It all came back to me today, as my two papermate ball point pen lay on the table next to me. Early 90s, in class 6, 7, 8…
A pen was not just a pen, It was a fighter plane! (laugh all you may, but even now, at certain angles when I look at these pens – with their caps closed, I can see the cockpit, the front turbines etc) You may remark that, you can’t imagine a ballpoint pen as a plane as there are no wings, but my planes had super advanced technology with nitro turbine powered engines in front and rear that generated enough thrust was to keep them airborne without wings… (Note: two hoots to physics and aero dynamics!)
Sanskrit was something I never liked. What would be the use of mugging up “Pathati, Pathatahh, Pathanti”? (verb forms of verb Path – meaning to study). I could never figure out, moreover – they were hard to pronounce, spell and remember, and Mrs Dalal (the Sanskrit teacher) was very boring… Luckily, the pens (and my imagination) were there to my rescue… As I drew battle fields where my fighter planes are striving to kill the enemies planes (and yes, there were missiles, and tanks, and sound effects…), the 40 minute period would just fly by. Unluckily, the sound effects, and being happy in a Sanskrit lecture caused curiosity and interest from fellow classmates, and eventually Mrs Dalal, who promptly asked me to stand outside the class… Well, imagining stuff was easier now that the noise of Pathati, Pathatahh, Pathanti did not disturb my ears any longer…
Most of the chapters in my Sanskrit books and copies were filled with descriptive images like the one I just drew here for the benefit of those who do not have a vivid imagination.
I had lot of Hotwhee
ls toy cars. 
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Well, first of all, like the planes – my cars were way too advanced… I was a rich prince, and had lots and lots of cars – red, blue, green etc… I’d go on scenic rides on the super smooth roads that my country had… along with my friends, one guy, the side kick and 3-4 girls that I liked…
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(Being attracted to girls started pretty early in my life and only grew thereon…)
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Mom used to think, that I was just scrubbing the mosaic floor… She was a grown-up, and grown-ups can’t see what children can!
Finally, even with apparently boring stuff like study material I was able to have a lot of fun… Imagine having some books, long registers (the kind in which you would do your math or science home assignments), pens etc. Seems like preparation for some serious studies, but It
wasn’t that… I was able to build a
inclined ramp, which I still maintain was better than the
readymade one by
Hotwheels (which had no flexibility and was too expensive). My ramp was simple, long registers supported by inverted books. It was powered not by batteries (as in the unimaginative
hotwheels design) but by
the force of gravity, and
newton’s law of motion.
The setting up of the ramp was a very intricate process since if the registers are not aligned at a proper angle then the cars would hit an edge and stop or swerve off course (or even fall, killing the drivers!) There was a gap in the ramp. The positioning and the size of this gap was a science. It was no easy business, too much for a grown-ups comprehension. The last register before the gap had to be tilted upwards so as to allow the cars to fly off and curve in air, to fall safely on the other end. A smaller gap would have the cars hitting the ramp with the back wheels which would cause them to turn upside down and a larger gap would cause them to hit the edge of the other end and fall (again killing the driver!) The gap had to be just perfect.
Setting up the ramp therefore was a time consuming but fun activity, and then playing was even better! Much later, Jane
de Bont created a movie called
Speed (one of my favorites), in which Sandra bullock drives off the bus off a flyover under construction… in pretty much of a similar fashion. My imagination was at par, or maybe better than the people sitting in Hollywood!
Here is something I sketched to aid the comprehension of readers who had proper ready made ramps when they were kids.
(Note: The real thing looked better!)
I could n
ot help but wonder,
what happened to my imagination as I grew older! Back then, simple stuff, even a pen was so much fun and now, with means to buy almost anything… nothing is as fun. I don’t sketch anymore…
So was I much richer as a kid???
Armed with just a few pens, books, registers and toy cars than I am now, with money in the bank, a real car and a Sony
PlayStation2…
What an irony!
I am not a prince any more… I do not have super technology
nitro t
urbine powered fighter jet (which does not need wings) named “
Reynolds 045 fine carbure” anymore…
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It is just a pen now…
