Summer vacations were eagerly awaited. It was necessary to break away from an entire year’s academic burden, homework, marks, and deadlines. For me, it was an escapade, through the hairpin roads, through different terrains, green and arid, to finally to the place that occupies a large part of my memory. Visiting and revisiting the zig-zag lanes heading towards home became my favourite pastime after school — the visuals of ripening mangoes, rupturing jackfruits, and squishy cashew fruits, grandmother’s jar of unniappam, the walks on the leaves strewn land, the cracklings of dried leaves that felt like a kid’s giggle, and hoarding manjadikuru in containers. How do you sum this up? It goes on and on like Harper Lee’s descriptions of Scout and Jem’s childhood in To Kill a Mockingbird — the joy of finding a new friend, disagreements and disappointments, small adventures, lemonades, revelations, and scoldings.
Whether the joy of fleeing the monotony of one’s home or getting the license to evade the dull syllabus, vacations are unalloyed happiness and innocuous curiosities. And for many like me, summer holidays brought an unparalleled joy. As another school year is set to begin, here’s a cheers to summer vacations.
In a village setting
For Sandra PB, an HR professional, her first short solo journey from Kerala to Bengaluru, (to her dad’s place) in the early 2000s, was a bit about experiencing the novelty of travelling alone, and a bit about the worry of being on her own. But her sojourn in the city, even today, invites her to peep through the night-shone streets that fascinated her as a child. She says, “I would run to the road as soon as I hear the kebab vendor’s bicycle ringing. My study holidays, which were more or less like vacations, also meant strolls and sometimes visits to places like Lal Bagh.”
As opposed to the chaos and noise of Chennai, Swetha Manohar’s village in Thalassery’s quietness strikes a major shift in living patterns. She says, “Everyone in my village knows each other; wherever I go, people would inquire about us (after reaching home from Chennai).”
Swetha fondly recollects running around the orchards and the ancestral house in white cotton pinafore with her cousins; today, caught between the humdrum of work life, and calculated leaves, she recalls those summer vacations and her carefree days two decades ago. “Everyone would be ready right before the coconut tree climber, Ashokettan, would pluck the coconuts. Sitting together, we’d sip the tender coconut water in the open air,” she says. It felt like a ritual no one would ever want to miss.
Watching the moves of Theyyam, and being at the temples for the entire day, is another part of the vacation, she says is unforgettable. Summer vacations also meant spending more time with grandmother, who takes care of the tharavadu (ancestral home) and the orchard. She rues the new changes that snatched away the old charm of her fond old house. “The ancestral house has been demolished now; the roof tiles and courtyard have been made concrete, I don’t find a difference with the city houses.”
Riya Patwa, an 18-year-old who lives in Chennai, travels to Jodhpur, her hometown, during summer vacations. She would understand that she is nearing Jodhpur as the thorny shrubs fence her views. “We would then stay wide awake till we reach home; I remember a stall where we would always stop to have mirchi vadas,” she recalls. These are the indicators that say she is home. She vividly remembers her grandmother’s house and the courtyard where there is a high swing. Adding to this delight are the mirchi vadas and rasgullas that her grandfather brings her whenever he goes outside. “I was the first grandchild for my grandparents; I was spoiled by them; I would accompany them for any possible events. I would be a social butterfly going around anywhere with anyone,” she says. Playing ‘dark room’ and having pillow fights were the best parts of nights in Jodhpur for Riya and her cousins. She shares excitedly, “All cousins would huddle together and sleep in the living room.”
Five decades ago...
The summer vacations fifty years ago were something different. Zeema Kanakambaran, a retired headmistress, revisits the memories of the 1970s, when she was a school student. She would eagerly wait for the last day of school, and tell her father to inform her uncle to pick her up from Ithipuzha to her ancestral home in Vaikom, Kerala. Summer vacations meant “taking dips in the river, playing under a bushy plant called Kalyana chedi, going to streams and catching fish, making a stove-like structure.” Summer vacations were also a license to indulge in mischief. “Cashews start fruiting in the summer. We (she, her cousins, and her friends) would trade cashews for crackers. On guava trees, we would hang these crackers, and if we noticed anyone passing by, we would start bursting them,” she chuckles. Evenings meant staying indoors. As dusk spread over the day, and lamps were lit her, appuppan (grandfather) would teach her and her cousins to chant prayers. But for them, nothing was incomplete without a blob of playfulness. She says, “We would otherwise never chant prayers in the evenings, but at our ancestral home, we try our best to chant louder than the neighbour kids.”
Similarly, Anil PV’s vacations were usually spent at Moolamattom, Kerala, where his dad used to work. His vacations were spent outdoors, with bottled-up secrets and untold tricks. Narrating his childhood stories from the 1970s, he says, “There was a pond near my home; if I would come to know that snakes appeared in the premises, my friends and I would do our utmost to find them and kill them.” This was one of his activities from his tight schedule. Hunger in between playtime would be satiated with intermittent snacks, which could be found in and around the village. “We would roast cashews and eat.”
He goes on about how the bunch of friends had an expertise in hiding secrets, “Injuries were part of our play time. But we would not tell at home because of the fear of not being allowed to go out and play; so we would extract a powdery substance from the tender part of the leaves, and lather it on the injury.” Hurts and healing were quite insignificant in front of the greater joy of just being with friends.
Vacations did not spare him entirely from work, like cutting grass from the field. His mother would allow him to go only after he had cleared off the list of chores. But in the rush to step out and play, Anil remembers all his friends lending a hand.
Each generation has a story to tell, with different plots and settings, vivid and enormous emotions. For some, vacations were exit doors from the everyday rut, while for some, a way to know more about their families and beginnings, a long run from the clutches of parental control, and carefree handful of days with grandparents and old friends.