‘All my days are spent, All my cards are dealt, Oh, the desolation grows! Every inch revealed, As my heart is pierced, Oh, my soul is now exposed!’

The lines mentioned above will make more sense once you are done reading this article.

Just yesterday, I finished downloading a cartoon series called Top Cat. It took me 42 hours of downloading on a frighteningly slow internet speed (Let’s keep my net speed out of this article for the time being) and you wouldn’t believe my level of satisfaction once it was done. This particular cartoon has a very special place in my heart.

Back in the nineties, 1995-96 to be precise, when the Cartoon Network had caught every kid’s imagination, I too was one of them. I would talk like the Space Ghost, imitate Mutley’s sinister laugh while doing a prank, and ask for Spinach and Hamburgers (I had no idea what a burger was back then) in dinner all the time. I was no older than 6 back then, and those days Cartoon Network (CN) used to share air space with TNT. The last show on CN used to be Top Cat at 5.00 PM. Everyday I would sit throughout the show, pleading that the show never ends. And everyday at 5:30 PM, it would end with a BANG (If you remember the blowing up of the Cartoon Network logo).

Coincidentally that was also the time, my father would come home from office, and I used to longingly wait for my baba to come home and take me out cycling. I used to love spending those 60 minutes of cycle rides with my Baba. There was a farm house near my home, which had a family of 6 Labradors. Everyday, we’d go there in the evening and play with the dogs.

But all this, all these small memories that I am sharing with you, were long forgotten in the race to grow up. I didn’t remember a single thing. Till yesterday. Till I saw Top Cat once again.

A new part opened up in me yesterday. A part of me which was longing for Top Cat to not end. A part which wanted to go on a similar cycling ride with my baba. A part which wanted me to be a six year-old again.

And that time is long gone now. I don’t even own a bicycle now. I stay in the Western part of India, while baba is a whole three day train journey away from me. How much I’d want, the past will never come back.

So I replayed Top Cat once again, sitting in the balcony of my apartment, and let my imagination float.

I was never going to be a kid anymore, but the kid in me will always be there reminding me of the good times.

‘So let your heart hold fast, For this soon shall pass, There’s another hill ahead…’

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