Today, after a long time, I happened to take a drive around Yelahanka, the town where I've grown up, where I've spent all my childhood, which s given me memories galore. And all of a sudden I realised how much the town was an integral part of my growing up.
When I was a kid, the town used to so green and the population so sparse that many used to call it a forest. Huge trees stood strong by the roads, trees older than my parents and perhaps older than their parents too !!We could easily see my dad's factory( which's was atleast 2kms away) from outside our house. Every morning, we could hear very clearly the Suprabatham from the temple almost a kilometre away. We could easily know when the morning bus was leaving. We used to wake up to the calls of "kankambra malgeva" and the tinkling of the milkman's cycle bell and then go position ourselves on the footsteps at the doorway and watch our mothers as they went about spraying water and cleaning the front yards and adroitly put rangoli!
School was ofcourse just a 3 min walk from where we stayed and so we could afford to leave home just like 5 mins before the school bell! Afternoons ofcourse, we could either get home to eat steamy rasam rice or have our mothers get the same and more or less feed us !!
But the part of the day that most of us used to wait for the most was ofcourse the evening, when we would rush back back from school and after a hurried dress change and snack forced into our mouths, we used to rush to the ground right in front of my house to join a whole lot of other kids of my age, some older than me and some younger.While the older ones, chose to play the more mature games of Badminton and the like, the younger lot used to be content playing games like ''lock and key'', "Colour colour", and ''kuntebille''( hopskotch)( There were very few guys in our neighbourhood and hence cricket was not played much then) On a few occasions, the older lot and us used to join hands to play the more boisterous games of lagori and my what fun it used to be !!
Most men, in Yelahanka, then, used to be employees either of Escorts Mahle or the Wheel and Axle Plant and so almost everybody knew evrybody else in the neighbourhood. So evenings, while we kids were in the grounds, our mothers used to be out doing the usual gossip while the men did the more serious talks about the lockouts and the strikes and the transfers and the management and the union etc etc.
Sundays meant watching Rangoli at 7 30 and Mahabharatha and the more eagerly awaited "Jungle Book" and the 4 o Clock kannada movie ofcourse!!
I remember very clearly, how every October, Escorts used to give all the employees journalswhich spoke about the Company, how it was faring, what new products were to be launched and notify the employees of the change in management. But to many of us, it meant something else. Factory journals meant making KITES !! The paper of this journals used to be the ideal kind of paper for making kites and so we used to pester our dads to make us as many kites as they could from that journal. With long newspaper tails attached to it, we used to run like mad in the ground, trying to get the kite to fly but more often than not, our efforts used to be in vain !! I dont remember getting even one kite to fly atleast 6 ft above the ground!!! And Dushera holidays meant going to everybody's house to check out the neatly lined dolls! And how can we forget the holiday assignment which more often than not used to be writing our Mid terms papers yet again and a 4 page report on all our teacher's favourite topic" Mysore Dushera"!!!
Come Summer holidays, we used to hit the parks in the Wheel & Axle campus area. The fact that it was 1 and half kms from where we stayed and the fact that it housed 3 parks was enough a treat for all of us ! With somebody or the other's parents monitoring us, some 8-10 of us used to head noisily to the parks and make a helluva racket there !!! 2 hours of play and nothing but play and absolute fun!! And ofcourse, not to forget the holiday homework that we used to dread so much still forcefully finish just in time before the school reopened!!
Festivals meant gaiety and all of used to be up early, going from house to house to check out the beautifully coloured rangolis! Evenings meant all of us heading to temple in neatly pressed resham langas, counting the number of steps from our houses to the the temple and ofcourse devouring the prasadam !!
Of all the festivals, the one that we looked forward the most and enjoyed it equally was perhpas, Ganesha Habba. The mornings ofcourse meant starving until the pooja was done. But it was the evenings that used to be fun. All of us kids, used to meet up at around 3 30 -4, in our new attires, to be ready to go see 101 ganeshas, with boxes of akshatekalu( rice grains mixed in turmeric) !And boy, what noise we made!! Going to each house in the locality, asking if they had kept the murthy of the lord. And then, all of us in unison, used to shout" bolo vidhyaganapathi ki JAI " !! and phat, throw a handful of the akshatekalu on to the idol!!! And becasue all aunties used to give us something or the other eat on going to their houses, we used to even carry a nice plastic bag to stuff in all that they gave! And mind you, we wouldnt takes ages to cover the 101 houses. We had a deadline, 5 30-6. For 6 o clock meant starting of the Orchestra! Although this used to be moer or less the same every year, we used to ook forward to it, heading to the ground where this used to happen with some eatables packed and sitting on the carpet spread out for us kids. The agenda used to be the same every year, Some band singing Kannada hits and sometimes Hindi as well. This used to be followd by a magic show( the tricks never changed, not once! ) and ofcourse the mimicry show and the talking doll!!
