A date with childhood....

She was sitting on the shore....It was almost 3 in the night....The sea was not calm and serene as it is made out to be in picture perfect movie scenes. In fact, the waves were rising high, only to crash down again against the unresponsive shares. It was a full moon night. The best one she had ever witnessed. It was calm and tranquil there on the shore.
But sitting there at the beach, she could hear certain voices. Voices of her friends and people partying in the shacks behind her. And here she was, sitting with a bottle of beer, thinking, letting her soul free on the sea shore. Somebody told her it was not safe to venture out alone so late in the night. But did she care?
While sitting there, letting her long tresses loose and cool breeze brush past her face, she was calm. But just like the rising and subsequently falling waves, her mind was buzzing with thoughts.

For the first time in her enitre life, she could remember her childhood so vividly. It was strange. Only when you are away from people whom you have known all your life, you realise their actual importance in your life.
She remembered:

• Her grandfather dropping her to bus stop everyday, when she was in kindergarten till second grade. The endless and innocent list of questions she would ask him everyday while going to school.
  
• How her grandpa would try to answer every query of hers, making her a little more intelligent and aware every time.
  
• How badly she had cried when her grandpa expired this year
• How she had first fallen in love
• How hard she used to work hard for boards, inter school competitions and the fire in her to prove herself everywhere.
• She wondered what had caused that fire to diminish in her. She feared it would extinguish someday.
  
• But was relieved to realise instantly that her "self" is too strong to allow that to happen.
  
• She remembered how cheerful and happy she would get upon getting wet in rain, being allowed to play till 8pm, eating kismi bars and melody toffees.
• How she had felt fearfully female upon being eve teased for the first time while growing up and how she had learnt to behave "properly" in public places in order to protect her diginity.
  
• How happy she was upon receiving her first barbie doll, her first wrist watch, her first mobile phone, her first scholarship, her first merit certificate ....all gifts from her father or her hard work. Either way, she realised all of these still hold a special place in her heart.
• She wondered how and why did she allowed her innocence to slip away?

Suddenly, her friend came along with another pint of beer, inviting her for a round of dance at the party. "I'm coming", is all she screamed back.
And then, started heading towards the maddening trance music being played, headed to lose herself again in the crowd...leaving behind the footprints of her self and soul into the sand....only to be washed down by another round of unrepressible waves.