Childhood - distant yet clear memories

Maybe the curse of growing up, if it is to be seen that way, is the loss of innocence and purity of fun. I was just browsing today and found a blog post by Krish Ashok on Phir mile sur mera tumhara - a 2009/10 version of the 1980's classic Mile sur mera tumhara.

That invariably led me down memory lane, and in particular reminiscing the classic videos of the 80's in India (Ek Chidiya...anek Chidiyan, ...).

And that led me to me reminiscing my childhood. And suddenly when I looked around, everything looked alien. I wondered how I found myself with an IPad and a Sony Ericsson X10, in MI, USA. What happened to the buffaloes, the hay stacks, the marbles, the eager anticipation for the Sunday morning Spiderman?

What happened to the mango plantations where my family and I used to steal mangoes from on our way to Hyderabad, the Friday morning drives in Muscat, the 2-3 hours of football in the evenings, the yummy meals, the wasteful extravagance of having a meal plan for the semester, yet going out to dinner everyday, and the unrelenting/aimless arguments of college, the aspiration for/delusions of grand success in the future, the innocence/madness of it all? They seem to have all become stories to tell, with no sensation of the reality they used to be.

How did life become so complicated? Is there no way to turn back time, and even stop time once its turned back?

Yet, life is what it is, I guess, Maybe, it's us adults concerned with things we weren't with as kids, that's the trouble. Maybe, innocence and simplicity are just around the corner, if you bother to walk on and look.