#You could achieve the same ending without throwing him under a bus writing wise

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Moments to Cherish (2)

"Its so funny how so much of 'Finding Yourself' in adulthood is simply getting back to who you were and what you loved as a child" I've often thought about this and a part of me believes in this. As one grows over the years, we are exposed to more complex truths of lives, newer experiences, and live in the 'grey' - we go on a little quest to 'find ourselves': our true interests, what makes us happy, gives us true joy etc. In agreement with the statement, one of the places to find that is our childhood. Childhood: to the times where we loved, experimented, experienced, indulged without reason all while we were yet to discover the meaning of 'regret' and before applying the concept of 'overthinking'. One of my 'Happy Places' to be when I'm particularly in a thoughtful mood is thinking about my childhood memories. The things my friends and I did in school, Aadarsh's new antics, things I gave importance to, tactics which I thought made me smarter than my parents and so much more! I'd like to write about a few of them in no particular order: 1) I always liked have long hair. However, I didn't know the difference between straight/wavy/curly hair. I remember an image I saw on a magazine of a girl much younger than me (I was in grade 6 or 7 at the time) and she had a particular hairband that I wanted to pull of that look. Since I'd wash hair on Sat's I remember, getting that magazine, and wearing a black hairband with dots (the one I bought) and making sure I wore in how it was shown in the picture and feeling proud and waiting to pull it off better to achieve the length of hair she had in that photo. 2) 9 years of my formal education was in India and a majority of it included memorisation when it came to tests and exams. For the most part since childhood, I've studied alone but there were the few times I would go to Amma when I couldn't memorise a long answer. Having her simply read out the answer and break it into parts would make it SO much easier for me to learn (the part I'm conveniently skipping here is that they also involved crying if she decided to test me on other questions..) but nevertheless the end result was that I always hoped for this question to come in the exam as I was the best prepared. 3) "I don't care". I can't pin point exactly where I picked that up from when I was younger, but it was a brief phase where if anyone said anything/commented, I'd respond I don't care. Never to be rude, but I thought that's how it is used. However, a quick full stop on that phase came when I saw that my younger brother was picking up on it. Anything you ask him/commented, his reply was I don't care. The effect of this stayed with me for long, I have after that never used that phrase in a reply to anyone (except to convince people - good context). 4) Middle school years were interesting schedule wise. I enjoyed school and doing well, participating, taking up responsibility/roles etc. Amma would wake me up in the morning, shower (sometimes we settled on a bargain), she'd comb my hair and with a shirt, skirt, tie, belt, socks and black polished shoes and a heavy bag - we were ready to conquer the day. Amma would come down with me daily to cross the road and wait till the bus came. That's were I'd meet, Garima and Reeta aunty daily (her mom) and began our friendship :) I'd be back from school, change, eat and get back to STUDYING?! voluntarily. I enjoyed going through the diary with homework tasks or revise what we learnt in class. Made me feel productive. Evening would go down to play with brother or with Garima depending on what we'd planned that day during our bus ride back home. Would come back home by 8, it was always between 5-7 or 6-8pm. Extending this time by 30 minutes excited me more than I can believe now. Evening is when, appa would be back and I'd be having dinner by then, while we watched TV/news and slept. On weekends, I remember, I'd wait to start having my lunch around 1:30 as that's when "Karishma ka Karishma" came on TV and would go to amma's room where she was sleeping and watch that and then from 2-2:30 watch Kya Mast Hai Life (loved this) and quietly switched it off and came out to play with aadarsh. I still don't know why I didnt watch these in the TV in the hall or why I had to wait to have my lunch at that time (something with amma sleeping helped -- in the case that I might have to leave out some vegetables I didn't like having). 5) When I was younger (primary school years) and during a visit to Chennai, appa once asked Sruthi and I if we wanted to go to the beach at 5/6am. I was fascinated by the idea (not the beach, or the timing) but that appa wanted to do something with me and asked me if I wanted to join. I remember waking up really early, taking an auto and going Marina beach. We went near the water and it was a beautiful sight. Not many people around and just us three. Appa and kids. That's where I remember my chappal or maybe sruthi's floating away. There was a sudden rush of feeling scared since something we owned was going away + the risks of going to get it (I'll admit I tried and didn't think about the depth of the water/waves). Then a fisherman uncle as I want to call him - went into to get that chappal for us. I was SO SO THANKFUL and amazed that he'd do that for us. Now that I share this, I realise it was sruthi's chappal as I clunched on to mine harder. 