The Forgotten Life...

I was quietly reading my course book in my room upstairs. There was an eerie silence apart from the cracking sound of the fan. I was pretty much immersed in my work when i heard loud shouts and yells and ecstatic screams down somewhere... I closed my book, keeping it in the shelf I went outside in the balcony. The weather, like the last few days was cloudy and rains could be expected in next few hours. I looked down to see the source of the noises and evidently it was the large group of colony kids playing the traditional game of Sitolia which had been handed down from one generation to the next in our colony. 

I was instantly transported back to some 3-4 years back and I walked down the memory lanes as i became nostalgic. I remembered how as kids, we use to ring the bells of all our "team-mates", at sharp 4 pm. Not a minute up and not a minute down. The brick was laid and the seven shining marble stones were set beautifully on the red brick. We warmed up much like the professional players, passing the ball to each other till everyone collected at the meeting place - the road! Lines were drawn, boundaries fixed and players ready... Now it was the time of team division. We divided teams by locally and personally developed ways and had a toss, not of heads or tails but generally of white or brown which used to be the color of a roadside stone!!! As the game started, there was a lot of physical, mental, technical and stressful work included. We played with all our strength and hearts and gave our best shorts for our teams each day... As the sun set leaving behind a dark and cool night, and as the calls of "mothers" started coming for dinner, we used to part with the promise to meet the next day again...We returned homes all messed up and dirty much like the warriors after a victory.


I came back to the reality and suddenly felt that the stress and pressure of the real world had actually confined all of us - my generation, to the confines of our rooms. Within the four walls, we have the internet of course, and we feel connected to the world - The global community, right? But are we really "connected"? To traditions? To our roots? To our long lost childhood? But we can definitely play games over the internet with our friends sitting thousands of miles away, we can celebrate Diwali, Holi, Rakhi, everything virtually no matter in which corner of the world we are... But my friends, we have lost that personal touch, that "life" long before and we did not even realize what we are losing.

My heavy course books, the tuition load, the study pressure won't allow me to go out and play Sitolia - My all time favorite game like my childhood days... So, i just sit here and wait EA Sports to launch a PC Sitolia game, so i can at least play it "virtually".... Kudos to Technology!

:-)


Adios!