Just after the school exam finishes, my grandfather and I would engage on an important activity - would tear apart empty pages from our notebooks. Why would we do this? Basically, give these empty pages off notebooks to get them bound - make new notebooks that I could write on. I would use them during the following year or use them get to get some math done during holidays. This is an activity that announced to me that summer has commenced. What would we do during the long summer months? Practically nothing. Just hang around in friends' houses or under mango trees the whole afternoon, unmindful of the fact that it would be 40+ degrees outside. During some years, we would go off to visit relatives but most of the years I was just stuck around home or visiting friends houses or play cricket/seven stones. On some days, would try to study something for the upcoming class but not really committed on that. The days would just pass off like this - just relaxed with nothing to do. But that did not really stress us out. That was actually fun. Could not readily watch TV as there was nothing much playing out there. Our old black and white Dyanora TV needed to have a run time of 4 hours for the picture tube to heat up and display something. Otherwise, it was just audio. We would go off to neighbor's houses on days when there was a good movie playing (Sundays). During the vacation, lot of fun learning new stuff and new games. One of my friends actually mentioned that ice was formed under the ground and I was quite excited to hear it. Later, I learned he was just burying ice cubes taken from his fridge and had fun at his friends' expense! It was fun, nevertheless.
Very soon, the news that we are to move to the next class would be the sign of making progress! And the whole family would get busy - stitching uniforms, getting new stationery, getting books from school, getting them wrapped, and then preparing the notebooks for the coming year. It was an exciting time, at the end of vacation and getting for new academic year to start.
Wit the COVID crises, kids are just stuck home and there does not seem to be much difference between vacation or new year. Everything just happening at home, whether play or online classes. I sometimes feel kids are just missing out on all the fun due to COVID crisis. The good news of course, is that they are staying safe and at home - which is the best thing to do during this pandemic.
Let me know your thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment