I Remember, I Remember
By Thomas Hood
I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!
I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,—
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!
I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy
My Birth Place – Sarju Nivas Botini 1939
This is a beautiful garden of my childhood I usually visit when I am an adult because it is an enchanted place where colours are brighter, the air is softer, fruits are sweeter and the mornings as well as the evenings are more fragrant than ever. This is the reason that the older I grow the more earnestly I feel that the few joys of childhood are the best that life has given me. Now whenever I go back to my old village I find that it is not the old place I miss but my childhood that has made me what I am today.
My childhood has its many secrets and its various mysteries that I cannot tell or even try to explain them properly but I keep trying to do this for specific joy in my life because I find that my childhood has been a mirror which keeps reflecting in my life the glorious images that were presented to me in the beginning and these images seem to continue in my life now.
I can recall the first joy, the first sorrow, the first success, the first failure, the first achievement, the first misadventure and many more firsts that my childhood keeps hiding. I can clearly notice that there is no place like the land of my childhood and this is my reason to reveal some of the valuable memories remembering that I am the product of my childhood. There are many things that I loved in my childhood that still stay in my heart as fresh as ever as if my childhood is going to last all through my life. But I know that this is not possible.
Let me begin this narrative by saying that one of the luckiest things that has happened to me in my entire life is my firm belief that I was able to have a very happy, rewarding and exciting childhood. All of that was because my most important influence during my childhood came from the people I associated with and had my loving attachment. They were my grandparents, parents and the people who cared for me during my growing up.
I am happy to remember the memories of my childhood that brought and instilled strength, courage and happiness for me to develop my future. Now I realise that childhood means simplicity and it has gradually made me look at the entire world and its people with the child’s eye to accept that they all are beautiful. A lot of what I am writing is my imagination but deep inside me that tells the truth.
I have never and cannot ever think of any need in childhood as strong and beneficial as the need for the proper protection and continuous care of the family members especially my father and mother. One of the reasons I am getting older gracefully is that I am able to carry my childhood with me with pleasure and honourable feelings.
It is an irony of my life that whenever I think that while I spent my whole childhood wishing I were older but now I am spending my adulthood wishing I were younger. I now find that both the periods of our life are irreversible but interesting, exciting and memorable in own ways.
All things that I grew up with have stayed with me to give me an eventful living. I started my life in a certain way and then I have spent my whole life trying to find a certain simplicity that I had acquired. It is less about staying in childhood than keeping a certain spirit of seeing things in a different way when I have grown up. My imagination goes deep to reveal the love and attention I received from my parents.
Our grandparents and parents deserve my honour and respect for giving me life that is precious for me. Beyond this they almost always made countless sacrifices as they cared for and nurtured me through my infancy and childhood to provide me with the necessities of life and to nurse me through physical illnesses and the emotional stresses of growing up.
Often I used to hear my grandparents praying and it seemed like the prayer of a farmer. They used to start by saying ‘O Lord, bless us and the land You have so kindly given us. May we always get your guidance so that all the crops we grow and the creatures we keep may flourish. O Great Lord grant us the wisdom and strength to be good farmers and protect us from all harm. Give us enough sunshine and adequate rain and keep the moonlight glowing. We thank You for all Your gracious gift and kindness’.
My childhood memories of my parents and grandparents are that of a wonderful, loving, kind, considerate and complementary couple. While my grandfather had a spirited, humorous personality, my grandmother was gentle and poised. So were my parents. While I adore every aspect of their love and care for me I now know the greatness of that deep love and family bond.
My childhood, adolescence and youth as well as my primary and high school days have all been unusually important for me. If there has ever been a time that I developed a uniqueness and sense of humour and the ability to organize, it was then. In those early days, I developed the skills that gave me a certain degree of success in my later life.
My father was a farmer and my mother was even a better farmer because together they made my childhood full of excitement and very good memories. I am very grateful for my early childhood when I was growing up with such a tolerant and dedicated parents because despite their economic, academic and physical limitations they made my childhood and the entire life that became full of goodness and excellent example of humanity.
Our farm had almost all the crops and the conduct of our animal kingdom made us respect and love the creatures and remain kind to them at all times because they were beneficial for us in many ways. We had cows, oxen, horses, goats, chicken, ducks and cats and dogs. Living with them and caring for them made me appreciate nature even more.
Our goat farm at Sipia in Votualevu
I recognize that all my pain and gain are part of the past and there is never a moment that I can forget things despite the fact that I still carry many of the childhood words, joys and wounds. Some of my wounds are more horrific than others but no matter how painful my young age memories were, there were also glorious moments that have kept me alive or I would not be here today enjoying life to the fullest.
