"Kids don't stay too long in the water...you will catch cold", Grandma would shout from behind. We would just say 'yes' for the sake of saying 'yes' and run to the fields with our clothes paying no heed to her advice. :D
Summers...I would wait forever for the vacations to begin so that I could pack my bag for my village and to have those adventures with my cousins. It would start with the permission to take bath underneath the huge water-pump in our fields for as long as we wanted ...jumping, splashing, falling with a thud... :P chasing the cows that would accidentally enter our paddy fields while grazing, looking out for varieties of snakes and the sighting of unusual birds and the undying curiosity to know what they are called. Once there was sunflower cultivation and that year our joys knew no bounds as we would spend hours marvelling the beauty of the crop swaying in the gentle summer breeze.
A joint-family offers you the benefits of having a gang of your own...a 'chillar' party to be precise!!! We would eat together, play together, roam together,etc. a perfect illustration of togetherness. Perhaps it is during these summer holidays that this part of the world revives and rejoices.
We would be strictly warned not to escape from our abode during the noon,with one of the elders of the house keeping an 'eye' on us. Alas! if they had ever known that we excelled in co-curricular activities too. Playing 'sleeping as dead' was our left-hand job and we could easily trick them into this. When the vigilant 'eye' was convinced, we would make our way to the place where stacks of hay had just been brought from the paddy fields and mounded like a hill. We would play behind these huge mounds unnoticed!! ;) Ever wondered what our stuff for our games were?? ... coconut shells, dolls and utensils made out of clay,and also not to miss out those 'hide-and-seek's, 'gully-cricket's...
The declaration of the weekend fishing would be made... and we all would suddenly get over-excited.While the males of the family would descend into the waters of the pond with their fishing-nets, we would stand at the banks watching them in awe. Our imaginations couldn't be left alone here either...they would throw the fishes tangled in their nets to us to catch and collect them in buckets and we would apply our judging criterion to 'Which on of these could be devoured?'... the smaller ones we would let go, our hearts filled with sympathy...send them back into the waters... hush!!! :)
I dreadfully miss those times... where technology had not invaded this part of the world then...when Grandma's bedtime-stories imparted us wisdom... where simplicity dwelled in each and every household and there was no greed...when we were more connected by our hearts than by network!!! :) I wish I could time-travel to re-live.