All of this s so fresh that I can remember every minute detail of it so well. Those were the good old days; days of absolute naivete, of innocence and of simple fun.
Things have now changed so much. There is no longer any noise made by kids on the streets( atleast in yelahanka). There are no grounds for kids to play today. All the grounds that used to be there have now become parks where the kids are shooed away lest they touch the neatly manicured lawn! Then the groundswere meant for us kids. And today, the parks are meant solely for the health conscious folks who are found walking at any time of the day!!! I dont know if these parks have been made because the people have now become health conscious or if people have become health conscious beause there are so many parks made !!
And ofcourse there are the laughing clubs laughing like maniacs over nothing and doing their regular "Preethi-Preetham' exercises! ( Thats breathe in and breathe out for you ). No wonder, kids no more play cricket or lagori on the streets. Nor do they play it in the grounds for there are no grounds now!! its funny that kids now play football and cricket on their computers and not in real !! Kids are forced to be glued to the Idiot box and particularly the Pokemon's and the WWF's!! Most people now dont know their neighbours( but for the oldest lot). Ladies are now glued to the soaps thanks to the Stars and the Sonys and the Sun channels !! And I really dont know what the men do !!
The town has changed beyond recognition. Developed, rather. But I guess, for many of us, who've been in this small little town for as long as we can remember, its a change that perhaps, we could ve lived without( one can defnitely argue about it). Development they say happens with the exploitation of resources. And that is what has happened here too! Accomodating the increasing population, and hence the increasing number of two wheelers and the four wheelers meant the felling of the age old trees.
The once countable vehicles have multiplied three to four times adding to the congestion!
Festival days are as good as the usual days with everybody glued to their TVs watching the festival specials. That gaiety, the merriment, that festive spirit has somehow diminished(or so it seems to me).
The Yelahanka I grew up in has somehow ceased to exist.
May be as they say" whatever happens happens for good". May be this development is not as bad too. May be it is good that the town is progressing so much.
But I guess, certain changes take longer to be accepted, more so when the change has to do with a lot of memories!
May be "Change is refreshing" is how we should see it!!
When I was a kid, the town used to so green and the population so sparse that many used to call it a forest. Huge trees stood strong by the roads, trees older than my parents and perhaps older than their parents too !!We could easily see my dad's factory( which's was atleast 2kms away) from outside our house. Every morning, we could hear very clearly the Suprabatham from the temple almost a kilometre away. We could easily know when the morning bus was leaving. We used to wake up to the calls of "kankambra malgeva" and the tinkling of the milkman's cycle bell and then go position ourselves on the footsteps at the doorway and watch our mothers as they went about spraying water and cleaning the front yards and adroitly put rangoli!
School was ofcourse just a 3 min walk from where we stayed and so we could afford to leave home just like 5 mins before the school bell! Afternoons ofcourse, we could either get home to eat steamy rasam rice or have our mothers get the same and more or less feed us !!
But the part of the day that most of us used to wait for the most was ofcourse the evening, when we would rush back back from school and after a hurried dress change and snack forced into our mouths, we used to rush to the ground right in front of my house to join a whole lot of other kids of my age, some older than me and some younger.While the older ones, chose to play the more mature games of Badminton and the like, the younger lot used to be content playing games like ''lock and key'', "Colour colour", and ''kuntebille''( hopskotch)( There were very few guys in our neighbourhood and hence cricket was not played much then) On a few occasions, the older lot and us used to join hands to play the more boisterous games of lagori and my what fun it used to be !!
Most men, in Yelahanka, then, used to be employees either of Escorts Mahle or the Wheel and Axle Plant and so almost everybody knew evrybody else in the neighbourhood. So evenings, while we kids were in the grounds, our mothers used to be out doing the usual gossip while the men did the more serious talks about the lockouts and the strikes and the transfers and the management and the union etc etc.
Sundays meant watching Rangoli at 7 30 and Mahabharatha and the more eagerly awaited "Jungle Book" and the 4 o Clock kannada movie ofcourse!!
