THE WATER WORLD

Water World no more! Home has always been the most popular destination. A few years back, I took that journey and went back in time. I walked around with all the pictures of me and my childhood-friends flying kites, playing marbles, singgam, and countless more stored in the photo gallery at the back of my coconut shell. Some of these friends are long-gone, the foot-trails we made in the bushes hunting birds are now green grasses and all our favourite toys and games are gone into extinction. After many long years, I was right where I was always, virtually every day, when I was a child, Suba. The same river my now-adult son swims every single day, the whole day, making his grandfather and uncle takes turn watching him. The decision as to how the landscape should look like or what path water should take going to the sea has always been the rivers prerogative. I noticed in some stretches where water was deep are now filled with banana, coconut and bamboo trees. The jumping and diving boards are all gone. No fishing rods, no lakitis, no resemblance of the past. Few children of our age then were bathing in shallow water, a couple of quarry-men making a living of the rivers endowment. There were men and women though, making use of the mammoth washing machine. Sometimes, having a good memory is a curse! Aloran River, mighty as it is, without our stories, yours and mine, is just river.