Jab main chota bachcha tha

One good thing about Diwali is the annual household-cleaning that we do. This time, I was home for Diwali in time for the safai exactly after 5 years. And I was given the task of cleaning my cupboard which hasn't been opened all this while (partly because I had forbidden everyone from even so much as touching my precious books). I got all nostalgic flipping through my comic book collection (I suspected some of the books were missing but noone would take the blame), the Harry Potter books, the random children's magazines I used to hoard (ever heard of Champak and Gokulam?). In particular, I was (hell.. I am) quite fond of my Nagaraj comics, yes, the ones with amazing titles like Thodanga ki Maut and Pratishodh ki Jwala. Sigh! Those were the days, when Super Commando Dhruva could solve almost any problems on earth and when I learnt that Chacha Chaudhary's mind ran faster than a computer before I learnt what a computer was.

A lot has changed since then:
* Kids no longer read comics and they no longer play Ludo or Snake/Ladders
* They don't have to wait for Sunday morning to watch cartoon shows (Talespin, Jungle Book and Ducktales.. I can still watch them if given a chance). Actually my kid cousins don't watch cartoons at all. They prefer watching serials on Colours and Star Plus with their moms
* Definition of bigadna has changed from this to this

Not that I am the same anymore. I have become as careless and useless as was ever possible. Imagine, I kept thinking that I had booked my tickets from Bombay to Calcutta for evening. And then at 11 in the night the day before, I realize that I had actually booked tickets for morning 7 AM and not evening 7 PM! What followed was total chaos and a lot of snide taanaas from wifey and family.

Anyway.