Ten-year-old me
Most of our clothes were hand-me-downs. Nothing was ever brand-new; if it were it was of the kind found only in pasar malams.
We didn't have tennis lessons. Or swimming lessons. Or extra tuition. Or pocket money.
I never owned a walkman.
Mobile phones were a distant possibility, mostly fashioned from bricks and left to high-end business people or those who worked on far-away oil rigs.
The family went shopping once a year, when we needed school uniforms. Even then my trousers would be two sizes bigger, and made to last by unfolding the bottom hem.
We never went on holidays, or ate out.
I don't remember having birthday cake past my fifth birthday.
Going to a classmate's party was the social highlight of being ten.
What we did have was warm food, always home-cooked.
We never had to wear the same clothes twice in a row - they were deemed ready for wash after one use.
Every bedtime began with a story, the weekends with song, the mornings with Milo and kaya.
What we did have was the space to argue, and build castles from cushions, and fashion a fine dinner from soil and peat and leaves and petals.
We fought fierce battles with our doggies for steeds.
We combed our grandmother's hair after her bath, and painted our father's face while he napped.
We bullied our grandfather, and started pictorial epics on the walls.
We waited for mum's gentle hands to clean our ears, and for Velliamma to come once a year from Belgium with chocolates and Lego and jigsaw puzzles.
What we did have was a swing, and a mango tree, and dancing bells.
We didn't have tennis lessons. Or swimming lessons. Or extra tuition. Or pocket money.
I never owned a walkman.
Mobile phones were a distant possibility, mostly fashioned from bricks and left to high-end business people or those who worked on far-away oil rigs.
The family went shopping once a year, when we needed school uniforms. Even then my trousers would be two sizes bigger, and made to last by unfolding the bottom hem.
We never went on holidays, or ate out.
I don't remember having birthday cake past my fifth birthday.
Going to a classmate's party was the social highlight of being ten.
What we did have was warm food, always home-cooked.
We never had to wear the same clothes twice in a row - they were deemed ready for wash after one use.
Every bedtime began with a story, the weekends with song, the mornings with Milo and kaya.
What we did have was the space to argue, and build castles from cushions, and fashion a fine dinner from soil and peat and leaves and petals.
We fought fierce battles with our doggies for steeds.
We combed our grandmother's hair after her bath, and painted our father's face while he napped.
We bullied our grandfather, and started pictorial epics on the walls.
We waited for mum's gentle hands to clean our ears, and for Velliamma to come once a year from Belgium with chocolates and Lego and jigsaw puzzles.
What we did have was a swing, and a mango tree, and dancing bells.