We were playing carrom as early as half past 7 in the morning, when we heard murmur outside my cousin's house in St. Thomas Town. I peeped outside the window and see a group of four with their cycles in front of the house. "Tring, Tring" was the alarm asking us to come out for an early morning adventure. They hardly dared to call our names as they were quite not sure if the parents headed to work. In those days most of them were employed in government sector units like HAL, BEL, HMT, NAL, ITI, ITC etc and left their houses around 6 in the morning.
It was a lovely verandah in front of their house filled with bougainvillea flowers in the car parking area. The gate was an old fashioned design surrounded by the bougainvillea flowers blossomed and enticing. Sparrows were chirping in their garden fighting for their dose of water kept in small containers. Unlike these days, 7:30 AM on that day had this cool breeze even while the sun was shining bright. I still remember when we used to walk to the school in the mornings and walking in the shade was quite chilling. We used to run into the sun to make up for it. Also our kitchens were lit brightly in the afternoons as the sun was not bright enough. An afternoon nap on the red oxide floors is something we will never be able to repeat. Talking about siesta’s, during vacations we even explored sleeping on terrace so as to not disturb our parents when our friends come calling at 5 AM for a group jogging and subsequent practice matches. We could really feel the mornings, a feeling very naïve to today’s world. This summer vacation seemed perfect for much needed freedom.
I quickly heard my brother and cousins’ wrapping up the coins and the carrom board, as if they were waiting for this group to arrive and carrom was just a "time-pass". I asked them where we were headed and they said there is a cave nearby to the railway bridge that they haven’t yet explored. It was reminiscent of one of the chapters in "Famous Five" which was quite popular amongst us at that time. I still remember going to my friend’s house in ITI colony where his room was more of a library. He had various books ranging from novels, dictionaries, magazines and science fictions. Being not an avid reader, I was however drawn towards the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton. The fragrance of that book, especially when I opened the mid chapters was so refreshing, that I quickly read through the first few lines of the chapters in between and I visualized the rest in my dreams that night. We quickly packed ourselves and took out the dusty cycles that were in the parking area, not bothering to clean them. Everyone was fighting to get a chance to cycle and I being the shortest among the group always settled to sit on the cycle bar. It worked for me as I always preferred to take the pain in my back rather than on my legs. We had to go past a huge ground next to the church and there were several teams playing cricket. One of the members in the group was so addicted to this sport that he completely hijacked this group to play cricket rather than exploring the cave. We had not picked the bats or the stumps, but quickly grabbed few that were lying on the ground and asked the bowler to bowl few as part of trials. A team was formed within few minutes and we were ready to fight it out against our opponents. As usual I was asked to "sit down", rather than the usual "one down" or “two down" terminology. I always liked to observe my surrounding and this day was no different. Those days, the only English people we found were in the Bangalore East. A group of 3 fair people walked towards the batsmen and asked him what game this was and he was so busy explaining to them that he was surrounded by almost everyone in the group providing him tips. Someone even went to the extent of demonstrating each shot as the other person explained to the church activists. They had come from the Americas I presume now. The term English was equivalent to Foreigner as we never knew their existed a country like the United States. The only other foreign country we were aware of was Australia, thanks to the Boon’s, Waugh’s, McDermott’s and others. My cousins had subscribed to the Sportstar magazine and I quickly ran to their house to see if they had the latest copy that I could read during the match time. It should have been around 11 in the morning and as I ran there was still this cool breeze that ran through my hair and it was a heavenly feeling. I was always scared to get beyond their gate as their German Shepard barked constantly, this time probably for disturbing his sleep. I somehow made courage and go into the house and later got drowned into the pages of SportStar. As I prepared myself to head to the playground, I see my brother and cousins heading back home tanned and tired. It was time for lunch.
