मीठी बेरियां, मीठी यादें

Greetings from the lazy woman and her peeps. We all are enjoying sunny February days, with a variety of fruit trees and a few blossoms in a yard the size of a farm. The blossoms are actually very  few and what you are seeing above is one slightly better corner, photographed at a tricky angle to appear somewhat like a blooming garden. My parents are here for a few months and I am getting the best kind of pampering and 'Ma ke haath ka khaana' (mom's food) after so many years. Not only that, my mother and I try to stay healthy by walking within the compound and doing a few breathing exercises.

During one such walk, we went to one far end of the yard where wild plum (ber) shrubs grow. I squealed with delight at finding the ripening wild fruits, instantly remembering my school days. My school was in an Air Force Station, surrounded with forested area. Outside the school gate, there was a small clear area where we used to wait after school for our school rickshaw or bus to pick us up. Some of the adventurous kids would utilize this waiting time by finding these 'ber' shrubs which were all around in abundance, and would venture deep into them to pluck these fruits, braving the thorny bushes, wasps, insects or occasional snakes even.

I had joined this school in 4th standard and most of these kids had been there since beginning. Being small and new, I used to accompany these adventurers sometimes or stay back with the sensible ones on some days. Though, sometimes a parent or teacher or a 'parent who is a teacher' would surprise us and on such occasions, the adventurer kids would run for their lives. (I used to thank my stars for staying back on these occasions) Some of them would be caught and their 'bers' would be confiscated. The fruits turned out to be mostly small and unripe, plucked in haste and greed. The lectures/admonishing/scolding that they would get used to be harsh. So much trouble for such little 'fruit'.

Looking at this large bowl of wild plums and remembering... those naughty adventurer souls, those studious 'didis' who would warn them, those inspecting parents, that rickety rickshaw that would show up an hour late, those thorny scratches, those bulging pockets full of green wild fruits and those victorious smiles of the wanderer fruit gatherers... oh! Come back you scoundrels and I would give you this plate of plums, this whole bowl, those entire shrubs even... if only you would bring back those precious childhood days once more!

(It might look strange that the topic of this post is in Hindi. I could not find any words in English that would express the underlying sentiment like these words do. Thank you for bearing.)