A childhood well spent!

I was standing in my garden chasing butterflies when mum called me and asked to fetch her glass of water. It was early summer and all the flowers in garden were blooming, especially the roses and mum was picking roses from the over blooming rose bushes to make some bouquets.

I started walking towards the side door and there it was one of my favourite big brown butterflies! They always come under the seedless guava tree to suck juice from the fallen, rotten guavas and they were the hardest to catch. I had never yet caught one! Of all butterflies the vibrant colourful one’s are the most hard to catch but these brown ones were extra hard. I could catch the colourful ones when they sat on paper flowers but brown one’s only sat on the ground around guava tree or its guava’s. It was very tricky to catch them, so I went for the one in shades. Making sure my shadow didn't warn it with slow deliberate steps making sure I didn't step on the leaves and make any sound. I took my stand over it and brought my hand close and as I was about to catch it between my thumb and index finger, it flew away. It was as if these butterflies were always playing along with me but I wasn't going to be defeated so quickly. I kept at it until, finally I caught one. In my triumphant I took it to show my mother who was now holding about a dozen pink roses in her right hand and over a dozen mixed in her left.

She smiled and looked at my hand and told me that I should let it go now and so I did. She handed me the pink roses which meant I was to follow her inside and help her find the vases and fill them with water.
As we walked towards the front door to go inside my mum says, “I asked you for a glass of water about an hour ago. What happened to it?”
My empty hand flew to my forehead and I said “oops! I forgot!”  
My mother had already known what would have happened so in a way of playing with me she had devised a new statement and said, “Where was your brain?”
The imaginative child I was, I replied right away with, “It was taking a shower”. My mother laughed putting down the flowers and pouring herself a glass of water.

For next few months the charade of my mum asking where my brain was and me replying it was in shower went on. One day my mum sent me to go get her chilies from the garden. I walked to our kitchen garden and stood there for a couple of minutes but I couldn't remember what I was doing there. I went back to mum and I asked her what was it that I was supposed to get for her.

My mum, her playful self, says “I sent you to get some chilies. Where’s your brain, all the time?”
And as always my answer come “It’s taking a bath.”
Mum looks at me and says “how clean is it going to get, it’s always in shower or taking a bath! At least use it a bit so you may actually have something to clean.”
My reply was something unexpected but I had been watching discovery channel the night before and thus said “I sent it to take a bath in Amazon River because I wanted to see an anaconda and all the other wonderful things in the Amazon jungle.” 

It was no mystery how much I loved anacondas and nature, no matter which jungle or what animal it was I wanted to play with it. Nature was wonderful and beautiful, mysteries but never dangerous to me and my parents were well aware of my psyche towards nature. They had to start locking all the doors because I’d wake up in middle of night and wander out into the garden and even the close by fields of wheat without caring there were a dozen different kinds of snakes roaming around including Cobras. And it wasn't that I was ignorant of them, the problem was that I was curious and fearless so I would play with them. It was only a year ago when I had picked up a baby scorpion on my hand and gave my mum a shock; but that’s a whole different story of my limitless curiosity. Mum just shook her head and sent me to grab those chilies keeping me from launching into one of my imaginative stories which would go on forever.  

It was a couple of months after the chilly incident. Mum was watering the garden and she sent me to start the water pump so the water tank didn't get empty. It was late summer evening and the moonless night. I was playing in front of our garden on the swings. I got up and started walking towards the back where the motor (water pump) was. As I progressed towards it through the kitchen garden I saw tiny light flying in the lily’s that were going on and off. Curious I went close and saw fireflies! I had never before seen fireflies in our garden! They were so wonderful and I couldn't resist chasing them. I caught one between my hands and it was like I had plucked a star from the skies. I ran to my mother to show her the first fireflies to visit our home. My mother was excited too; releasing the little fellow from my hands she told me the stories from her childhood of catching them and how weavers (the bird) use the fireflies in their nest as light bulbs.

My mother hadn't yet realized that I had forgotten to start the motor and as the water pressure in the pipe went down she looked at me and asked “did you turn on the motor?” I smiled innocently and ran to turn on the motor and ran back to her and said “I did!” Mum laughed and said “Is your brain still lost in Amazon?” and Laughing I decided it was too much trouble having a brain so I replied “It was eaten by a crocodile in Amazon and because it ate my brain, it died and then the vultures ate the dead crocodile so now they are dying too; that’s why the discovery channel was saying that scientist’s are trying to find why vultures are dying so rapidly but can’t find the reason.  They just don’t know that vultures ate the crocodile that ate my brain and so now they are all dead. And now I don’t have a brain anymore!” As mum mumbled “isn't that just wonderful” I ran back to the swings to play.

It’s been over a dozen year now and still I always say I have no brains and whenever anyone asks me, then how come you remember all this I simply say “because there is no brain occupying any space in my skull so I have a lot more storage room to keep everything safe.”