Amritsar

I pause for a moment as i write the title to this blog thinking about the city up north which has so many memories attached to it. If a dash board could be created of every place, a dash board of memories, Amritsar would find its place in the very start of my learning.

The city is abuzz with yellow lights, having narrow lanes filled with people walking up and down in irregular pattern. Now thinking back, it was a place which defined "if u can push through, you can move ahead". A place of constant struggle and making a stand. The convoy would usually stop near the golden temple, which would suddenly sprout out at the end of the many lanes which we entered. We never entered the same lane again and would constantly make our way around the lanes shooing people and making a way for ourselves.

Golden temple was a large place, it had a pond in between and we could see the shining top of the temple or gurudwara. I still wonder why they called it temple and not gurudwara? Was it a temple before? They say that about the Taj Mahal; i muse over the fact that people can say, wonder and fight about everything they have no clue about. That is the rule of the game, whoever is more confident wins! You could see the reflection of the temple in the lake. That was the place where i met the first love of my life: books!

You couldnt actually call them books. They were rather comics. I remember the first time i got my first action comic. I had gone with my dad to the golden temple and after taking the steaming prasad in my hand, we saw a stall having those glossy paperbacks. The thing about the prasad was that you got to have it because it was the tastiest thing in the world. The halwa which they give is 24/7 steaming hot, and they put it directly in your hand. As you stand in the heat you dont know whether to hold it in your hands and howl or put it in your mouth. Mouth would be the worst option as it would cancel the idea of howling too, the only release of heat from your body!

I urged my dad to buy me a comic. My dad looked apprehensively at the muscled hero on the cover fighting a hideous enemy and asked me if i really wanted it. i nodded with excitement, and in some time i had two comics in my hand! I couldnt wait to get back home to read what happens. I kept looking at the caricatures inside the comic as i sat patiently in the vehicle and was waiting when i would reach home.

When i read nagraj for the first time i was lost in his world. He was a snake man, not in thoughts but literally! he had scales over his body and could do amazing things like, store snakes in his body and give out poisonous wasps of smoke which would make even the strongest man on the planet to loose consciousness. The biggest thing about Nagraj was that he was a fighter of crime, he was a hero out of ordinary, enough to make a 6-7 year old go gaga!

I remember my parents buying me and my sister a lot of comics after that. We would desperately wait to pick up and see off guests at the station so that we could get a new stock of comics which i would devour like a monster! Their were other good comics like chacha chowdary and sabu, billu, chacha bhatija, pinki, etc. Pinki was this cute lil girl having a squirrel named kutkut. She was the indian version of Denis the menace and my sister simply adored reading her adventures. I would find it interesting as i really found pinki to be cute and would relate her to my sister.

We stayed in the army cantonment which was out of bounds for civilians. I remember from my very childhood remembering the name of my father and the unit he was posted in even before my abc's. If anyone would ask i would religiously recite "Vijay Pimple" and the unit name. Every station had its own taq sign. It is like an identity by which everything in the station would be known, the taq sign at this station was "Panther". My school was the Panther Nursery school which i remember as two long blocks of classes having a huge playground in front. Then their was the Panther institute and the panther shopping center. Life in the cantt would be fun as i would take my little sister out for walks, I was 6 then and she was 3 or 4. A few years back one of the aunties who had seen us then, met my mom and asked to her surprise how we were! She remembered me holding my sister's hand and taking her out for walks.

Aarti was a sweetheart. She was very small and had a boy cut which made her look really cute! I always remember her in her sweater which had the magical qualtiy of making us look like two fat lambs having soft cheeks which would be always puffed up. I still wonder looking at the photos whether it was the cold or if we were born with attitude! Puffing up is something which aarti still does whenever she gets upset. She had the cutest of the smiles even as a kid and would make me go crazy. I still remember playing with her and teasing her. The best thing about her was that she would tease back! She was one chotu who had really big brains and a longer tongue! No one could speak a word before her. She would mimic people and her big eyes would sparkle every time she would be upto some mischief! That is how she would give herself away.

I remember my mom to be very silent in those days. She would never mix much in our antics or our talks. We were not exactly easy children either. Constantly fighting, always falling or hurting ourselves or always up to some trouble, we must be really driving her up the wall! She still likes to call us the best of the children she could ever have. I wonder sometimes if she secretly adds a "a" after the "e" in the word best!