The Garden

My previous post brought back memories of the long lost past – and the garden. People living in and around the city of Colombo are often hardly privileged to have anything more than a few square feet of land for garden space. It was a different story for us.

The garden was the only reason I went to school on certain days with incomplete homework. It was much more than the movie watching and game playing experience that the kids of today engage in. First, there were the trees – the big bread fruit, jack fruit and coconut trees. There were so many others too. But not all of them – were climbable. There were also snakes and the occasional visit of a big black monkey. (no, it wasn’t from the zoo; just the former residents of the place). The experience of sitting on the grass with magnifying glasses to observe lady birds and grasshoppers is one that the kids of today will never see.
We had the joy of cycling all around the garden and right to the lane top in spite of the barking Alsatians. Learning cycling was a painful experience. Everyday we came back home with cuts and bruises that were the results of so many falls off the bike. The brother once almost broke his skull.
Then there were the games. Cricket was not only my favourite but was also among the most commonly played ones. There was also racing and silly ones like hora-police, lock & key and hide & seek in the big old deserted house. We also played ghost and imaginary home stories. Then, it used to be so much fun. Cartoons then popular were – ‘Casper, the friendly ghost’, ‘Flint Stones’, ‘Thunder Cats’ with the sword that grew and of course the ‘Silver Hawks’ which always ended with teaching kids something new. We never missed ‘Small Wonder’. With only two channels available there were not many choices.

We also had the fragile tree house and the very uncomfortable swing. It was like a fairy tale. The paan-karaya (bread-man) would come sharp at 3:00pm with kimbula buns (crocodile shaped with sprinkled sugar) that we purchased for Rs. 3 and made a good tea party of. The fathers would then arrive one by one while the mothers get very afraid of the darkening skies and want everyone back inside to wash and start home work. The bats were usually the go home signal. We then prayed and recited the Quran with the hazarath (trainer) who sometimes would even hit us.

The house was made up of the third and the fourth floor. If stationery, novels or anything at all was lost we knew where to look because the youngest of the brothers had the hobby of throwing everything that he could get his hands on outside the balconies. When night came we use to sit at the breezy balconies to either chat (advice mostly) or say good night to the neighbor kids. It made up the day and we would eventually pray and go to sleep, dreaming about visiting the garden first thing after school the next day.

It would never be the same again. It was almost like a different lifetime altogether. It is like a part of you that is dead and gone and never to be seen again. It is like a part of our memories that could never be written over on. Is it because that free innocent soul is buried inside somewhere never to be reborn? Is it because time has been trapped deep inside a prison in our souls? Whatever the reasons are, there would never be another chance for sure…. There is nothing that could have made it any better…