Memories

Whenever i remember my childhood, it appears to be very happy childhood. I used to visit my village very frequently which was hardly 20 kms from my house at Patna. We used to get an auto till station or Mithapur, from there we used to board a rickety bus, or calling it a bus would be huge exaggeration, tata 407 to be specific. It used to drop us at Punpun, a bazaar for our village and from there we had to walk 4 to 5 kms on foot. Remembering of Punpun, there was a grocery shop of Rashid Mian, where my father used to leave me when he would be shopping for the home and cattle. I was very patient child from start itself, i never complained for those hours of wait. Rashid Mian's shop had very peculiar smell of beedies, dried leafs with tobacco inside, that smell I even feel today. Then there used to be non stop songs playing from his sound box. Then there was Shankar, our charwaha, he used to work on our fields. When i was small enough I used to ride on his shoulder for the distance between Punpun and my village, Lakhanpar. One incidence which i remember about him, once i was playing on the fields and he was with his friends. I saw him cooking something. I asked him what was it. He said it was a mouse and offered me to eat which i refused. At that time i didn't know that his caste name also comes from the fact that he eats mice. Interestingly few years later i was again offered mouse but this time it was my uncle. On that when i woke up after hearing some sound from kitchen at 12 in the night, i saw my father and uncle cooking something. They told it was a mouse and told i can stay if i want to eat which i refused. Later the next morning my mom told me it was a dove and since its meat was not that much in amount so to shu me away my uncle had told like that.
Other things which i remember about Punpun is the Boys high school and also the girls high school where my aunts used to take me. There we used to eat katkat, similar to pencil in appearance and is made of jaggery or gur as we call it. Just outside their school lanka dehan used to be organised during dussehra and i had witnessed that only once and that also with Shankar.
Then there used to be one mud bridge over the Punpun river which used to washed away in rainy seasons and again reconstructed in winters. I also remember the hospital in punpun where my mom was operated once and i used to visit her.
There are several similar memories. I will tell you about them some time later.