Do you remember that sense of growing up when everything around was big, maybe appeared big? And don’t you remember feeling dwarfed by how big the world was? And always thinking and always talking about becoming a grown-up, about growing, about becoming big. Well, now, we are big and we are grown-up, seen the world (or so we think).
Growing up, the main road of the town seemed never-ending, not only in length, even in width, though it might have been a mere two-lane road with a divider. Now, we have travelled on expressways, which are really, really never-ending. The school appeared grandiose, even when it was just two-three stories high with no playground, a small nook for a library and no drinking water facilities. The local bank seemed full with the buzz of people and computers (newly taking over the world). We have not stepped into a bank for quite some time now and our workplaces could digitally be everywhere.
The big house of the town was and still is massive in size. Its red, winding stairs seemed, to a younger us, even touch the heavens, as it majestically opened unto the terrace. Fast forward to today when the big house of the town was become the big world of the Internet where we meet the extended family online with near continuous videos and pictures and updates of our breakfasts.
The payn (lane) called our vegetable market seemed, then, to sell everything needed for cooking, for living. In today’s world of fast and furious, we shop over the Net. So, how big has the payn really become now? Growing up, we went to a jardin, with its few rudimentary play equipment “ a basic swing, a ghasargundi (slide), old lady’s shoe-shaped house with its dark, brooding inner staircase. Today, my garden is the world “ hop, skip, jump. What we see on the TV or on the internet is with me in a matter of days. I remember lazy Sunday mornings standing in our balcony and doing nothing, nothing at all and not feeling like I did nothing at all. In fact, it felt rather important to just stand and see the church-goers return from the morning mass “ in their Sunday best, waving to a friend and returning a hello to another. But I also remember always wanting to grow-up and ‘do’ Sundays. Now, I finally have a chance to do Sundays, but, our Sundays are chock-a-block with things I never even knew I have to do, things that have drifted over from the weekdays; that are kept aside especially to do on a Sunday.
I am big now“ in age, in experience, in life. There are others now in my place who must be thinking, ditto like me, wanting to grow-up, and not be small. They will carry different memories of my town, they who are experiencing this town now. They will enjoy other experiences, savour different delights. To them, this town will appear huge, brave, strong. Though, to me, today my home-town feels almost Monopoly-ish, as if one can play with the houses there, shuffle them around. It makes me feel big.
But guess what? Instead of feeling that all-powerful Superman energy of growth, all we sometimes sense is that stifling, restless feeling of having grown-up, which comes with, deeply realizing, that one has grown, and seen bigger , but alas, may not always be better.
Sonia Kuncalienker is an avid writer on matters that have no importance to anyone in the universe
