Give me some sunshine and give me some rays. Give me one more chance I want to grow up once again.

I got up early that day. It was about 5 Am. Went to the bathroom and got freshened up. Walked out of the hotel and started going towards the beach.

I had come to the beach town on a business visit for three days. I always preferred the hotel which was closer to the beach so that I could go for an early morning walk.

I reached the beach and the sun had not yet come out full in the sky. Walking on the sands of the beach was a totally different experience for me as most of the time I lived amongst the cacophony of the concrete jungle of the city.

I headed to the nearest tea shop and bought a cup of lemon tea from the vendor. Walking further on the beach sat on a small rock and started sipping the tea.

By this time the sun had started moving up in the sky with the crimson rays filling up the entire landscape. The waves appeared like milk being crunched out turbulently by the sea. It was a one of a life time experience .I closed my eyes and letting go every thought of mine, started drowning myself in nature’s gift to mankind.

I could not hold on longer. I remembered that my sister had taken the overnight train and was supposed to reach her city by 5.30 AM. I started calling her on cell phone but could not reach her. Her phone was out of coverage area. I tried again and the message was the same. I became restless. The train was supposed to reach the city railway station by 5.30 Am. Ideally by 4.45 Am itself the phone should have been in the coverage area. I tried again. The response was the same.  I started getting concerned. I got up from the rock and walked towards the tea shop and bought one more cup of tea. Went back and was silently watching the sun getting brighter on the horizon.

After about half an hour I got a call from my sister on my mobile.

“Where are you?” I asked her.

“Reached outskirts of the city. In about half an hour the train will reach the station. How many times you have called me? Is everything alright?”She replied.

“Everything is fine. I am sitting in the beach. I was getting concerned as you were not reachable.”

“Hey come on. You cannot become so protective. It happens sometimes. The train gets delayed.”

“It’s OK. Call me on reaching the house” saying so I ended the conversation.

I started wondering about the way we have started taking things now a days.

In this age of instant communication we would like to have information immediately. A little delay in flow of information makes us uncomfortable. 

A big contrast was the way in which we grew up during our childhood days. Many of us did not have telephones in our houses and the only means of communication was the inland letters, post cards and stamped envelopes. We used to write letters to one another. The key was to write in a beautiful and flowing language. 

During my engineering study days I used take a bus from my home town, travel for 5 hours and reach the college town. I would write a letter to my parents after about a week only to request for more money.

Today it is not so. If a person takes a flight of one hour journey time and he does not call back home after one and hour an hour, he will get about 10 calls from home. All of us are looking for instant flow of information and for some reason if the flow does not happen, we become restless.

We have become tin cans and have become brittle. The previous generation people were rock solid.

My flow of thoughts was interrupted by a call on my mobile. It was Sanjay.

“Hey Sanjay whats up man” I said.

“Cool dude life is rocking” he replied and continued “how are the kids”

“Kids are doing fantastic. Tell me about your son” I asked.

“Rahul is doing great in academics. In addition to that he is enjoying some paid hobbies also” he laughed.

“Sanjay tell me one thing. We are classmates since primary schooling. We were not having paid hobbies then”

“Paid hobbies? We did not have hobbies. As far as my memory goes we used to go to school and after the school run into large grounds and play until we fell down exhausted “he added.

“Very true man. We miss those days now. More than us our kids miss such days” I said.

“Now days the focus is high on academics and kids have to look out for paid hobbies. I feel hobby is something that is to be enjoyed with passion. How can you attach a price tag to it and make it paid?” I told.

“Things have changed dude. To be in the race we need to run.  I need to take Rahul every Sunday morning to the club so that he can pursue his horse riding hobby. I drive for one hour to reach there. We do not have huge grounds in the neighborhood and have to do this to keep the kids engaged.” He said.

We went on for another 10 minutes and finished our talk.

I looked around and saw 3 kids playing on the beach. They were running and throwing wet sand on each other. They were jumping, shouting, falling in the water and were fully excited.

I wanted to go back into time and revisit my childhood days. We used to run the same way and enjoy unconditionally in huge grounds. We were not bothered about anything and were optimally using the limited resources available.

I started running towards the kids. I jumped into the water and gestured the kids to come closer. Splashed water on them and they did the same to me. After many years I had taken the plunge into water and enjoyed the way I was doing. I looked up to the sun and shouted

“Give me some sunshine and give me some rays. Give me one more chance I want to grow up once again”