My childhood was the first stage of my interesting life. I was the first born of a family of nine children. My parents and grandparents were great farmers and I had a wonderful upbringing. My grandparents Sarju Mahajan and Gangadei were indentured workers who were dubiously recruited from Uttar Pradesh in India by hired deviators or Arkathis of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Australia that had begun sugarcane farming in Fiji. My grandparents arrived in Fiji in 1907 as I have shown in my essay titled My Roots-From Basti to Botini published elsewhere.
My family became a place where I as the first child enjoyed my early childhood with the extended members. So my grandparents, parents and other family members were actually responsible in shaping my future and also in making my childhood memorable. The experiences of my past are undeniably exciting as would be seen from the memories that I intend to present. It goes without saying that my childhood was more than just a learning experience. These are my greatest and fondest memories. This is an essay not only on the memories of my childhood but also about the lessons I have learned throughout my childhood that has developed me as an effective member of the community.
I was told by my grandmother that my mother became very sick after giving birth to me and she was hospitalised for a few months in order to heal herself. As I have already related in one of my short stories that my grandparents were able to get a nanny for me in the name of Radhika who began looking after me when I was brought home from hospital. Radhika, I was told, became my second mother and cared for me for quite some time during my early childhood.
Radhika in 2015 before she passed away
My Aunt (Fua) Ramdei
I also had one of my aunts, Ramdei who looked after me and carried me around the farm to make me feel and appreciate the love of nature. Her favourite time was in our orchard of mango trees during the fruiting season when she would make me enjoy the sweet taste of the variety of mangoes on our farm. She continued to be my carer until her marriage to my Fuffa Shyam Lal when she had to move to Drasa with her husband and begin her new life on the farm there.
Now when I think back everything was different when I was a child- the trees were higher, the colours were brighter, and every new day was more interesting than the last one. Even more importantly, many things happened that have stayed in my memory for a long time — in fact, often they have ended up being with me forever.
I remember many of them like it was yesterday. For me, childhood memories are all made up of recollections of tasty food, rainy days, running streams, kites, hopscotch, skipping, swimming, fishing and letting my paper boats to sail along merrily with a little flower sitting in it as the captain. There are many reasons why the childhood memories do not fade away so easily but the best reason is the freedom and joy it gave us.
All these remind me of the favourite song of Jagjeet and Chitra –
Ye daulat bhi le lo,
ye shohrat bhi le lo
Bhale cheen lo mujhse meri jawaani Magar mujhko lauta do bachchpan ka saawan
Wo kagaz ki kashti wo barish ka pani.
(Take all my wealth and my fame as well as my youth but return the joy, multiple glories of my childhood- those paper boats that sailed in the stream when it rained.)
Of course the presence of my grandparents who I lovingly called Aaja and Aaji and Naana and Naani had an added interest for me. I cannot forget their fairy tales, their wrinkled face that showed marks of million years. The nights seemed short and the stories of the grandparents were never ending. I now hope that they were around to narrate those great stories from scriptures. Whether it was bright hot sunshine or drizzles of rain but I loved to go out and chase the colourful birds, try to catch those brilliant butterflies and collect useless items to show and tell my parents and grandparents when I returned from these excursions.
When I was five, I was always convinced that my father, who I called Pitaji, needed my company after work. When he came back from work in the evening and was all tired and looked bored so I would entertain him by either singing some prayer songs that my grandparents had taught me or get on his bare back and massage his tired muscles with my tiny feet. He loved my slow walk on his back and often went to sleep while I continued with my massage.
Often I would be taken out to the nearby mango trees where my aunt Ramdei and Radhika had made a swing of hessian empty sugar bags tied with two pieces of rope to the branch or old tyre of our ford six truck or any plank put at the end of the loop of the rope. They would make me sit on the swing and push me as high as I could go. That was so exciting and exhilarating that even today I feel the pleasant effect of it when I sit and swing on the modern swing in my pergola. To add flavour to my enjoyment they used to sing some matching songs that I wish I could remember now.
When I was a child, I was often sent to the nearby store of Sukhai to buy things. I would always forget to buy something, and would be sent back to the store again. I wanted to make sure that the sales assistant did not get the impression that I was a foolish boy with a bad memory, so I would change my shirt or change my hairstyle, put on a different facial expression and speak in a lowered stuttering voice. It seemed that I was a master of conspiracy.
I still cannot believe that when I was a child I usually thought that people my age behaved like adults and I tried to put on my father’s large shirt and trousers to behave like an adult. But I was still an innocent child because at the age of 5 or so Radhika used to accompany me to my village primary school known as Sabeto Indian School where I completed my early education. This episode is also narrated in detail in my short story titled Attachment.
My aunt Ramdei and Radhika would play with me outside in the farm yard constantly and I recall we would run around in the yard jumping as high as we possible could trying so hard to get the ripe mangoes, pawpaws, coconuts and other fruits. It seemed as though the beauty of the entire farm was making us enjoy life with my people. Thus the entire farm of my parents gradually became the greatest learning ground for me where I learned to appreciate nature and enjoy my freedom. There were trees to swing from, crops to admire and mountain range to climb.
