Blog 17 – Lost and Found



When I was around 8 years old, my mother and I went to the famous Ranganathan street in T. Nagar for Diwali shopping. Chennai residents will know how crowded this street usually is and festival times are even worse. However, what brings so many to this street is the wide range of shops it has, where one could buy everything including electronics, kitchen vessels, toys, flowers and clothes. When we reached the street, my mother told me to hold her hand tight or I would get lost in the crowd. I held her hand firmly and we walked into the street, and made our way to one shop after another, getting the items on our list.

Generally, my mother would plan our outings in the non-peak time of the day, which was usually between 11 am-3 pm, when the crowd would be minimal. On this particular day, we were delayed, and it was past 5 pm when we got out of our final shop. As soon as we exited the shop, the massive sea of people flowing into the street pushed me away from my mother, who also did not realize that I was separated as she was carrying many bags. I tried calling out her name but in the noise of the people and the vehicles, my voice didn’t reach my mother. She soon realized I was missing and panicked. She started looking for me frantically, trying to make her way back to the shop where she had held my hand. We spent a good one-hour walking in the same street, in the crowd, calling out each other’s names with no success.

Finally, a thought came to me – since I was a child, I was not visible to my mother due to my height. So, I found a shop that had 8-10 steps at its entry. I went and I quietly stood there, hoping that my mother could now spot me given that I am at an elevation and waiting at one spot. I am still amazed how my 8-year old brain thought of this but soon enough, my mother did find me, and we were both relieved to find each other! Since then, wherever we went (pre-mobile phone days), we would decide a common spot at the place to wait for each other if we ever got separated again!

#chennai
#childhood
#tnagarshopping
#90s
#lostandfound

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog 16 - School elections

If you have been reading my other posts and feeling jealous that I went to an awesome school, you are going to get further jealous! In addition to all the fun extracurricular activities, our school also had elections! Yes, you read that right! We had elections every year to select the School pupil leader or the SPL, assistant SPL (ASPL), the treasurer and the cultural secretary (this was a coveted position that most contestants were after). The ASPL would step in if the SPL was absent or if there were many tasks to do. I think the treasurer managed the funds of the student union. Usually, it was a commerce student that was selected for this post. The cultural secretary, people thought had a fun job, as he/ she was in-charge of the interschool ‘culturals’, where we would go to other schools and vice-versa to participate in various, fiercely battled competitions. But the reality was that the cultural secretary was often running around trying to get everything done while being in the ...
Read more

Blog 1 - My cycle(s)

The 1990s always remind me of a fun time of my childhood. An integral part of my childhood was my BSA champ cycle, a peculiar looking little cycle for kids below 5 th or 6 th standard: it had a long, narrow, mostly white colored seat and a long metal inverted-U shape rod for back support. I think it also came with a set of “ wheels ” , which were these small wheels that could be fixed to either side of the cycle, helping the rider achieve balance and preventing a learner from falling off. As the kid slowly learnt to balance and ride the cycle independent of the wheels, his/her confidence improved drastically. Unfortunately, I do not remember the day we bought the BSA champ or who bought it (must have been my parents). My grandfather ’ s employee, Prasad anna, a draftsman, lived in a portion in our house and was the person who first taught me how to ride my BSA champ cycle. I remember telling him not to let go of me, as he held firmly the U-rod at the back of the cycle and ask...
Read more