VACATION DIARIES

SUMMER vacations were eagerly awaited. It was necessary to break away from an entire year's academic burden, homework, marks, and deadlines.

- ANUSREE PV

SUMMER vacations were eagerly awaited. It was necessary to break away from an entire year's academic burden, homework, marks, and deadlines. For me, it was an escapade, through the hairpin roads, through different terrains, green and arid, to finally to the place that occupies a large part of my memory. Visiting and revisiting the zig-zag lanes heading towards home became my favourite pastime after school — the visuals of ripening mangoes, rupturing jackfruits, and squishy cashew fruits, grandmother's jar of unniappam, the walks on the leaves strewn land, the cracklings of dried leaves that felt like a kid's giggle, and hoarding manjadikuru in containers. How do you sum this up? It goes on and on like Harper Lee's descriptions of Scout and Jem's childhood in To Kill a Mockingbird—the joy of finding a new friend, disagreements and disappointments, small adventures, lemonades, revelations, and scoldings. Whether the joy of fleeing the monotony of one's home or getting the license to evade the dull syllabus, vacations are unalloyed happiness and innocuous curiosities. And for many like me, summer holidays brought an unparalleled joy. As another school year is set to begin, here's a cheers to summer vacations.

In a village setting

For Sandra PB, an HR professional, her first short solo journey from Kerala to Bengaluru, (to her dad's place) in the early 2000s, was a bit about experiencing the novelty of travelling alone, and a bit about the worry of being on her own. But her sojourn in the city, even today, invites her to peep through the night-shone streets that fascinated her as a child. She says, "I would run to the road as soon as I hear the kebab vendor's bicycle ringing. My study holidays, which were more or less like vacations, also meant strolls and sometimes visits to places like Lal Bagh."