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The scorching heat of May-June, sipping on countless glasses of Glucon-D one after another, monsoon rains to soothe our sweaty bodies; I miss summer vacations.

 Nostalgia is like an unforeseen wave on the vast and uncharted seashore of blurred memories; washing down our immortal soul with the bitter-sweet syrup of the past. A frequent visitor in most minds, the nostalgia of school days unconsciously forms a subtle curve on our lips; an uninvited smile at times and a known frown on some days.

After a tiring day of online classes while you sip into a glass of lemonade, scrolling through your Instagram feed to move your eyes up from the screen only to complain about the extra sourness of the drink, your eyes fall on the calendar. Apart from realising that fact that time flies away and disappears into stardust, you notice the month: June. Your mind spontaneously retraces itself to the fogged memories of summer vacations; no studies, endless rounds of hide-seek from dawn to dusk, stealing mangoes from the neighbour’s backyard and what not.

The last working day of school before the commencement of the vacation held a different vibe to it. The sadness of being parted away from your school friends for one and a half months was muffled by the joys of relaxation from academics. You restlessly tap your feet with alarmed ears to hear the ringing of the final bell. Once the hands of the clock align themselves with the chutti time, an uproar is followed with the same. The silent corridors become a witness to the thunderstorm of students storming out of their classrooms, the whispers of gossip and rumours amidst the commotion and the lively chaos for one last time before it delves into a state of hibernation.

You bid farewell to your friends for the short long duration of the summer vacation, get up on the bus and sit on the last seat. While you slide the rusted window with all your strength to allow some air to soothe down your sweaty forehead, you take one last glance at the school. An eerie silence forms around those once animated lifeless walls of the palace-like building. You carefully store the aesthetic scenery in your mind under the album of ‘school life’ to cherish when you reunite with your lost, unforgettable friends from school.

Looking back, summer breaks for me were nothing less than a patchwork of metaphors- amber coloured evenings laced with the sound of laughter, too many hands in one single basket of mangoes, my grandmother and her lullabies, wishes whispered upon dandelion fluffs, the sea and the sunshine. everyday blessed me with a new story of its own and i count each of these stories as my most treasured memories,

–cherishes Bidisha P. Kashyap from Guwahati, Assam.

 

These days of leisure which were supposed to spin off by laziness playing the role of protagonist goes on to start with your mother switching off the Air-Conditioner (AC) or fan and waking you up vigorously. Once awake, there’s no scope that any of your family members would find you in the house anymore. You hurriedly brush your teeth, push down a slice of bread into your mouth and boom! You directly run down to the ground floor to catch up with the buddies from the same housing society or nearby areas and decide on the games to play the whole day till the sun sucks all of the Glucon-D in your body.

On some days, you lazily lie on your bed while your mind goes on a stroll with Shikari Shambu within the colorful, twisted lanes of Tinkle comics; a golden era of innate happiness without the aid of social media and mobile phones. The cravings for a dozen sweet-sour mangoes take birth within you; a desire that a single mango handed down by your mother cannot satisfy. The longing for a frizzy Kala-Khatai would grow with the passing of each minute, eagerly waiting for the seller to set up his stall in the afternoon. You decide on your choice of flavour before going up to the seller only to reconsider your decision when you see those vibrant colours gleaming in front of your eyes. After fighting battles with your own self on the choice of flavour, you decide on one and you see the seller doing his magic. You suck into the colourful ice and the soothing water snakes down your throat to calm down the heat burning inside you.

Sometimes there is a desperate desire to go back in time and wait in anticipation till the bell rings on the last day of school before summer break. The memories of enjoying summer break in our grandparent’s village,playing in the rain,eating mangoes on the porch and kicking aside studies to live a peaceful life hit you hard now as you watch them from a distance

–states Mridusmita Barman.

The vacation would remain incomplete without a trip to your grandparents’ abode in which the walls speak of love and objects resonate memories of the past. You listen to their stories; some vibrate with patriotism, some with the innocence of your parent’s childhood narrations. You move away from the hustle and bustle of the city life to embrace the quietness of the abode, romanticising the peace and trying to pack a bottle of it when you return back to the city lights that cast a fainter light than the fireflies that you chased down in your grandpa’s kitchen garden.

Amidst the warmth of the summer fairies and the evenings dyed in raspberry shades, you suddenly realise the never-ending summer vacations are about to get over. You turn your eyes towards your study table to see a pile of assignments stacked at one corner; to cry and crib about spending the holidays in a more productive manner.

Unfortunately, all of these memories now feel like an utopian dream; washed away like the dust resting on the old photograph frames by the monsoon rains of time.