I would love to go outside to play with my carers who would take me to the nearby creek where they did some fishing for fun. This outdoor experience developed a love of outdoor life and the natural habitat and taught me patience when I waited to get any fish at the end of my line. Slowly and surely my childhood gradually became one of the happiest periods in my early life. The reasons for all these were very simple because as a child I had nothing to care or worry about and had almost no duties or problems but to hang out with my aunt and my nanny all day long.
The most important thing which made my childhood more exciting and memorable was the instinctual and unconditional love, care and affection of the family and family members. As a child growing up among the loved ones, I had developed the purest heart any human being can possess and all that heart desired was love, tender loving care and freedom; no matter what the circumstances were. I am now able to claim that I had an amazing childhood and was able to witness sufficient amount of love, care and affection from my extended family members.
Many of the exciting and pleasant memories of childhood have their own place in my heart. As I have been grown up, I have been feeling more and more attached with my childhood that remains the best period in my entire life. Having no anxieties, worries or work, I was always free from the dirty and filthy noise of the confusing worldly life. This is another reason whenever I recollect the memories of my childhood I feel delighted as it is the most pleasant period which was free from any kind of worry or anxiety.
The exciting and pleasant memories of my childhood have haunted me in a specific way throughout my life so much so that I often wish that those childhood days full of pleasure come back despite knowing that childhood is a thing of past. Time is always passing fast and it is impossible for anyone to enjoy those days of childhood which will never come back.
I have read, seen and experienced that childhood is the period which has often been praised by poets and writers so as I was growing up in age, I have been feeling a great attachment and attraction for the days spent in childhood. I too deep inside my heart want and wish to be a child again but the fact remains; those days cannot come back however hard I try.
My grandparents told me that children are actually God’s gift to the planet earth and they also said that if they could keep their children happy, they would be able to keep the Almighty happy. I found this truth in my own family life and tried to keep my own children happy and satisfied. In fact childhood is God’s best gift to any individual and we all are aware of the fact that money can buy anything but even all the money in the world is in-sufficient to bring back the past of childhood in anyone’s life.
My own experience is that childhood is that golden period of life which flies away without giving any notice and never comes back so we should all be aware of an important fact about childhood. It is during childhood that a child is moulded as an individual for the rest of the life. What the child will learn and see from his or her family, teachers and peers is what he or she will learn in the future. Thus was my case.
Just as a potter moulds the pot according to his wish, similarly any individual is moulded in his or her childhood. If the moulding is good, the child will turn out to be a perfect individual who will help in the growth and advancement of the society, nation and the world at large. If on the other hand, the moulding is bad the child can result in being a menace to the society. It is thus essential for the parents that they instil the values of good character, patriotism, respect for the elders, helping people in need and the like in the child from a very early age to brighten their futures. Every child must be given the opportunity to enjoy his or her childhood to the fullest by their parents.
My wife and I have had four children of our own and we made it sure that their upbringing was the best we could afford to provide and we are proud with the fact that our four children have grown up and fitted well into the community and their respective life. We did our best but they in turn responded well and found their own niche in the competitive commercial world.
We as teachers knew fully well that studies were important but we tried not to over- burden our children with curricular and extra- curricular activities. We knew that these activities were important but we were certain and never forget the educational fact that many needed activities can be learned later also but childhood once gone would never knock the door of our children again.
We also knew and realised that when our children stayed happy, the feeling of happiness would always remain intact in their heart even when they grew up because even the slightest memory of the beautiful phase of life would remove all the tensions from their life and would bring smile on their lips. We realized the fact that we were extremely lucky for having an amazing childhood ourselves and providing the healthy childhood to all our children as well.
We knew that some children were not even blessed with a beautiful childhood especially those involved in child labour and disturbed family life. We tried to ensure that childhood remained the most important period of life of our children and it was the period which laid the foundation of the future of our children. Since my childhood days were filled with fun and laughter we wanted the best for our children as well.
I now realize that a lot of my childhood looked to me as if I was drunk where everyone remembered what I did except me but now that I am able to dig into it deep enough I am able to reveal a lot of goodness from it. I often see that how I am able to handle my success or failure in adult life is often determined by the growth and developments of my early childhood.
There are a variety of good and revealing things about my childhood I am able to hold onto because they were so much part of me like the places I went to, the people I met and knew and interacted with and the things I did and appreciated. My childhood was the most beautiful of all the seasons. The summers were warm, winters were cool, springs were pleasant and autumns were rewarding. So my childhood became the light of my life and I was able to keep it safe within my heart.
I am able to clearly see how my early childhood experiences are so important to all my overall lifelong outcomes and how the early childhood environment literally became embedded in the brain and kept modifying and changing the architecture of my adulthood.
