Friday, March 31, 2006

Raatri Neram

Why do I like the night better than the day .. Well I dont know.. It starts with dusk I guess, the romance, and moves on slowly into the night as well. I remember the days when, as a child, I used to watch the sun dip and go back home to sit down and do my home work. I used to try and finish all my homework quickly so that I could go to the terrace and look at the deep, dark, mysterious sky.

Oh! how many tales I have spun under her. Sometimes watching a shooting star, I would think that there was a fight amonst the stars or look for patterns in the sky and make stories out of them. I loved to spot the constellations and the planets (Jupitor and Mars thats all I could see). All of a sudden a twinkling star like object would appear from the South western part of the sky and I would conjure up an image of aliens invading earth. Whereas it would only be an aeroplane in the night sky. Sometimes I would wave at it and say "Bye Bye" to the people flying ..

I loved the sound of crickets.. I call it the "Sound of Night". The uncountable stars. I have tried to count them but then I lost count so many times that I gave up.. Maybe someday I must try to count them :)( dont laugh... but this is a chinna periya aasai). In the darkness u can be all u want - sing, dance and even act like u r the queen. Sometimes my grandpa used to come with me to the terrace and he would tell me tales from the Epic. I would be transported to that period, to the times where Krishna plays with gopikas, to the times where Rama breaks the bow and marries Sita, to the times when the rakshasas throw arrows from the sky while Rama and Lakshmana stand guard.

I wonder how many kids do all this now. The pressure on Students to perform well and parents wanting them to study all the time, plus the multi various distractions in the form of computer, TV , video games and now the latest distraction the iPOD is taking kids away from the wonders of Nature and the wonderful stimulation that it is to the human brain.

I miss it now.. I dont go to the terrace as often as I would like to but when I go I really do enjoy it. It is Nature and I love every part of her.

PS: There is no focus to this post.. I know.. but I guess u can take quite a few things out of it....

8 comments:

Naveen said...

Hmm..well, this is kind of nostalgic!

yea, iPod and similar gadgets are jeopardising the kids enjoyment of the nature..I'm glad there were no such things during my childhood days..:)

Arvind Srinivasan said...

".. sing, dance and even act like u r the queen."

Did you also yell - yevura ra adhi ? (chandramukhi) ;) :P

Yadhvi said...

Even in TV,
kids these days, don't have fairy-tales, mickey, panchathanthra stories...
yeah, we were lucky! Our childhood was really childish!

Mukund said...

so very true....we don't get to see as many kids playing on the streets or outside their homes as it used to be when we were kids...and they wouldnt even have heard of goli, gilli, kathadi, pandi n the like :)

Anonymous said...

Well weird as it might feel I think I like this post of yours than any earlier. Mebbe I have spent lot of time in the terrace under the night sky too. Only that I have fonder memories of the long chats I used to have with my father than the tales that my grandfather told me :)

Vidya said...

@Naveen - :)

@Arvind - yup!!! but in tamil of course :D

@Yadhvi - true..

@Mukund - appadi na enna pudu video games aa pa? nu ketkum padsanga ippo elam

@Seagull - Thank you Mr.Seagull ans welcome back ..long time no see :)

Anonymous said...

Well it is not only the fault of these gizmos and shows on TV. Parents have to make it a point and take time to show other stuff too like showing the stars and telling stories etc. Most of the times the parents are so busy that they get the latest gifts to their brats to assuge their guilty feelings of not spending enuf time with them. Then they crib the technology is robbing their children's childhood. We as parents-to-be or parents should make sure that the child's activities are balanced.

Atticus Finch said...

Well, wasn't there a beautiful time when the night wasn't marred by television and harsh city lights :)

The night-sky is a dear old friend whom I miss a lot these days... Even wrote about her once at http://theatticusdiaries.blogdrive.com/archive/62.html

Do read a lemme know how you liked it :)