A to Z challenge - V for Vacation

Once upon a time, it was just the summer vacation. The hope that kept us going through every 10-month session in school. Back then parents never worried about children forgetting the lessons during vacation and hence didn't send us for tuitions to prepare us for the next academic year. 

We spent our time exploring nature and enjoying outdoor games through the day, and watching our fill of TV programs in the evenings. There was a pineapple jungle, a cashew forest and paddy fields to explore. There were mango trees all around to discover new tastes. There was a lilly pond from where we would return with huge bunches of waterlilly in our hands. There were narrow streams running through fields and coconut groves that had a particular variety of tiny fish that would leap up to the surface of water to gobble up the white frothy balls of our saliva we collect in mouth and spit out on to the water. 

After school, vacations shrunk. Life was more unpredictable after every sessions. After Bachelor's degree, there were uncertainties of what next. Still the vacation was well-spent. I had a bunch of  cousins and kids from the neighborhood for company. End of teens or early adulthood never prevented me from enjoying fun games with them, our most favourite being hide-and-seek and touching-the-tree game.

Then it was the short vacations between four semesters of post-graduation. I continued to indulge in my favourite games and chat sessions in the evenings. A half-wall was our meeting point. Plots of lands weren't divided by huge walls then. It was just the base of walls that divided the plots. One such base was our adda. 

We would also play the indoor game of king-queen-police-robber outdoors. During summers, raw mangoes, rose apples, custard apple, cashew fruit and sometimes jackfruit would add taste to our sessions. All fresh from our backyard.

In 2004, I started working. First in Chennai, later Bangalore and now Delhi. Thus, after student life, vacations meant home. The short trips with friends I count as a different holiday. Initially it was a week or 10 days I would get every 4 months or so. From Delhi, the frequency has reduced to twice a year -- of two weeks each. 

Whatever the duration is, vacations mean that whiff of fresh air, inhaling that aroma of fresh rain, enjoying whatever is left of the green environs and catching up with friends and family. Mostly, reliving those carefree days...