 

Read Also: “Delhi Rains: Evenings of Nostalgia and Love

 Featured Image Credits: Sukriti Singh for DU Beat.

 

Himasweeta Sarma

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A large part of our childhood is made of summer vacations at our Grandmother’s house. It is the single most vibrant memory full of being pampered, getting stuffed like a roasted chicken, made-up games that ended up in fights and screaming matches with cousins and days that ended too quickly. 

With dirty faces and flayed knees, we ran around amok like a flock of wild geese with no sense of propriety or fear of parents. In short, it was unadulterated freedom served to us in huge beautiful summer away from studies and parents.   

Even as summer heat roasted us red and brown, it still was hard to tame us and get us to stay put in one place. It feels like another lifetime when our energy was limitless and wicked ideas came to us in spades. 

My grandmother was a warm oasis of affection who told me mythical stories, showed me constellations, fed me mysterious things and scolded my cousins when they left me out from their games because I was the only girl. She protected me from my parents when I fell off a cliff while aping my brothers in acts of daring and bravery which they specifically told me not to do.  

When you are all grown up, the whole meaning of summer vacations changes. In college, it is either interning, vacationing at some exotic place or staring at your ceiling fan filled with the existential crisis while your work is calling your name with the insistence of that one clingy ex. 

The summer vacations at grandmother are not similar to what you were used to. The annoying cousins are all grown up with their noses stuck deep down their books and breaking manly voice under the pretext of which they act like gangsters but come off like cheap cronies. The communication is no longer around a carrom board pulling each other’s leg relentlessly but sitting in the same room and sending each other inane texts. 

The whole ecstatic environment has changed and feels grown-up. 

You are no longer spending your days out in summer heat creating havoc with the relentless energy of a child who has a lot of time and no worries. You are cooped up inside the four walls and still staring at your ceiling fan worrying about the trivialities of life. Even in the face of the broken arm, you were dauntless and strong, a small paper-cut can now result in complete breakdown.

However, Grandmother is the only constant. Even though she is old now and suffering her own health woes. She still scolds you for being thin, not coming to meet her and not regularly calling her. She still sings her hymns in the low lilt and you still wake up to her low humming at the break of dawn. She still protects your bad habits from your parents and spoils you rotten with her affection and love. 

The timeless quality of that one amazing summer is fading and only your memory preserves it. But whenever you are feeling blue and low, that memory will always serve as a constant source of happiness. 

Feature Image Credits: lisa.falson via Instagram.

Antriksha Pathania
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Summer vacations allow you time to work on yourself, it is the kind of luxury that one normally doesn’t enjoy on regular days. A very important aspect of self-development is reading, here is a list that you must have checked-off by the time vacations end.

 

  • Anne of Green Gables: This dear book written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery has an entire world of hope to offer to the readers. Orphaned Anne Shirley is adopted by siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had initially wanted a boy. But she brings light and life to the fictional town of Avonlea and becomes an instant favourite of every town-dweller.
    Fun fact, it has been scientifically proven that reading this book helped with anxiety and depression.

 

  • The Little Prince: Originally “Le Petit Prince”, written by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a beloved children’s book, translated and read throughout the world. But don’t let that fool you! This novella has an extraordinary way of getting us face-to-face with the sheer absurdity that is in growing up into adults who don’t wonder at life anymore. The Little Prince in the book leaves his planet to travel the universe, and shares with the readers experience that they will hopefully remember all their lives.

 

  • Brave New World: This dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley is enough to make you uncomfortable with yourself, and then proceed to think long and hard about the world that exists. The novel features genetically-modified citizens who are conditioned to perfectly suit social hierarchies, made to normalize death, given a ration of soma or a governmentally-sanctioned drug that makes the citizens be in a state of euphoria, etc. John, who is a ‘normal’ human, or in Huxley’s terminology, a ‘savage’, questions the system. This book is sure to keep you hooked throughout.

 

  • To Kill a Mockingbird: It surprises me how many people have not read this beautiful book written by Harper Lee. The story is told from a child’s perspective and talks about fabricated rape charges against men of colour – a practice that was not uncommon in that period of time. Because of the protagonist being a child, the story is narrated in a more humanised way that is allowed to only children and makes one think about the evils that the humankind is capable of.

 

  • Gone Girl: A mystery/thriller novel written by Gillian Flynn is a sure nail-biter with all of the suspense that it holds till the very end. Nick and Amy Dunne are a picture-perfect couple until suddenly, Amy goes missing, and the plot reveals itself and morphs into something that the readers never anticipated was coming their way
    This flawlessly-plotted book is a page-turner, and putting the book down to get work done will be a misery.

 

Happy reading!

Feature Image Credits: Netflix

 

Maumil Mehraj

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