Childhood Vignettes

Been meaning to post these old pictures but only after I'd touched them up a bit. Well, they required a bit more touching up than I'm equipped for so I've finally decided to just put them up and put out of your misery all you poor folks who have been dropping in here hoping to see something new hehe.

I just love this picture. In the wake of the Mizo insurgency, the family fled to Shillong and settled there. At least, us children settled there with Mum's parents while Mum and Dad stayed on in Aizawl since Dad was in govt service. It wasn't often they could come visit, especially Dad, so family get-togethers were rare and pretty joyous occasions.

My grandfather was one of the kindest men that ever lived. His name was Zalawra and he helped start up the Mizo Presbyterian Sunday School. We used to have a picture of him and a little me going off to church together on a lovely sunday morning but ack, despite frenetic hunts for it I just can't find it. Grandfather was the strong, silent, hardworking, bookworm type and one treasured memory I have of him is a beautiful, gold-coloured little pen that came with the tiny little diary he had (they made tiny diaries in the old days) and I loved the pen so much that he eventually gave it to me. That was when I couldn't even properly write anything yet. He was run over one evening in Shillong on his way home from church by a speeding car whose driver was never known.

My youngest sister wasn't born yet here. She came as something as an afterthought. Which reminds me we used to have a lot of pictures of her as a baby, even on the lawns of Roberts ' Hospital in Shillong where she was born so I must go look for those to scan. Childhood memories disappear so quickly without pictures, and the pictures themselves fade, mildew, get misplaced or eventually just lose all significance for the living.