Ajwa Dam Reservoir: Old is Gold
Hi,
We hope you all are good and enjoying the much-needed and also now much-dreaded rain of the season. Rain in Vadodara is like a cranky, fussy toddler. You love him with all your heart, but you can't ignore the mess he leaves behind. So with all newspaper headlines pointing toward water-logged areas and increasing levels of Ajwa and Vishwamitri, we decided to let kids see what all these headlines are about?
That's how we ended up at Ajwa reservoir this Saturday morning. Sheel has lots of memories associated with this place, and he wanted to share them all with the kids.
Ajwa is a reservoir near Vadodara. It was built by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III. He was such a great visionary that despite having a population of 1,00,000 at that time, he ordered to make the dam three times larger. The dam is 5 km long and has a height of 211 feet and 62 gates.
It was a short visit but much needed to make kids understand the situation in our city every monsoon. The best part was Sheel waxed lyrical about his childhood stories and memories...
And that is how my mind slipped to this:
Memories
Memories
Of those childhood days
Playing with siblings and cousins
Of silly little fights
And a big dramatic meltdown
From blaming games
To never-ending gossip sessions
Innocent cheating
To sweet, sour grumbling
Memories
Of our parents’ home
For each girl or woman
It’s her treasure
The treasure she has buried
Safely in a tiny corner
Of her heart and mind
But
It’s her mightiest strength
She knows
She is safe in one place
No matter what
Safe and sound
Forever
Memories
Nostalgia
Of those friends
Who are lost
Or is it just me
Those late-night hostel talks
To bunking classes
First-day movie nights
To canteen hangouts
Sometimes you were correct
Sometimes it was me
Whose fault was it?
I guess
We never know
We never will
Memories
The more we try to burry
The more they manifest
They aren’t like snake skin
You can’t get away from within
Instead
Make them your vigor
They have immense power
Power to travel
From generation to generation
From my conscience
to yours
Memories
Of someone’s perfume
Of Maa’s curry
Of your kid's first word
Of your first kiss
Of pride in father’s eyes
Of sister’s innocent smile
Of fear of separation
Of those special foods
Of rainy days
Of long Garba nights
Of terrible fights
………..
I have taken scraps of each.
My cozy quilt is ready.
For comfort in a thunderstorm
For solace in the chaos
For relief from pain
For reassurance in skepticism
My blanket is open-ended
There is room for more,
Much more
I will need more patches.
Do you have some?
Will you give some to me?
Who knows
We can make it bigger together
As the need for warmth,
is now much higher than ever.
- Kaajal
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Love
SaSha