Those days fun, frolic and frilled frocks
Those were the days, my friend
Somehow one is always nostalgic about childhood. Paper dolls and illustrated classics plus story books on loan from friends filled the days. Homework was somehow fitted in. Even studies were such fun from 'Radiant Way' with the schoolmaster's dog Sultan, and Charles Kingslay's “Water babies”.
Reading about the emperors of olden days, with illustrations to go with the tales of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and the Indus Valley civilisation was never difficult to master. Painting and music classes were never an ordeal. It is not because there were no responsibilities. Three days before the finals, big brother helped with maths. Yet both parents were there, and siblings tended to help rather than hinder. There was no bitter rivalry or misunderstandings. Once the father passed away in a family, there were financial hang-ups and distrust of various kinds. As a child one just trotted off to school or college, and even if there was a war on, and bombing in the coast next door, life was full of fun and frolic.
The teachers in the convent school and college always took pride in you, and hoped for so much in the future for you. The brick walls of the library were palaces one adored to be in during the long afternoon breaks. One's guides even in the university were encouraging, and always took your side -- whether men or women. In their long black cloaks and simple apparels they were like angels in disguise.
The prospect of weekly tests was never a fear in the mind. Despite the passion for reading and scribbling, lessons were easy to master, even mental arithmetic. Holidays meant borrowing Teen Digests, reading Women's Own on the sly, and borrowing books of Marie Corelli, where the skies were green; or perusing the lives of Michelangelo and Van Gogh. Even the biography of Leonardo da Vinci was never dull. As one crammed Tipu Sultan and Robert Bruce or Even Elizabeth I, one's imagination was full of flowers and birds. Reading Oscar Wilde's stories, ballads or plays on rainy days, and nibbling peas with buttered bread on rainy days, was something one could not resist. One does not know how one memorised long passages of “The Fighting Temerier” for elocution, or knew one's points for debates on “Euthanasia”. One was as confident as a major on the front. Fear was something one never knew. Watching films on “Henry V” was an untold joy -- as were the days of watching historical films or reading historical novels -- in one's adult days of cooking, cleaning and washing sans domestic help in the Maldives or in Melbourne.
Picnics, with only bread and butter sandwiches or with marmalade, were enjoyed by friends. One did not need Facebook or laptops to be content. One even ignored TV programmes as swotting for tests and exams was pure unadulterated fun. And the joy of putting in carmine colours in the favourite heroine's dresses—it was like having the sense of  satisfaction of having done a Degas' dancing scene all by oneself.