Random Ramblings of a Reluctant Blogger

Growing up in the swinging 70s had an ineffable lightness to it. Take the summer holidays for instance.  They were truly that… Holidays. No one was expected to acquire additional get-ahead-in-life knowledge. No classes to ensure your bright future and no curfew times. The days stretched and how!

More than at any time, would you find all kids awake as early. All awake and welcoming the sunrise. It was as if all poked the sun awake. “Wakey, wakey Sun there is a whole lot of nothingness to accomplish.” 

It was during one of the holidays when we boys decided on a morning walks. It wasn’t the usual walk around the park, counting rounds or calories. It was a long meandering stroll exploring many a unexplored territories. And the paraphernalia it required was just the slept-in dress and the all-weather, all-terrain, self-menadable hawai chappals, or in very rare cases a simple canvas shoes.

Up even before the crack of the dawn at about 4, one would hear koels, whistles, and an assorted variety of  a cappella sounds calling out everyone. Shouting out their names seemed too boring. And off  we, some eight to 10 boys, set off. No time limits, no charted routes, and absolutely no rules. Everyday we traversed new lanes, bylanes, dusty tracks, raced through large tracts of vacant land and open fields, (urbanisation was not so ravenous then) and climbed trees and at times left scents to mark our territory! And as mentioned being very simple days, our parents were not too bothered as long as we were in time for breakfast and lunch! Which meant the marathon walks would last at times up to four or five hours. 

It was during one such walk, when we courted danger. A few miles into the walk we chanced upon two railway tracks, always an alluring prospect,  running adjacent to each other and we started walking on it. Only that, after a couple of yards the track ran over a wide nallah. The nallah was about 15 to 16 feet wide and equally deep, the track making a kind of bridge over it, which we all thought should cross. Now, when the spirit of adventure runs through the veins, the brain receptors either fail or block out all logic. Added to it was the fact that a train had just sped past us and one of the cleverer ones said since the train went on that particular track, it will be some time before another comes on the same track, and we should take that particular one.

Needing no further invitation we set ahead single file, me taking the lead. All we had in mind was to carefully step on each tie or sleepers as they are called, lest we plunge into the nallah. 

All seemed to be going on well, and as I approached the end of the nallah, I heard the shrill and loud whistle of an approaching train from behind. My friend’s logic seemed to just fly off the window. I just had a few steps so I ran, and as I threw myself on the bank of the track I heard one of my friends shout “sab baith jao everyone just sit.” Should he not have told them to lie down? 

But I was in no mood to look back. All I could sense was that one of my friends too had made it safely as I could feel the presence of his hands clutching my shoulders. Fear gripped me and I forced my eyes shut, but I could not shut out the horrible clatter of the train racing past. 

It was then that I noticed a couple of uncles a few feet away looking at us and guffawing. Perplexed, I looked back. All my friends, ashen-faced, were sitting, frozen, each on a sleeper looking at a train whizzing past then on the other track.!

After the train passed, in what seemed like an eternity, we quickly assembled on the bank and the uncles, having had their dose of laughter at our expense, admonished us for our transgression.

It was the quietest group of teenage boys one could ever see, that trudged home that day. And it was not until we were in the familiar surroundings of our colony, that life, and a sheepish grin, which had died on the track, slowly crawled back.