Sense and Sensibility

Growing up as children we unconsciously take in the sounds and smells of our surroundings and form memories with them. It is truly amazing how sounds of inanimate objects can remind one of their childhoods. The lazy sunny afternoons when winter is forgiving and a light shawl is all one needs, when the sun doesn’t hurt the eye, when the air is neither chilly nor warm, just crisp enough, it is times like these when my heart skips a beat and I am overcome with a sense of panic. One would wonder why a balmy afternoon would send shivers down a grown woman’s back. It is because the end of fatal February and the march of March announce the arrival of the final examinations! It is the time for average students like me to take stock of matters and go into an overdrive. Nervous preparations, long telephone conversations, endless pots of tea and the quintessential oiling of the hair are the high points of the day. With the standard rituals complete, there is nothing more to do than to take one’s books and find a quiet corner on the terrace. What is foolishly funny is that to date the change of season brings with it a slight flutter to my heart. A delayed sense of fear. A longing for a hot a hot cup of tea!

Then there’s the sound of hymns from the distant temple that fill the twilight sky. The cassette playing beautiful, melancholic, unintelligible songs which sound from a different era altogether reminds me of my childhood when, as kids, we were served oily and fried snacks in the evenings, so full of fat, so full of love!

The sound of children screaming has the power to transport me to the nearby field 20 years ago. Screams when someone hits a boundary, screams when somebody gets out. These screams carry the voice of my brother in them. I, a lone figure standing atop the balcony shouting in support of family, shouting to be heard, to be acknowledged.

The vendors and hawkers in the by-lanes still remind of simpler times when buying a 2 rupee ice-cream seemed like an indomitable task. Whether it was peanuts or popcorns, the price always bordered between one and two. Now with my fist full of pennies I feel no need for them. So I give them to my daughter who still values them and makes an imaginary shopping list.

When such small and inconsequential things hold such deep memories for me, I am forced to think what will trigger off these feelings in my daughter? The sound of drilling, the sound of hammering? If these may be, then will they remind her of a pleasant childhood? Will the churning of the cement machine churn her stomach too? Will the screams of kids remind her of her friends or the longing for a sibling? Will she ever feel any affinity towards the hawkers and vendors or is the screaming construction workers she relates to?

Asking these questions now are as futile as asking who she grows up to be? But there is a blurry picture in my mind which shows me how she’ll be, and I want a blurry picture of how she thought her childhood to be.