Summer Holidays

I love to dwell in the past. At first it used to be a habit but lately, it seems to have become a necessity. How else does one remember all those good old things that are slowly becoming extinct? Summer holidays have almost become a thing of the past nowadays. Oh, schools still shut down for a couple of months in the summer. But, it is the way in which the holiday time is spent that has changed so very drastically.
I grew up in the 80’s India. An India on the verge of becoming a vast information technology park. A country populated by the great Indian middle class that was well educated and had aspirations despite the enormous socialist policies of the Congress Party. Computers and cell phones were not common household toys. Beauty contests and Miss Universe titles were virtually unknown. Television was limited to the single Doordarshan channel unlike the numerous channels offered today by the satellite companies.
The summer holidays invariably began with the last day at school where the school teacher would alternately wring and clasp her hands in frustration at not getting the students attention and pure pleasure of not having to yell and scream for a period of two months. The teachers pay was inversely proportional to the energy they spent in controlling the students. No wonder they often resorted to corporal punishment in order to maintain discipline and take out their frustration with the government on students. The school peon would ring the last bell of the term and all the students would celebrate their holidays with loud yells and screams. We would all run home and dump our bags unceremoniously somewhere in the house and then try to enjoy the end of exams by doing practically nothing…..a big difference from feeling guilty about not finishing homework.
TV was not very common in middle class households during the 80’s and so those that had it invariably ended up sharing it with that those that did not have it. We possessed a television set but shared with our less fortunate neighbors and servants. The kaamwali (maidservant) would often show up with the dhobi’s (washer man) son. Mr. Chaturvedi’s four sons would be regulars for Chitrahaar….an Indian movie song countdown. The news was a much watched affair with daddy shushing us quite often in order to get his headlines right. Serials such as Humlog and Ramayan were legendary. All jobs and chores would come to a standstill while people sat down, eyes glued to the television set.
When we were not watching TV, we were busy trying to pack up and go away. The Indian middle class could not, and still does not take any vacation to do serious sight seeing. It is a luxury that only the rich in India can afford. However, summer holidays and school shutdown for a couple of months meant that parents had unruly kids to manage for a long period of time. In order to make things easier, there would be a mass exodus all around the country for people to go and visit Grandparents. This travel would be invariably by railways. Indian railways have and will always be special. It is the most important means of travel for the average middle class Indian. In those days, flights were common
but limited only to the rich. The Indian highway system has always been a joke in the past. So, the people relied on the massive iron roosters to carry them around. Train travel in my childhood was romantic. We traveled from Delhi in the north to Hyderabad in the south to visit my maternal grandparents every summer vacation.  Food always tasted so good on the train.Mother would pack a nice dinner comprising of puris and achaar (pickle)
Window seats in the train compartment were really popular. I have beautiful memories of the Rajdhani express pulling out of the Delhi station. Pretty soon the train would be speeding past fields of rice, whole villages and the rustic Indian countryside. I can recollect almost all the stations on the line since it was such a major route. The train halted at Gwalior, Agra, Jhansi, Mathura, Nagpur, Bhopal, Warda, Kazipet and then finally Secunderabad. The fort of Jhansi would always remind me of the epic poem of Jhansi ki rani by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan. Always the budding archeologist, I would try and romanticize about how this very landscape would have appeared during the Moghul Empire and the 1857 mutiny. I particularly remember the ravines of the Chambal valley, notorious for dacoits and bandits from time immemorial.
Traveling in India is very perilous, as many travel guides and the locals themselves will inform you. However, the average Indian is a curious individual. If he travels with family, then all the more so. I remember mummy chatting with our fellow passengers who were often, a boisterous Marwadi family on their way to the south to visit their relatives. Despite the fact that the food would always be shared around, I could never stop wondering how the kids continued to stuff themselves with homemade delights.

My grandparents lived in an independent house in the outskirts of the main city of Hyderabad. Of course, the congestion and population explosion of today means that somehow, the ‘outskirts’ has become incorporated into the main city itself. It is amazing how big Hyderabad really is today. The house was a typical 60’s construction with the usual number of bedrooms and bathrooms. I loved the four tall coconut trees that swayed in the wind. While northern India had the banyan, Peepal and Neem trees, the south was characterized by coconut trees. Life was very relaxing with great food and plenty of carom board games with my cousins and most important of all, no homework to take care off. .

However, the best part of a holiday was the guilt free book reading that I could indulge in. Indians of my age grew up with Enid Blytons, Asterix, Tintin, Nancy Drews, Phantom, Mandrake and Amar Chitra Katha comics. I lived my life through them and could almost taste Blyton’s trademark picnics where children indulged in mouth watering sandwiches and fruit before saving the day. Blyton’s world was perfect, too perfect as some critiques would put it. But as a kid I could never get my hands on them long enough. It was a real paradox that in a land that valued learning and books so very much, libraries were mostly unknown. I remember a couple of private lending libraries close to our home in Hyderabad that I frequented. They were shabby affairs, ramshackle sheds with tin roofs, dark and dingy inside. But, there were all sorts of hidden delights out there that would tempt the bookworm in me. When I look at the sophisticated British and American libraries out in major Indian cities today, I can only shake my head in wonder.
 India has a strong British influence when it comes to literature and names like P.G.Wodehouse and Agatha Christie are thoroughly appreciated. Long before J.K.Rowling wrote her masterpiece Harry Potter series; there were the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. How many hours I enjoyed burying my nose through some mystery with the Secret Seven or some adventure with the famous five!
One of the main highlights of summer holidays were the mangos. To an Indian, a mango is divine. I can still taste the luscious Alphonso, Banginpalli, Totapooris and the Rasams that were heaped up for sale in the markets. They were delicious and juicy and the adults would always be worried about how we could ruin our clothes or the furniture while eating. Mangoes were used to make daals, curries, pickles, sweets and of course, they were also served ripe which was the best way to eat them.

Summers in India can be extremely hot. Summer days were no different in my childhood. Television commercials took advantage by airing commercials full of delicious coolants. It became a routine for most Indian middle class families to make Rasna soft drink out of the concentrate sold in stores. Rasna was the most popular brand of do-it-yourself softdrinks that came in a variety of flavors. Visitors were almost always offered Rasna Mango, orange or Pineapple flavored drinks. In a country where only the rich had access to swimming pools, these iced soft drinks served the purpose of providing relief.

Summer holidays were a truly delightful when I was a child. We did not have 30 channels on television to watch English serials like Friends and Sex in the City. We did not have video games and computers to surf the internet. We did not even have good libraries to borrow books from. But, we had time; time that belonged to us; to spend in whichever way we wanted. I remember so many lazy and leisurely afternoons that I sat by under some tree to read the latest adventure of Tintin and Snowy or hunt for a ripe guava from the guava tree in the backyard. Time is something that the kids today lack completely. They have all the latest gadgets and gizmos that money can buy. They have more choices that we ever did during our childhood. But, somewhere along the way, they seem to have lost all the time that we had. It is the latest computer course or coaching class that they all seem to go to. Ask any parent today and he/she will inform you rather proudly that his/her kid is doing so and so program during the summer. One can rarely get any time off the odd kid/teenager nowadays. One wonders where those idyllic summer holidays went. The answer is that the time is past for all those old and almost forgotten things.

(Photo credits: Asterix.com, indusladies.com,http://www.ddindia.gov.in/,en.wikipedia.org,)