Suddenly I am reminded of those warm summer evenings; we were supposed to put on our best sports shoes, our hairs would be tied in a tight pony tail and we wore loose cotton trousers and a T-shirt. We would then drive our old Maruti 800 to Appu Ghar, pragti maidan.
The entire ride was bliss. With sparkling eyes we would read the road side hoardings… hoping to read Appu Ghar after the next turn. Nothing in this world could take away that smile, it was plastered literally… .
We would then wait near the popcorn seller with our mom, while Dad queued up at the ticket counter. The queue was the longest I have known and we would wait and wait and wait, practicing high jumps and trying to have a glimpse of the other side… we would read faces of other kid’s trying to decipher their experience closely monitoring dad’s progress as he slowly made his way to the ticket counter.
When we finally entered their would be no stopping us. It always started with bhoot bangle, followed by car race, udhan khatola, My fair Lady, Columbus…….The Ice cream vendor, Maggi at Nescafe outlet…..
Tired , dirty, messy, dragged by our parents, always trying to run back, licking good old choco bar we would slowly make our way to the exit gates.. only to be stopped by the people selling air bubbles solution , parachute, areoplanes and other knick knacks…
As I grew up, I almost forgot about this old summer vacation ritual of ours, But recently when I heard that Appu Ghar is closing Down I was disappointed……Some Experiences are closest to your heart, some of them you relive thousand of times in your memory, Some of them define what you are and some of them eventually become you…I know even if its closing down no one can take away the experience from me.. But to invest emotions in the physical forms comes naturally to humans…. I also know that my trips to the state of the art sophisticated amusement parks in years to come will always fall several notches below those warm June evenings……Bye Bye Appu Ghar… you’ll always live in my memory. And I know I sound like an idiot………
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