If I am really talking about my favourite memory from the entire wonder that Mowgli’s world brought about for me, it has to be the ‘jungle jungle pata chala hai, chaddi pehan ke phool khila hai’ song. Things and thoughts started to play upon so vividly into my head every time I heard any line of it that I sort of got transported to an alternate dimension where I would be playing Mowgli, the ‘ek parinda hai sharminda’. Only a Mowgli fan can imagine the joy that I go through as I write this post as the Mowgli memories keep flooding into my mind.
I wasn’t so lucky as to watch it the first time it aired on National Television. But few know the level of excitement the whole thing created when it aired again, on Sahara TV maybe, for the generation next as all of us kids got to witness the one defining cartoon series of the times. I distinctly remember that it was a holiday season when the very first episode of it aired and I was travelling with my family. We had to leave my uncle’s home for another as the anticipation of the thing starting grew in my head. We were a bit caught up in the traffic and I really thought I would miss the start of it. The evening was setting in as our auto-rickshaw drove through multitudes of other vehicles through the busy roads and reached my uncle’s home well within time for me to settle myself down near my cousin’s bed and wait for the show to begin. And then it started, the song ,the show and the memories.
The whole thing lasted for days and months and I don’t think I ever missed a single episode. Even though there were serious problems of power-cuts in my town, the supply being pretty erratic at times, somehow things used to work out for the best for me to watch the episode or at least the repeat telecast.
I pretty much loved the entirety of it, the way Mowgli competed with his brothers to prove himself a part of the pack, the sheer thrill that Shere Khan created, the sacrifice of Mowgli’s father, the silliness of Ballu and the friendly advice of Bagheera. But the fondest part has to be one that I tried to imitate and that would be the wooden frisbee sort of thing that Mowgli would throw to hunt and then it would come back to him. My heart used to miss a beat whenever he did that as I sat in awe of it. I myself tried to pick wooden sticks and sharpen them up to act like the frisbee but obviously it never worked. Then I made paper planes and pretended that they were Mowgli’s hunting equipment as I found that they sort of came back to me when I flew them in the air.
Just like the frisbee that flies in the air and rebounds to you, Mowgli memories have always flown in the warmest corners of my heart and as The Jungle Book approaches again, those memories have rebounded. Guess life is somewhat like a frisbee. 🙂
I’m blogging about #MyMowgliMemory at BlogAdda.
Takhallus-e-Haqeeqat 