NOSTALGIA

NOSTALGIA

The old time piece sat in the brown wooden show case which is used as a prayer stand. The stand is two glassed cupboards joined together with a flat wooden piece. The wooden cup boards were made mimicking the old Greecian pillars with flat tops. As the two pillars stood apart with a television stand cum cassette holding drawers we had added the new idea of the flat plate on top to use it as the prayer stand.

While the upper stand can be used for prayer purposes, the show cases below held the old items like used prayer books, the old merit medals of our children, some photographs and the old books which had been presented to them which they had left behind on leaving the house on marriage and their own works.

They had kept it diligently, till they left and, often reminding us of the importance they carried to them, with the result we thought of not disposing them off. They remained in their places and now after years together, whenever we came across them, when we opened the shelf for cleaning or searching for something else, they at times overwhelmed us. Thus was the time piece of the yesteryears named “Swito” A 'Swito' alarm time piece with a handle on top and also aN alarm stop button, is not an item of these days. In olden days, it came to houses where somebody needed to wake up on particular times and this was the equipment to be had if the family had the wherewithal.

Children's school was our fright of the morning, especially in winters when any body can sleep upto eight o' clock in the morning, if not they were insistent to get up at six. For this, the alarm-time piece was a big help, as it started ringing with a slow 'grrrrr' sounding bell, at five in the morning slowly unwinding the wind, which we filled up before going to bed the day before.

It is not that our children got up at the bell, but it helped us to get up as parents and start calling up the children. That also had its own rhythm! First my wife will call me and the children and will move to the kitchen to make tea and boil a little water for the children to take bath. A geyser for hotwater was not fashion or possible for the lower middle class! Once she moved, it was my turn to move and call the children, our daughter and son to get up and start the day..!

Our daughter got up either at the first call or at any of the subsequent calls according to the degree of tiredness of the day before. Generally it was by the third or fourth call..! And since she was elder she had a sense of seriousness in this matter and tried to get up after a few calls mostly. If not, we picked her up from the bed and said some endearing words which made her alert and there after she was guided to her moring chores by her mother. But the case with my son was slightly different! He was a good sleeper and could sleep fast and long and normally did not want to get up in the morning..! So had to be called many times with a few shouts thrown in at times. Sometimes it came to no avail and he called back in half asleep mode: “Hmm...kya hai?...” That was when we generally picked him up and slowly carried him to the bath room for the bath. We slowly seated him in the bath room floor on his little chappels and he sat there sleeping. Once luck warm water is poured he would warm up and take part in the next part of the ablutions of the morning and will come out charming by the time for the school bus.

The driver of the bus, a sturdy fellow from the villages, did not wait even for a second, if the children are late! Coming from a village back ground of farmers who generally get up very early in the mornings and go about their chores, he could not stand chhildren not ready for the bus on time, even though, it is too early in the winter months. At times, we thought, he had a grudge against all those children who are able to go to school in the cities bu bus as children in villages always walked to the nearby school. The Blue Dialled, 'SWITO' alarm time piece supported us in catching up with the furious driver who was a stickler for time punctuality and we always thought his morning appearance is a blessing in disguise..! Now the time piece sits comfortably in retirment in the great wooden show case.Now our children are away and no more need them and the Alarm Time Piece it self has taken retirement, but we have not allowed it to go into oblivion. It is our fetish and privilege to keep and look after the old things of yore which gives us a kind of nostalgic pleasure even though it overwhelms us at times.

Below the alarm time piece is the picture frame with the beautiful picture our daughter made with our help, of a buttlerfly sucking honey from a flower with various colours in a white back ground neatly put into a glass frame! Simple families in the villages did not have the power to buy this costly equipment for forty or sixty rupees or so in those days in the eighties and ungrudgingly, they made use of the household cock, who gave an alarm from time to time or at least at five in the morning or sometime around.

Both my daughter and son do not use such equipment these days, instead uses the android or the computer which makes music or peculiar soothing alarm sounds which we the oldies are generally unfamilier, even though we like them..! This is today, but tomorrow may still be different!