CranialSpark

Moments in time

Memory is an interesting aspect of humanity and the human condition. We perceive so much, create associations and store these moments in time with varying degrees of accuracy – all done by some subconscious process that we have little control over. We can influence it but it’s complicated. These snapshots evolve, change and become shadows of the true event over time. They serve a purpose in our lives and offer a glimpse into our past that we hope we can recall well into our futures.

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Times gone by

Some of my earliest memories are from India—running around barefoot (and getting thorns pulled from my feet daily), playing in sand pits, climbing trees (especially guava trees), and spending hours on cricket, marbles, or flying kites. There are flashes of other moments too—long train journeys, frequent moves (I must have attended at least four different schools before leaving India at nine), the burst of color during Holi, and the raucous energy of Diwali.

One memory stands out: the day then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi passed through Bhubaneshwar in her motorcade. Time already moved painfully slow in school, but that day, the wait felt endless. The entire class buzzed with anticipation. Finally, when the moment arrived, we trooped down a dirt path to line the roadside with the rest of the school. The motorcade came and went. I don’t even know if we actually saw her. And just like that, we walked back to class to finish out the day.

The very next morning, Indira Gandhi was gunned down by one of her bodyguards. I was too young to grasp the weight of it—the shock, the consequences, or how, if at all, it altered the country’s course. But the memory of that time is indelibly burned into my mind—however blurred or inaccurate the details may now be.

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Time loop

During one of the visits back to india, while living in Botswana, we were taking a multi day train trip from Kolkata to Mumbai. Sleeper trains were always fun to travel in and the chai you got in the earthen cups on trains were simply the best – unbeatable. At some point during the journey, the train came to a halt and that halt became a 3 day stall. Shortly after the train stopped, we found out that Rajiv Gandhi had been assasinated by a suicide bomber. As I write this, it dawns on me that although I lived in India for only 9 years and, between visits, spent a total of less than 10 years there, I’ve been present for two political assassination – both from the same familial dynasty. 

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Can I drive?

I learned to drive when I was 8. No really, I did. My grandfather was a site/project manager in the coal mines in the state of Bihar in India. When we were living with them or visiting for extended periods of time, I would insist that the driver – the coal mines provide a vehicle (usually a Mahindra Jeep) and a driver – should teach me to drive. I was allowed to steer and change gears – though still being quite short, I could not operate any of the pedals. Over several such outings, I would say I learned enough of the fundamentals so as to consider myself as having learned to drive as a result. 

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Air Time

I was 10 when I boarded a flight for the first time. My mother had gotten a job teaching in Botswana and had already been there a few months leaving my brother and me to live with our grand parent. It was the summer of 1989 when my grandfather took us to Delhi so we could catch our flight to Botswana. It was going to be a long trip – Delhi to Nairobi. Nairobi to Johannesburg and then finally Gaborone. A 747 was a great way to take to the skies for the first time – I don’t recall being afraid of the flight but having to speak English was wearing heavy on my head. I had always attended an English medium school but my day to day communication was limited primarily to Hindi, some Bengali and probably a faint recollection of Oriya. English was a foreign tongue and unfamiliar at best. We were under the care of the stewardesses so we didn’t really have to use English too much. When we landed in Nairobi the stewardess actually took us off airport premises to her home so we could spend the night there. That in itself was a mini adventure, and we had fun spending time with her kids who were around our own age and communicating in our limited English capabilities. We thought our mother had arranged this in someway but found out later that this was entirely due to the generosity and kindness of the stewardess. The next day we boarded a flight to Johannesburg and landed there with a 6hr layover. For some reason we were put up in a hotel room at the airport – the airport officials assured us they would get us in time for the flight. I wasn’t convinced and only slept for a little bit and woke up in a state of worry. I woke my brother up too and urged him to check with the airport folks about our flight. Turns out the flight was departing shortly so we packed up in a hurry and headed to the gate. Another flight and we landed in Gaborone. Our mom met us there and once we collected our bag (everything we owned fit in a single suitcase) which had come apart in transit, we were ready for the next leg of our trip – the drive to Francistown and then finally to Zwenshambe. What a trip it had been but the adventures in Botswana were just beginning.

Mail order shovel

I once ordered a mail order multi purpose shovel from the back of a comic book. Around 1990, purchasing items from a catalog may have been the norm but ordering it in Botswana from the back of a comic book was probably not a high success endeavor. None the less, having become enamored with this highly utilitarian looking tool that had a compass in the hilt, could turn from a shovel into a hoe and which housed all the “parts” needing to make a fishing rod, I had zero skepticism about being able to acquire this marvel. When the item actually arrived (I dont know how long it look), I was ecstatic. As luck would have it, my parents had planned a camping trip into the Okavango and this sure to be invaluable tool arrived just in time. I knew just how I would use it…

  • dig up holes for waste
  • chop firewood (it had a blade of sorts on the side)
  • use the compass to avoid getting lost
  • use the fishing equipment to catch fish for food.

