Childhood Memories!

(OG in classic pose)

This is a very serious post!!!! 😛

Smithus has tagged me to list down a few favorite memories that I have had in this insignificant life. So here goes:

My sister was born in Cochin when I was exactly 5 years, 346 days old. I still have fond memories of that day because that was the day I feel in love with Kerala Chaya (Tea). In those 1-2 days at the hospital, I drank bucket loads of it. I do not have any memories of my sister. 😀

I remember as a kid in nursery school in Chennai, in a play, I had to play the role of “Laxmana”. It was a major flop as I totally missed most of my dialogues and confused “Rama” in the process. The audience mostly consisting of parents and teachers had great fun.

In my culture, a person is given three names. My names apart from “Ajit” are “Chandrasekhar” and “Murugan”. I used to feel sad when I was young that my official name was not “Chandrasekhar”. It seemed to have so much power in it.

When I was a kid in Chennai, my gang in school (St. Michael’s Academy, Adyar) used to consist of me and three other Mallu Christian dudes. For lunch, I used to carry some measly thayir sadam (curd rice) or something vegetarian like that while all the others used to bring a lot of tasty non vegetarian stuff. My love for non veg mallu food started back then. I still remember asking my friend Mr. RK if I had to eat the bone as well. My friends had a good laugh back then.

I still vividly remember the church that was there in that school. Every single day, we used to go to the church, first thing in the morning right till my eighth standard when we shifted to Cochin.

I remember as a kid, I used to accompany my mom to a temple near my house only because I used to get some great “prasadam” there. My mom was not pleased when she came to know the real intention behind my temple visits.

I still remember the day when I fell in love with Pulav. It was during an inter district under-14 chess competition in Chennai. My lunch was Pulav that day and I fell in love with it. The fact that I did well in that competition did not mean anything to me back then.

I still remember the taste of the onion rice that my mom used to pack for all of us on countless train journeys from Chennai to Cochin and vice versa!!!!! The same onion rice that she makes these days does not have that taste!!!

I still remember, the days when my uncle used to let me steer the car when he took me out on drives. Back in those days, IIT Chennai was free for anyone to enter and I learnt the rudimentary basics of driving there, thanks to my uncle.

I still remember the day when I bit my elder cousin brother’s hand when we had an argument. I was surprised to see my macho big brother cry and I then had to execute many evasive maneuvers to escape from him. That was the only time I had bitten anyone. Please don’t worry guys.

I have so many memories of my grandfather. My grandfather (mom’s dad) is the greatest person I have known till date. RIP. Even though he was a Mathematics professor by profession, he was also a scholar in Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Carnatic music and the violin. I still remember getting up at 5 those days listening to some great music from his violin. I could have learnt so much from him, but I missed the opportunity. More importantly, he was a good man!!!!

My grandfather (dad’s dad) (whom I have blogged about) had a vast collection of books back in those days and I remember one day in my sixth standard, when I found a book called, “The Great Religions of the World”. It completely blew my mind away and I spent hours reading it. My family was surprised that I took such an interest in that topic and I spent hours questioning them about Religion and Hinduism.

In my eighth standard in Cochin, I discovered a big book in my grandfather’s collection called “Mahabharata” by the author “Kamala Subramanian”. I totally fell in love with that book and I spend days reading, rereading it. That book will always be my favorite book ever!!!!! At that point, I also used words from it in normal speech as well. For example if my mom was not happy with me, I used to say, “What adharma did I do ma”?

My favorite character in the book will always be “Karna”. I learnt much later on, that my mom used to read that exact same book daily when she was carrying me.

I am stopping here with 12 points. I am sorry for wasting 5 minutes of your time!!! 😛 😛

Whew!!!! Tag completed 😛