FOOTPRINTS ON THE SANDS OF TIME

By Anamika Saxena

Taking a break from your daily mundane schedule is always exciting and pleasurable. Planning a vacation is always a fun task, but the arrangement, the bookings and pressure of finding the best deal can sometimes be a time consuming and painful task. There is no dearth of exotic and attractive tourists locations to be explored. Many things have to be kept in mind before embarking on a vacation.
As it is said, “A vacation is anticipated with pleasure and remembered with nostalgia” There was a time when vacations meant family time, no tourists locations. Summer was the time to bond with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. We all have atleast one childhood memory of a long and tiring train journey, the destination chosen only because a relative lived there. Food was packed and a pack of cards were at hand. We used to hop on a crowded train, hoping to catch on upper berth or a window seat. Not only were train journeys fun, they were simpler, cleaner and safer too. Things have changed quite a lot now.
Age has now made us aunts, uncles, dada-dadi, nana-nani. We now want our children and grandchildren to visit us and spend some time with us. These visits are short, compared to our month long visits back then, bringingina whole lot of fun and excitement.
I still remember once I went along with my friends to visit a small temple on the banks of River Narmada. We strolled there and then when we went inside the shrine, we found a living presence in the image. The whole place was dark, only the eyes of the “stone Goddess “were shinning. Everything looked very mysterious and we could sense someone in the dark, a “face” with its penetrating eyes looking at us. “In a town of Gods, housed in a little shrine From sculptured limbs the Godhead looked at me, A living presence, deathless and divine, A Form that harboured all infinity, All of us were scared and ran for our lives. We shared our experiences with our grandparents and they all laughed, as they knew about the temple, where an old, kind-hearted ‘sadhu’ stayed. They told us many other stories related to the temple.
If you think that your grandchildren might be the kind to enjoy stories, go ahead- spin your own entertaining tales and keep them occupied. Try to keep technology out of reach. Play traditional and rustic games like ‘hopstick’, gilli-danda, marbles, pittu, etc. Bring down the dusty games and revive your old memories. “All we have is all we need, All we need is the awareness Of how blessed we really are”.