Friday, November 15, 2019

Nostalgic Memories - Children's day & Handwriting



This Children's day - we get back to the memory lane - at a point when CBSE has removed the Father of nation reference about Gandhiji from text books in schools, and Sixty BJP MPs have requested PM Narendra Modi to designate December 26th as Children's day - Instead of Nov. 14th being Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's birthday. God Bless India.
The story dates back to one VM Kulkarni who was a United Nations Social Welfare Fellow who was carrying out a study on the rehabilitation of children who had been victims of crimes in the UK. He realised that the republic of India(India) has no such mechanism to take of underprivileged children. He got inspired by a fact that in England, June 19, Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday, is observed as Flag Day to raise money for Save the Child Fund and suggested that Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday too, be observed as Flag Day to raise money. An international fair was organised by the Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW) in 1951 and it was in 1951 that the day started being observed as Children’s Day. So not only the first Children’s Day was celebrated on 14th November when Pandit Nehru was alive, it was celebrated after he agreed to the idea.

Nostalgic Memories:

Annual vacations travelling in train with family, friends and cousins, Independence day for mother and fun to be with father – getting in and out at every station. Window view worth fighting for though we preferred upper berth, counting the compartments in the running train, checking weight at railway platform to read the details behind the measurement ticket with all cousins in grandparents’ house, swimming, swinging, plucking mangoes and jackfruits, playing cricket and pranks in ponds and paddy fields, how I wish I have those days again. We would put arms in our shirt and tell people we lost our arms, we swallowed a fruit seed and would be scared to death if a tree would grow in tummy and come out of our mouth, we tried to balance the switch between on and off, we would try to mix coins in carom board, chess, snake and ladder, luddo and cards, when we knew we were going to lose and start again, licking the icecream lid and wishing it never got over and snatching from others, trying to run faster than the moon or our own shadow, going round and round singing: “Ring-a-ring-a-rosies, A pocket full of posies, A tissue, a tissue, We all fall down”

Enjoyed going to 'Thabela' (Dairy farm) and seeing lines of buffalos, and bringing home fresh milk daily. Writing letters on postcards, inlands were interesting. There were phones only in one house somewhere around the corner, and we used to go to somebody's house and watch Chitrahar or P.T. Usha running for Olympics. In case there was something urgent - we used to send telegram. At times there were movies shown in a big white screen or by taking VCR/VCP on rent. We used to divide and share the cost of watching movie.

Ah! Those where the days when for life's simple choices we would just toss a coin and decide with heads/tails and for most complex choices had the simple solutions of Akkad Bakkad Bambey Bo, Asee nabe pure sau, Sau se nikla raja chor pakadke bhaga!

Other Competitions were:

Handwriting Olympiad

Here’s your chance to go back to the memory lane-Back to school. Write the below story (The Thirsty Crow) in a paper with pencil and share a picture with us. The best handwriting gets the reward.

Amazing Calligraphy by Mili - It was both interesting and challenging to write with pencil.



What Does Your Handwriting Say About You?

Back to School:

To get dressed in school uniform, with special award to the class (team) picture.

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