It was going to be epic.

During the trip, the shovel (it was about 2 feet in lenght) never left my side or my sight. It went everywhere I went though its usefullness may have been less than advertised. I was able to dig with it and hammer in camping stakes (though a rock would have done just as well). The coup de gras – the fishing setup – never worked for me. I deployed the contraption and watched little fish swim by as if mocking the setup, never to be attracted to the lure I setup (not even sure what I used).

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Out of darkness

The first few days in Zwenshambe took some getting used to. There was no electricity. There was no television – not that I was used to one given India only had one channel at the time and it ran 6am to 10pm (or something like that). There was promise of 2 diesel generators coming to the village in the very near future so that was something to look forward to but in the meanwhile, kerosine lamps had to be used after sundown and needless to say, unless you had a book available, there was no reason to stay up much past dark. Sometime in the next 3 months, the generators were delivered and installed and soon they were ready to be activated. By then, we had become accustomed to the early part of the darkening evening and incorporated it into our existence – playing hide and seek as the sun was dipping below the horizon. On the evening the generators were to be turned on for the first time, we played one last game of dusk hide and seek as we anticipated the banishing of the darkness. It was bittersweet, as is often the advent of inevitable change. As the light in the compounds shone, albeit weakly, into some of the nooks and crannies we used as hiding places, we came to terms with the passing of the era of dusk hide and seek. 

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Head over handlebars

Someone that owned a road bike (Schwinn) was leaving Zwenshambe (and Botswana). They would not be taking their bike so my mother bought it – for me. It was a full size bike so I would have no choice but to ride it “half-pedal” but I had already been doing that on the “standard” bike we sometimes borrowed from the neighbor. I eventually (in a few months) figured out how to transition to a normal riding position – being able to pedal as long as I didn’t sit on the seat. One day I rode it down to the local beverage shop – really it was a bar and the ONLY shop within 120 KMs. On the way back, there was another older kid, on a “standard” bike, heading down the road in the same direction. For some reason, we started to race. With my opponent on the left side, I was feeling jubiliant racing down the road at full speed and seemingly beating the bigger kid. As we aproached the middle school (it was between home and the bar), on my right the other kid sped up just a bit more, got ahead and then cut to the right to go to the school. To this day I don’t know why he wouldnt have slowed down and turned behind be but as he crossed my path, I struck his rear wheel and catapulted over the handlebar – flying some distance and landing on my back with a substantial impact to the back of my head.

The taste of metal in my mouth and the feel of a metallic ringing in my head left me stunned for a few moments – I’m not sure how long it was. I slowly reanimated and picked up the bike and moved off the road to sit down. Shortly thereafter, I headed home. Some moments just stick in your head. 

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An irrational example

Today, most people that know me would describe me as an irrationally germophobic human. Really quite concerned about things/situations that do not matter. In contrast, as an example, I recall a situation when I was 9. Living in Botswana in a small village close to the border with Zimbabwe, there was plenty of booneyland to go explore. One day some friends and I decided to go adventuring and took off into the bush. Being kids we of course did not think to take any water (I don’t recall if I even had a water bottle at the time). It was hot and an hour or so into adventuring, we got thirsty. There was no drinkable water around. There was a cow pond close by, getting water from a water tank on a (small) tower. we had no way to get water from the tank so we cupped our hands and drank water from the pond. Nearby, cows bathed in that water and they probably even peed and poo’d in it. The water did quench our thirst though I could not imagine actually drinking that water now.

Gummi Summers

I had a lot of fun hanging out with my cousin during the summers in Pembroke, MA. When I would visit, we’d sometimes go catching crawfish (not sure we caught any) in the stream behind his house or play in the treehouse in his backyard. More often than not, we’d take a walk down to the john deere store not far from his neighborhood. We weren’t interested in the tractors, fertilizer or other gardening equipment. No we were there for the gummi worms. We’d each have a dollar with us and would walk back with a bag of worms in exchange fir that dollar – the next 10 minutes to be spent savoring every flavor of gummi the store had to offer us. 

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Monsoon ride

It was monsoon season in Sells, AZ and it was raining heavily. A couple of my high school friends came by and suggested we walk into the desert towards a normally dry wash to see the river that it had transformed into. As we got closer, we could hear the rushing sound generated by the flowing water. At the wash’s edge, my friends decided to jump into the water and after some hesitation, I did too. We floated down the river for a couple of miles into the town of Sells where the wash flowed under a bridge supporting Route 86. Shortly thereafter, we climbed out of the wash where the water slowed down a bit. It was an exhilarating ride and one I’ll never again repeat but can’t regret having taken. The invincibility of youth. 

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