chapter 12 the lost childhood

Some changes around us happen so quietly and gradually that we barely take note of them. It might take us a really long time to notice such changes. They wouldn’t be matters that concern us everyday. But still we would have got so used to them unknowingly that one fine day when you notice finally that the irreversible change has occurred already it would be too late to do something about it. We will start blaming ourselves for the neglect, for taking it for granted for allowing it to take place without even a slight protest from our side. But some other times it will simply leave a scar on our hearts to remain raw throughout our lives.

When I was a kid I never enjoyed studying and always looked for a reason to get up from my study table. I always came up with good number of excuses to shirk. It used to range from something interesting that happened in my class which I want to share with my mother, to drink water or to ask a doubt or mosquitoes biting me or even pains and aches all over my body. One friend of mine who use to give me an excellent excuse every year without fail was fireflies. After summer when we are awaiting rainfalls, this friend of mine would come in thousands and help me escape my text books. Many a time I have looked out of a window and seen brown coloured something rising up in the air and coming out of the earth and felt a surging happiness inside me. I knew exactly what is to be done. It was the fire flies coming out of the earth to live the few seconds of life they are destined to live. All of us would rush around the house closing the windows and doors to avoid the insects coming in. but it would find its way invariably through air holes and start haunting all the lights in our house. then we would switch off all the lights in the house and switch on the lights outside our house so that they would all fly out of my house. and once we switch off the lights i need not study right? but as short lived as they are it would take only minutes for all of them to die leaving us in a eerie silence, for they have a characteristic sound of their own when they come in search of lights. how many times, as a little kid, i have wondered where it is coming from wondering whether they live in underground homes and even searching for them in the mud by digging soil with little twigs, and in the process discovering doodle bug but never the house of fireflies. it is all part of my childhood that i never really bothered about but gives me immense pleasure to simply think about now. the innocent me, the little me, the child in me...

but where are the fire flies now? i havent seen them for years now. is it extinct/ have the changes in soil, environment and even climate made it impossible for them to live in this place? are thay extinct? has a part of my childhood become a distant memory that i would never experienceit again to relive the innocence of a lost chilhood?