The older I got, the more I began to appreciate my rural childhood. I spent a lot of time outdoors, unsupervised, which was a blessing for me and my family. I always remembered my childhood house on the farmstead with happy memories. There was a beautiful garden and a flourishing farm that my parents and grandparents had established with a lot of personal pride. In that childhood home there were a few windows on every wall to get the glimpse of the entire farm. Outside my bedroom window was a jasmine vine which would open in the evenings, giving off a divine scent.
An exciting aspect of my growing up was a pond that was adjacent to the stream that ran through our farmstead. I learnt how to swim there and in the evening loved to see the ducks, birds and pigeons that came to cool themselves in and around the pond. The pretty lotus and lilies on the edges added to the beauty of the place. During the dry season when the pond dried up it exposed a large and deep space like a small play ground where my friends and I played games.
My childhood was not only safe with my parents around but it flourished in a sane atmosphere. There were no aspect of abuse and no traumas. I was surrounded by a large and loving extended family who taught me the importance of hard work and a meaningful education. In the beginning slight poverty dictated my childhood but soon things improved as we all worked hard to establish our family as an institution of dedication, love and good management.
There were difficulties that came but went away a lot sooner than we could feel the full brunt of those. Of course, in this diversity there were benefits as well: our family and I became more independent, more mature than many of my peers and I realized that money was not the most important thing in life. With all these normal developments, I would never say that my childhood was bad at all because it helped me grow up with ease and greater understanding. I was able to stay out of trouble while many of my vintage faced difficulties of various kinds.
My parents taught me what was wrong and all that was right and they knew that as the eldest child I had my only brother follow in my footsteps and other sisters to follow my ways. My only brother became very successful in his personal way and today leads a life of a successful entrepreneur in Idaho, USA.
I had to make sure I was doing the right things so all my siblings would know what was good for successful living. I was able to pass on the skills, talents and knowledge that I developed during my childhood, adolescence and adult life to my own family to become prosperous.
As a child I matured in many respects as I entered my teens. I became more choosey in my clothes, eatables, games, friends and other programmes. Since I was active and in good health, the outdoor life became more attractive to me. I realized that there was a marked difference between the childhood life of a boy and that of a girl-all along-but this difference became more pronounced during my teenage.
I began actively participating in sports such as soccer, hockey and tennis but my best outdoor activity remained my excursions to discover the great sleeping giant across the river from home and do some fishing in the river as well as Naisoso beach with a few of my village friends. At this age girls still did not come into my life as friends.
Human life can be divided into three principal phases namely childhood, youth and old age. The period from birth up to the age of 15 years can be termed as childhood; that from 15 to 40 years of age can be called youth, while the period from the age of 40 till one passes away constitutes middle and old age. I loved my childhood and youth for multiple reasons and enjoyed the activities of these periods.
There has been an interesting debate as to which of these three periods of human life is the best. Some argue that the childhood is the supreme period as it is free from worries; others feel that the youth is certainly the best because of enthusiasm, power and health it provides; still others prefer old age because it is associated with maturity, wisdom and ability to understand life better.
I am now almost eighty and I think that all the periods of human life are equally interesting and exciting depending on the enthusiasm and involvements of the individual. I loved all of the periods because they enabled me to participate in them well and learn from them.
The discussion and debate on this issue goes on as time passes as new arguments for and against are added for each phase. My childhood, as stated earlier, was the period of life from birth up to the age of 15. My infancy I am told was full of mischief and joy because I grew up as a chubby little child with my grandparents, parents as well as uncles and aunts. However, I remember a lot of my involvements during my early childhood and adolescence.
As a twelve-year old boy my grandfather took me through a traditional initiation called janeu 
. Janeu my grandfather told me was a traditional ceremony for me to enter adulthood and become a follower of Sanatan Dharm. I was to wear the thread of Janeu around my right arm and another called kardhani around my waist. This was like a second birth and transition to student hood.
It was during this time that I experienced the sorrow and sadness of my father’s near death when he was struck by lightning while we were working in our pawpaw patch. He was thrown on the ground when the bold of lightning struck and lay still on the ground in front of me throwing froth from his moth. I knew I had to do something to revive him. My knowledge of first aid that I had learnt as a Boy Scout flashed in my mind and I worked hard to revive my father.
From then onward my mind was seriously occupied in both formal and informal studies and I kept progressing well from year after year from my primary school to high school and then entered my tertiary institution to prepare me to enter the professional world. This was the prime of my life and my childhood was left behind and yet kept giving me inspiration, support and a variety of ways to tackle the problems of youth.
My youth hood was not only zealous in many ways for me but it became a great planner of time to manage my future. I began to chalk out my schedules of doing things and passing my time in fun and enjoyment. This was the beginning of good time management for me. Chatting with friends,