Do you remember the molten gelatine-jelly smudges that would never leave your school book pages? Red, Blue, Orange, and Green, these rounded packs came in all the colours and sizes that we often used to compare with the rainbow. The grey bookshelf in the corner of my room still has handwritten notes in cursive. How ecstatic we used to feel while reciting those stories from our self-made chapbooks!
Do you remember the goblins that we used to draw on the back pages of our notebooks? How their scary looks and hair-raising expressions gave us sleepless nights in those ‘Good Old Days.’ The elaborate collection of fountain pens, quills, inkpots and those dark blue daubs would never fade away from my memory.
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Do you remember how we compared the slicker and the simplest of the fellows in our class? And how those dandelions in the park would fascinate us? With the gentlest touch, we could scatter and flutter their wings as high as we could — the air felt fresh and charged. The petals would reach the Stratosphere, and touch the ether. A few petite dandelions could bring happiness.
Do you remember those little fingers at work and the faintly smiles with which we'd release these dandelions into the air? All those 'Good Old Days’ have now transitioned into Dante's 'Inferno'. It seems a palpable descent into the 'Circles of Hell.' Dandelions have been replaced by Delusions; goblins do not excite us anymore. We are all stuck in a rut of despondency with a visage so whitewashed.
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How could you not miss those ‘Good Old Days’ of Shakespeare’s Hamlet where everything felt so natural and perfect? In this day and phase, life seems to take a jetéor a ballet Leap towards an actorly perfection. It is more of a feigned existence — that earnestness is long-lost now. Christmas festoons and buntings do not thrill me any longer. Do you ever marvel at this cycle of change? This is one of the reasons why science gave us the idea of the ‘Time Warp’, it makes life less miserable.
I belong to the clan who can fancy those ‘Good Old Days’ of ‘Gelatine’, ‘Goblins’ and ‘Dandelions’. In the next warp of life, I would rather be a sky gazer or a nature enthusiast who would devour jellies, draw goblins on blank pages and release dandelions up in the air. Here is to the times when we would wake up next to Lilacs and where spring would last forever – salud! Reliving those ‘Good Old Days,’ we will gaze at the night sky, and count the bigger stars with the same degree of happiness. Once more we will paint the sky as blue as our imagination, nights will be starry, moonlight brighter and that’s when we will come full circle but this time in those ‘Good Old Days’.
(Hina Fatima Khan is a multimedia journalist.)