I remember very clearly, how every October, Escorts used to give all the employees journalswhich spoke about the Company, how it was faring, what new products were to be launched and notify the employees of the change in management. But to many of us, it meant something else. Factory journals meant making KITES !! The paper of this journals used to be the ideal kind of paper for making kites and so we used to pester our dads to make us as many kites as they could from that journal. With long newspaper tails attached to it, we used to run like mad in the ground, trying to get the kite to fly but more often than not, our efforts used to be in vain !! I dont remember getting even one kite to fly atleast 6 ft above the ground!!! And Dushera holidays meant going to everybody's house to check out the neatly lined dolls! And how can we forget the holiday assignment which more often than not used to be writing our Mid terms papers yet again and a 4 page report on all our teacher's favourite topic" Mysore Dushera"!!!
Come Summer holidays, we used to hit the parks in the Wheel & Axle campus area. The fact that it was 1 and half kms from where we stayed and the fact that it housed 3 parks was enough a treat for all of us ! With somebody or the other's parents monitoring us, some 8-10 of us used to head noisily to the parks and make a helluva racket there !!! 2 hours of play and nothing but play and absolute fun!! And ofcourse, not to forget the holiday homework that we used to dread so much still forcefully finish just in time before the school reopened!!
Festivals meant gaiety and all of used to be up early, going from house to house to check out the beautifully coloured rangolis! Evenings meant all of us heading to temple in neatly pressed resham langas, counting the number of steps from our houses to the the temple and ofcourse devouring the prasadam !!
Of all the festivals, the one that we looked forward the most and enjoyed it equally was perhpas, Ganesha Habba. The mornings ofcourse meant starving until the pooja was done. But it was the evenings that used to be fun. All of us kids, used to meet up at around 3 30 -4, in our new attires, to be ready to go see 101 ganeshas, with boxes of akshatekalu( rice grains mixed in turmeric) !And boy, what noise we made!! Going to each house in the locality, asking if they had kept the murthy of the lord. And then, all of us in unison, used to shout" bolo vidhyaganapathi ki JAI " !! and phat, throw a handful of the akshatekalu on to the idol!!! And becasue all aunties used to give us something or the other eat on going to their houses, we used to even carry a nice plastic bag to stuff in all that they gave! And mind you, we wouldnt takes ages to cover the 101 houses. We had a deadline, 5 30-6. For 6 o clock meant starting of the Orchestra! Although this used to be moer or less the same every year, we used to ook forward to it, heading to the ground where this used to happen with some eatables packed and sitting on the carpet spread out for us kids. The agenda used to be the same every year, Some band singing Kannada hits and sometimes Hindi as well. This used to be followd by a magic show( the tricks never changed, not once! ) and ofcourse the mimicry show and the talking doll!!
All of this s so fresh that I can remember every minute detail of it so well. Those were the good old days; days of absolute naivete, of innocence and of simple fun.
Things have now changed so much. There is no longer any noise made by kids on the streets( atleast in yelahanka). There are no grounds for kids to play today. All the grounds that used to be there have now become parks where the kids are shooed away lest they touch the neatly manicured lawn! Then the groundswere meant for us kids. And today, the parks are meant solely for the health conscious folks who are found walking at any time of the day!!! I dont know if these parks have been made because the people have now become health conscious or if people have become health conscious beause there are so many parks made !!
And ofcourse there are the laughing clubs laughing like maniacs over nothing and doing their regular "Preethi-Preetham' exercises! ( Thats breathe in and breathe out for you ). No wonder, kids no more play cricket or lagori on the streets. Nor do they play it in the grounds for there are no grounds now!! its funny that kids now play football and cricket on their computers and not in real !! Kids are forced to be glued to the Idiot box and particularly the Pokemon's and the WWF's!! Most people now dont know their neighbours( but for the oldest lot). Ladies are now glued to the soaps thanks to the Stars and the Sonys and the Sun channels !! And I really dont know what the men do !!
The town has changed beyond recognition. Developed, rather. But I guess, for many of us, who've been in this small little town for as long as we can remember, its a change that perhaps, we could ve lived without( one can defnitely argue about it). Development they say happens with the exploitation of resources. And that is what has happened here too! Accomodating the increasing population, and hence the increasing number of two wheelers and the four wheelers meant the felling of the age old trees.
The once countable vehicles have multiplied three to four times adding to the congestion!
Festival days are as good as the usual days with everybody glued to their TVs watching the festival specials. That gaiety, the merriment, that festive spirit has somehow diminished(or so it seems to me).
The Yelahanka I grew up in has somehow ceased to exist.
May be as they say" whatever happens happens for good". May be this development is not as bad too. May be it is good that the town is progressing so much.
But I guess, certain changes take longer to be accepted, more so when the change has to do with a lot of memories!
May be "Change is refreshing" is how we should see it!!
