[gmhossain]

Originally Posted by HrB

... Most of the incidents mentioned here are from the time when my father used to be a Forest Range Officer and that had taken him, and obviously us, many places.

Thanks for putting up such an amazing memoirs. I completed reading it at one go. You write really well. Please keep it up.

Best,

[airbus]

Originally Posted by HrB

I urge all forum members to dig deep down into your childhood days and bring out all such incidents and share with us all. If nothing else, your better halves, children and grandchildren would love to read them and live your childhood through your eyes. It would be such a treasure.

Great write up HrB. I can correlate very well as I am from Assam

I spent first five years of my life in a remote village in Sivasagar district. I have some memories of sighting wild animals in our village.

Last year while visiting home, we went to visit a friend who is a manager of a tea estate. He told me that they still see wild animals occasionally. My friend and family resides in a British era bungalow and what a lovely surrounding (a picture below).

[HrB]

Originally Posted by airbus

Great write up HrB. I can correlate very well as I am from Assam

I spent first five years of my life in a remote village in Sivasagar district. I have some memories of sighting wild animals in our village.

Last year while visiting home, we went to visit a friend who is a manager of a tea estate. He told me that they still see wild animals occasionally. My friend and family resides in a British era bungalow and what a lovely surrounding (a picture below).

Great to know that you're from Assam. Yes, the British Era bungalows of the Tea Gardens here are just wonderful. Though I've visited a few, never had the chance to spend a night in one. The British era bungalows that I stayed in Mazbat and Digboi, didn't have the views of a tea garden bungalow.

Originally Posted by gmhossain

Thanks for putting up such an amazing memoirs. I completed reading it at one go. You write really well. Please keep it up.

Best,

Thanks for the words of encouragement. It surely motivates me to write more.

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[Stryker]

Ah, what a childhood you've had! Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

For a concrete jungle inhabitant like me, this sounds like an ideal experience. Of course, I'm sure there would have been many hardships along the way of which you may or may not have been aware, considering you were living out in the forest or at least well away from urban centres. But when viewed with the rose tinted memory lens, it all looks so lovely and worth living.

[avaneesh.]

Great Thread Sir. As a millennial brought up on the verge of western ghats I was able to see a bit of wildlife around us as kids. But as cities started to grow and villages were modernized, the "wild animals" lost their territory and vanished completely. The only wild animal we can spot now is a peacock whose numbers have grown exponentially in the last few years.

Here is a click of peacock eggs captured at my cousin's farm the other day.


In the month of August, I switched jobs. The mundane 9-5 became a bit interesting since I would get a couple of weeks posting in remote forest areas heavily guarded by Forest Officials as well as CISF.

While there are tigers and bears in the thick forest none of them were spotted on our daily visits. We could only spot "Peacocks", wild boars, monitor lizards which are quite common on our part of the hills. With no zeal to look out for anything, I used to dose off on the return journey, until we spotted this on the road.



I was happy as well as scared because due to the popular notion that a lone wild animal is always troublesome. Our driver crawled towards it. And suddenly I looked around my shoulder to see another one staring directly at us. We were on a humble tata sumo.



After carefully inspecting us, the bison let us go.
Please bear with me for lacklustre photography, I was more interested in chasing the animal off than clicking a selfie with it

[AK79]

Originally Posted by HrB

I took this photograph from the road with a very basic phone. Trust me when I say this quarter appeared much taller when I was a kid.

It's usual for all of us to experience this. Whenever we revisit places from our childhood, everything appears to be much smaller than what we remember it to be.

Originally Posted by HrB

This is where I first went to school. Unlike the kids of today, I directly went to Class 1 skipping play school/pre-school. This ensured I had loads of fun and no study until I was 5 years old. And I’m sure I did not miss much by not going to school till that age.

Your life is the envy of any city-dwelling kid.

Originally Posted by HrB

Pardon the poor quality of the photograph from early 80's.

Trust me, these grainy photos shot using a camera film roll hold much more sentimental value than any of the fancy filtered selfies we go around clicking everywhere these days.

Originally Posted by HrB

I urge all forum members to dig deep down into your childhood days and bring out all such incidents and share with us all. If nothing else, your better halves, children and grandchildren would love to read them and live your childhood through your eyes. It would be such a treasure.

Being born and brought up in Bombay, and in the absence of a proper native village (all our relatives stayed in cities, including our grandparents), adventures the kind you have experienced are the stuff of storybooks for us.
Thanks for taking the time out to meticulously pen down your experiences.

[gunin]

Brilliant write-up HrB! I really enjoyed reading your post. You had a wonderful childhood full of such priceless adventures. Being from Assam, it felt nice to read about places like Mazbat, Digboi and Lakhimpur (my birthplace!). I am presently posted in Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh and I feel my 4 year old kid is really lucky to be in mother nature's lap- be it the many rivers and streams to jump into or the wide open fields to run in to one heart's content. Please keep sharing more such brilliant posts. Thank you!

[ABHI_1512]

Originally Posted by gunin

Being from Assam, it felt nice to read about places like Mazbat, Digboi and Lakhimpur (my birthplace!). I am presently posted in Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh and I feel my 4 year old kid is really lucky to be in mother nature's lap- be it the many rivers and streams to jump into or the wide open fields to run in to one heart's content.

Hello gunin, your present posting just reminded me of the place I spent few years of my school life. I wanted to visit Pasighat last month itself but had to give it a miss due to paucity of time. May be in few months time, I will surely try to go to Pasighat just to relive my childhood days again and feel the famous morning wind of the town.

Your child is in the best possible place to spend his childhood and I hope your kid is having a good time in the lap of nature and river Siang.

Regards.

[jkrishnakj]

What a lovely thread and I somehow missed this till today. The childhood memories are the best and the way you have written is so free and a joy to read and live through your moments.

The hard copies of pictures you have is a treasure.

Even today, when I visit my parents, I most often indulge in going through the old photo albums and those memories just gush through. Far far better than the selfie’s and pics that e click and forget and lose today.

[androdev]

Stuff worthy of a feature film :-) The prospect of seeing the forest through the eyes of a kid! Always wondered about the families of staff living in the forests. A refreshing thread to read. Thank you for sharing - wish you could add more old photos.

[gunin]

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

Hello gunin, your present posting just reminded me of the place I spent few years of my school life. I wanted to visit Pasighat last month itself but had to give it a miss due to paucity of time. May be in few months time, I will surely try to go to Pasighat just to relive my childhood days again and feel the famous morning wind of the town.

Your child is in the best possible place to spend his childhood and I hope your kid is having a good time in the lap of nature and river Siang.

Regards.

Hi ABHI, I was going through your beautiful log of Pakke Kesang. Give me a heads up when you come to Pasighat . The morning wind is still very strong here.

[Sandy Damodaran]

This by far is the most interesting writeup ive ever read across any platform! Take a bow. Going to Manas and Kaziranga was a huge dream for me & I did travel to most of the places you have mentioned last year, just before the lockdowns and was awestruck at the raw beauty of Assam.

Given the vintage, I'm hard pressed to even imagine how it would have been in 70's!