growing up without internet and mobile phones

I came from school every noon and excitedly had lunch, took bath and jumped to finish homework, which was by the way never of more than one hour (unlike these days), and after homework, I would go door to door to my neighbors collecting children. Everyday 4 pm was same. 

When I was a kid, I lived in my dad’s building. He built it himself and kept a whole floor to himself. It was a good 800 square yard apartment, bigger than a bungalow. Above us, lived our tenants. Luckily every tenant had young children. We would get out of our flats and hop to each apartment on all four floors, gather at one place and just play. Hopscotch, badminton, cricket, monopoly, cards, marbles, Uno etc… the list was never ending. (We even made cup phones to talk to each other.)Our doors were never locked throughout the day. Our apartment was the largest as others had four apartments on a floor. Therefore many times, everyone came to my place to use swings in our large atrium. 

I still sometimes hear the giggles and laughter floating in my subconscious. Sometimes, they make me smile and sometimes I find tears rolling. We would play monopoly for hours, or got stuck up on snakes and ladder. The fourth floor and the roof were my favourite parts. The fourth floor was the brightest and the roof was the widest. We used stairs’ concrete railings as slides. I don’t remember ever using stairs down from the roof. We always slid down. There was no fear. 

In the evenings, ladies of the building would come to the fourth floor with tea mugs in hands and sit on the steps to gossip. We would later sit down with them on floor and ask them to tell us stories. Those made up fake stories always had a moral to discipline us.  In the night we would sometimes put our mattresses on the rooftop and ask our aunt to tell us horror filled tales. It was remarkable how creative ladies were in those days. Their imagination was uncanny. I would shiver in my quilt, wiggling in my aunt’s body in terror. We could see the ghosts and evils from the story flying by us time to time.