6)  One of the things I maintained for many years was that I didn't like when Appa went on office trips. I believed that he went on those trips because I 'allowed' him. He'd ask me and obviously first choice is no but a small little explanation and I'd let him go for no more than 2 days (anything longer was only allowed counting flight hours). Now I'm aware it wasn't my permission as much as his convincing but now also I'd like if and push that they go through me (they do). The last permission I refused might've been me saying - Jakarta?! I don't want to move there and leave Delhi (I'd finally settled after 7 years) but same year we moved to Mumbai.... Another example with trips is that on one particular instance, I didn't want appa to travel. He was going to Mumbai and we were in Bangalore at the time and he said he'd go and come back the same day. I thought my crying made that happen (I really thought I influenced him a lot) but its something I didn't believe. He said he'd be back at 8pm and I remember standing in front of the clock staring at the wall for it to turn 8. It was the very first time I saw the hour hand in a clock move (Was told you cannot see it move as obvious as a minute hand). And to seeing appa at 8 - I thought that was magic. When I was younger, I refused to go to sleep when asked/earlier - purely because I hadn't seen appa that day. I disliked eating without him and sleeping without seeing him. Amma would push to go to sleep and I'd give in and do first class acting of closing my eyes if amma opened the door (I'd flinch my eyes because of the light so she always knew) but I thought I'd fooled her. I'd wait for appa to come and wish goodnight even if sleeping and acted like I was woken up by him (had to sell the story). 7) I remember vividly telling amma (was very very young) denying paruppu saadham once. I don't know why or how that when I said so and she didn't push me (it gets mixed with rice that she thinks I didn't know). Around the time is also when I remember I didn't like milk very much (especially the end part/last few sips). I'd drink 3/4 and on the pre-text of washing the glass, would throw rest of the paal. Again, thought I was SLY as a fly. But I am very very nervous doing something  like this so when appa called/saw me, I freaked out. Either he guessed or I owned up to it and we made a deal to not tell amma (I am sure this was broken from his end). 8) I wanted glasses, braces, to have a fractured arm/leg. Don't question me on these. I only got to try amma's glasses from now and then but she would not allow. I also wanted bangs (flicks, what it was called then) but had no knowledge of hair type/style. I tried to cut a small part over a period of days thinking its not obvious and would pin them so amma didn't see and when she asked - I said its new hair growing. Don't laugh. Now I am a MUCH MUCH better liar - to the extent that I'd like the opposite person to figure out I am lying sometimes. 9) I loved wearing heels. Its not the height or design but the sound they make. So, more than heels, LOVED wooden floors. I wanted them so I could wear heels and keep walking back and forth and feel like an office woman giving presentations/writing on whiteboards (also, my favourite thing when I went to appa's office). I remember I had a Barbie set I think (Heels + jewellery) - I thought jewellery sucked in design/flashy but heels I wore over stairs as the next best thing to hear the sound. But I didn't use it often because it was pink. 10) I remember the first time I was introduced to English songs and it was Love Story & Tik Tok. I didn't know where to hear it but wrote down lyrics from what my friends sang and daily night would read and memorize the lyrics with aadarsh. He picked up tik tok faster even. This was pre-youtube so the English song I discovered by myself was Ibiza because it was on our itunes on a Sony Vaio laptop. (I used youtube AFTER aadarsh who used it before me in Vietnam). - I'd shared that I like getting gifts under the pillow. For NY's once, aadarsh had Rs 50 and we went to a store and he asked for Rs 20 more from appa because we were at a store and I'd mentioned I liked a notebook that had a button to open and close. I knew he was getting it for me but wanted to get after I sat in the car and called appa to come to the store. That morning I woke up to aadarsh eagerly waiting for me to be up and said look under the pillow - and there he had kept the notebook that he bought with the money he'd saved for me. - Aaadarsh, when he was younger had a phase with hearing problem when we had ENT visits and hearing tests. I am not good with anyone close visiting the doctor for anything more than what's a normal fever/cold. ENT was a fancy name and hearing that he has fluid in his head for which he'd need surgery, was not a good news. I remember rushing home, sitting on the study table where I had a small glass ganesha idol (I won this in a Tumbola - Jaldi 5 contest) and I sat in front of the idol - daily for weeks praying that I don't want him to have surgery. After a few weeks when the doctor said, the fluid reduced and he doesn't need surgery - I went to say thanks and never made a wish after. - Aadarsh calls me Akka. He's seldom called/used my name in a sentence. I can't imagine him saying Pavi. But when he was about 3-5 years, my favourite & precious gift is him writing - Happy Birthday, Akka with amma holding his hand and finding that in the morning. However, the habit to call me 'Akka; stuck because I said I won't talk to him if he doesn't call me akka. This tactic doesn't work now :/ - My most lasting impact on him was when I was disappointed at something aadarsh did/said (not acceptable behaviour) and I said I wouldn't talk. I didn't and just when I was to give up (I can't stay mad at him), he'd gone crying to amma and appa asking them to convince me to speak with him. He literally hugged it out with us both making promises. - I learn better when I teach aadarsh. I've taught him grade 10 math, economics etc in grade 5 to help me learn. But grade 11 and me struggling with physics was an interesting experience. I was trying to teach him different types of energy (Kinetic, potential etc) and was highlighting the differences when aadarsh drew something he learnt at school that explained the concepts better. Here's my understanding of Potential Energy (imagining his drawing, a stick figure - moving from atop a cliff to the bottom has displayed potential energy. Not sure who can confirm this for me but at the time, what he taught me helped me manage that unit test.