House With A Slip

"Children, those are slides..." said Mrs. Young, my Lower Nursery class teacher. "You are in a convent school; what is 'Slip Slip'? Speak proper English," as we made a long queue to take turns on the solitary yellow-colored slide beside our Pre-Primary section premises.

I instantly knew I had to go home and tell my aunts and Amma about this new English word.

As a child, I grew up in a joint family for the first 10 years as the only human who was below 10 years old, so obviously I was pampered and spoilt in every way a middle-class child could be pampered and spoilt. One of those episodes always had Nana take me to the park in the evenings whenever I wanted, but in the park, I always had to face a long queue in front of the Dolna—the swing. Back home, since everything was presented to me before I could know I needed it, this "waiting" game was too much for me to handle; so, of course, I switched my favorite from Dolna to the "Slip," which was always open, always less crowded.

In school, we could use the "Slip" only during PT periods in Pre-Primary—only twice a week, really! But come Class I, Primary Section, we were free birds graduating from the yellow plastic slide of Pre-Primary to the cemented slide in the central ground of our school! So, every morning, when our school bus would drop us at school 50 minutes before the school actually started, all of us—Bus No. 16 , 14 and Bus No. 8 friends—would gather around the three-faced cemented slide until the Assembly Bell. There was special joy on PT days when we wore keds because that would make running and reaching the top from the bottom front of the slide a cakewalk compared to the daily ballerinas.

This ritual stopped once we were in the Secondary section because other things started seeming more interesting. During this transition phase, one day we went to D-Uncle's new flat in a society of those times which had a slide INSIDE THE SOCIETY! My 10-year-old brain went giddy with dreams of living in such a house that would have a slide. In my dream house with a slide below, I would return home every evening and run to the slide and all would be well.

I remember living with this dream for a few days once we returned back home.

Then years passed, I grew up, and I don't remember getting on any kind of slide for at least the last 10 years, or maybe 20.

However, today, I noticed something. I had gone out to buy something in the morning and, in the random 10 degrees of Newtown's extra chilly winds while coming back, I saw that there are not one, not two, but three (technically four) slides right below my building.

These existed for the last 6 months as well, but they never seemed important enough to be given a moment of thought. When we were house hunting, this was not even on the list, whereas things like "Covered Parking" and "Security Deposit" were all that I cared about. What have I become?

Hence, this gratitude post from that 10-year-old dreamer.
The current me is still exhausted and low on faith, but at least I finally have the 'house with a slip', for now (fate Gods, no nazar and uprooting, please)