Good afternoon, dear reader! I hope you have a blanket and food and water and that you’re safe and protected and around people who care. I know the world we live in right now is scary. Every single day, there is some issue that needs resolution, some life-changing event that disrupts the monotony of routine and turns worlds upside down.
I am grateful to have a stable Internet connection, access to virtual classrooms and some Netflix to keep me company. It’s a far from ideal situation; however, the best part of the quarantined life has been that I’ve been able to get in touch with some cooking skills. I managed to cook honey chilli potatoes a couple of months ago, and they turned out fabulously, if after a lot of tears and head-cracking. More recently, I watched the entire series of ‘Gilmore Girls’ with my Mum. It was an interesting experience, and for many different reasons .
Without telling you too much about the story, the show centers on a mother and a daughter who live in the fictional town of Stars Hollow. The town’s community is largely supportive, crime is almost nonexistent, and all the amenities required for survival and entertainment exist – from pharmacies and markets to bookstores, at least 3 different cuisines to choose from for a dine-out, a video store, a bookstore, and close proximity to larger cities. In fact, I don’t believe a town as idyllic and peaceful as this exists in the real world.
The characters make a lot of references to bygone popular culture, a lot of which escapes me even now. However, I don’t mind. The setting makes me long for a life I never had, while at the same time making me reminisce about the friends and family I was fortunate to have throughout my childhood. The city where I live currently is not small. It isn’t a metropolis either. However, it is sufficiently large to justify parental restrictions on wandering about it alone. There are 3 malls, each with its own distinct personality – one popular hangout, one chic and high-end, one low-key and understated. We have numerous restaurants, including fast food chains and fancy 5-star hotels, speckling the landscape of the region. There’s some sort of laser tag arena, and a lot of bookstores that sell second-hand books, if you know where to look for them. And, naturally, Amazon delivery services exist – which is a blessing to those who have immigrated from bigger cities, or to those who enjoy shopping without actually going out and interacting with the very inquisitive outside world.
It wasn’t always like this, though. Our city used to be smaller, with a lot more playgrounds. The only swimming pool I was aware of at the time, besides the one at our apartment, was at a really fancy clubhouse in the middle of the city – a building that resembled one out of Greek mythology picture books, in some ways. My parents didn’t buy things from Domino’s or KFC. I mean, I don’t think these outlets even existed at the time. There was one single Pizza Hut, and it had a playpen for kids, so the few times we visited there in the span of three years were amazing. There were no malls – just a very large departmental store filled with buckets, as my memory registered it. I’m sure there were other things on sale, but my brain can only remember rows upon rows of stacks upon stacks of colourful buckets and steel plates.
We had two huge supermarkets – one of them had a whole section dedicated to books and magazines, where my parents would take me on the occasion I was nice and well-behaved during the actual supermarket trip. I still have stacks of those magazines around. There was one large star hotel – The Residency, it was called. A tall, forbidden building with fountains and a buffet – I wouldn’t experience a good buffet until years later. One of my favourite memories about the city is when they built a water park on its outskirts. It was themed like a kingdom, and had a lot of really cool rides. Some of my best childhood experiences revolve around its bouncy castles, pav bhaji and towering slides.
There was an arcade-like place near the central fruit shop in the city. Arcades were out of budget, usually, but I did get to go on rare occasions. It was fun. There were large metallic animals, spinnyalien spaceships, a metallic Hello Kitty hot air balloon, and a monkey that climbed a tiny palm tree as you sat on its back – I was tiny then, not the tangled mass of limbs writing this. I’d be a little shorter than the palm tree now, maybe. Oh, and I just remembered the rivalry of the ice-cream parlours. One of them was part of a franchise – it still is. We never went there. We frequented another establishment with, in my mind, tastier ice-cream. It was called Bon-Bon, and they served a special called Kiddy Treat. This special had chocochips, jellos, Gems, ice-creams, wafers, and so much more – a veritable Candyland treat.
The school I went to had enormous paintings on the walls. We were allowed to experience dance, music, art and cookery. We were given opportunities to speak, run, read and write. We had worksheets instead of homework assignments, four-lined notebooks to practice cursive in, and colourful textbooks filled with words and shapes and patterns. We lived for star stickers and those puffy smiley-faced stickers and the words of encouragement from our teachers marking our work as ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’ or the most lauded ‘Excellent’.
Our city was safer than most. It wasn’t an epicentre of crime or vandalism. It wasn’t a boiling pit of lava either. Perhaps it’s a testament to my parents and teachers and the people at the shops where we bought cold glass bottles of mango juice, or tiny Cheetos packets, or those fluorescent slurpy jellies. It’s a testament to how much these people made me feel about the world around me. I never felt that the world was unsafe or scary.
I’d ramble on about the other beautiful and quirky aspects of my childhood, but since I aim to focus on the memories my city gave me, I will stop here. I can only reflect on how the city has changed after all these years, and how many things it has given, and how many it has taken away. There are more bus lines, highways, bridges and complexes. There are theatres and boutiques and entertainment options galore. There’s an annual marathon and an annual Food Fair. There are many things that constantly evolve about the city, and I can’t keep pace with how quickly it has left me behind.
As I sit in my room rewatching clips of ‘Gilmore Girls’, I am filled with a sense of happiness; it is a hope that the future will bring memories as pleasant as the past, and more excitable than the present – a future of hugs and dances and adventures and safety and comfort and being happy.
Thank you for being part of this corner of the Internet.
Ever around,
The Nerdy Snickerdoodle
My Literary Fantasia 