hahaha).( in the pic is the road leading from our door till the far end which we kids couldn't even step ahead) ..and those were the bright days which coloured the pages of my life withe sweetest memories..alhamdulillah.mashAllah.

Some more pix of my recent trip-

these were the pix of one part of women quarters

one of the terrace where we used to play and our cousins when not allowed to join our game would climb up from behind the other adjoining terrace and jump down onto the terrace from the shade visible at the far end of the pic..

the house which we as kids believed to be haunted and never dared to come here alone even in broad daylight...lol.

Freshly plucked peaches which came from the fields..yeah they are not ripe but we ate them anyway..hahaha...

~~ That's all~~

JazkAllah

~Cool Muslimah~