Almost everyone of us has a favourite cousin. Whether we have siblings or not does not matter. A cousin with whom we have spent many a summer and winter vacation and shared all our little secrets with, is an important part of our childhood and adolescent memories.
When we were children, cousins met far more frequently than they do today. These days, we hardly get to meet our siblings, leave alone our cousins. But fortunately, those days things were very different and cousins usually spent school vacations at the homes of their maternal or paternal grandparents. So one could be close to cousins from one’s mother’s side as well as father’s side.
My favourite cousin was (and is) from my father’s side. He is the son of my father’s younger sister. Both of us are almost of the same age and thus get along very well. I can recall that we started spending our school holidays together when we were in Class Four or Five. Today, this cousin is a famous lawyer in Delhi and does not have even a moment to talk to me. But there was a time when he had all the time in the world to think of the many pranks we could play on people during the long and lazy summer afternoons when most of the family was napping. He was a naughty boy and I tagged behind him as I thought he was the best.
But at the same time, he was very intelligent and had phases of introspection and intellectual preoccupation. He would sometimes talk about Buddha and his life (even while we were just in Class 7) and say that he wanted to become like him. I would be very impressed by such talk and think he was a great scholar and visionary.
He always became the centre of attention wherever we went. Due to his good looks, his sense of humour and also his sometimes serious talk.
During one of the winter vacations he spent at our home (when we were in Class ten), he went with me to meet a neighbour’s family where one of their daughters had got recently engaged. They offered us sweets straight from a box that had come from the in-laws house. My cousin caught hold of the box and while talking to them polished off the entire kilo of barfi in no time at all. I forgot to tell you that he had a sweet tooth! The neighbours were too shocked to say anything and quietly took back the empty box he handed them. There was no end to the emabarrasment I experienced that day.We still remember that incident and laugh whenever we meet, which is not too often.
My mother tells me that when I was one year old, my aunt had come with this little boy of one and half years and he would throw tantrums, wanting to be dressed in my frocks instead of his shirt and shorts. I can imagine him doing that. My elder brother had a teacher who had given birth to a son and had named him Sweetoo. My brother started calling my cousin Sweetoo but luckily the name did not stick on. He still holds a grudge against my brother about having called him by that name!
His little sister would always want to be part of our secret missions but we would not let her get any clue about them. Till date, she hates us for that. Once or twice a day, she would cry because of us and the elders would scold us. If we played School School, she would be the student, if we played office office, she would be the peon! If we played hospital, she would be the nurse. Of course, we would be the surgeons carrying out surgeries with great seriousness.
His children and mine may not be very close but they do meet each other off and on. But their relationship with each other can never match the closeness we shared. Over the years, this cousin has not had much time to come and meet me. But I understand and always remember the wonderful times we had before life actually caught up with us. It always makes me smile. Sometimes, it brings tears to my eyes as I yearn to go back to the summers and winters of childhood.