Those were the best days of my life.

"Oh when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choiceYa - I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life" - Bryan Adam's , "Summer of 69"

For some reason, I always hum these lines when I am very sad or in a contemplative mood. It brings back memories of when I was atlast let to live on my own while in India. I was raised in a conservative family where my parents never let me step out of the house by my self. My elder sisters persuaded my parents to let me move out of Salem after my garduation, find a job and learn to be independent. Boy! Was that fun....

My sister came house hunting with me in Chennai. She made it a point to meet the houseowner's herself and when we found a house atlast, she told the lady that she keep a watch on us. We started of as two, then three and sometimes even five of us stayed in a one bedroom apartment. We learnt house economics, learnt to appreciate our moms more, learnt people skills negotiating with the house maid,dhobi and ofcourse auto walla. We had our ups & downs, but mostly fun. We all become family, crying on each other's shoulders and going for a treat when when we got a raise or if it was someone's birthday.

I think the best time we had was when our friends who were living with family used to just stay with us for a couple of days for the heck of it. Our typical weekends was wake up late and then massage our hair with sesame oil and let it soak for hours listening to music or trying our culinary skills in the kitchen.(we had a one burner stove,no fridge and a small mixie). For the most part it was one pot cooking, but weekends was celebrations day, cooked up a feast and after lunch a long nap until 5:00pm.In the evenings, after a shower, we used to walk or take the bus to beasant nagar beach and loiter around there , have dosa from the stalls there and head back home.

All this was simple pleasures, but gave us the greatest joy....those were the best days of my life......
Ofcourse, I am now enjoying a different kind of life , which you call married bliss.....