The Place That Holds a Lot of Memories 🌊

Today I am writing about a place that holds so many memories for me. It is the stream we call it "thodu" in Malayalam. These are the small waterbodies that join the rivers. I learned to swim in these small streams. When I was young, I was very afraid to step into the water, and my father used to drag me and my siblings into it. I would immediately cry aloud, and father would say, “Nothing will happen, keep quiet,” but I never listened and cried again. Then he would become angry and start scolding, and that kept me silent. After some years, as I continuously went to bathe in the streams, my fear of water completely disappeared.

Whenever my cousins came home, our first destination was always the streams and rivers. In the front side of my house, we have streams, and at the back we have a river which divides into three parts. Some years later, a check dam was built in the stream which raised the water level to the height of a person. With the help of my cousins and aunts, I learned to swim there. It was a wonderful experience. First, we used tyre tubes for safety, and later, as I learned, I started swimming without them. When I became confident in swimming, I even taught my friends how to swim. After a few days of practice, they also learned. There was a root of a tree which grew like a swing, and we used to swing on it whenever we came to bathe. As the water levels are not very high in these waterbodies now, the check dam is open.

      Whenever I go to the stream to wash my clothes, it brings back all those sweet and bitter memories to my mind : the games we played in the water, fishing with friends, swimming competitions, small accidents while playing, eating raw mangoes with salt, and so on. When I look back, it feels like it all happened just yesterday. These old golden memories are something that still give me a sense of happiness.