The Joint Family *

After the beautiful and touching blog "Happines", I was not really sure what to write from my side.But, I have to continue blogging......
Hope you like this......

We were fourteen brothers and sisters all together.Well,we were actually cousins but lived in one big house !
And when my Aunts visited,we would be a whole bunch of twenty-seven cousins. Of course,the older would form their own group,but that did not stop us younger ones from having fun.We were like one big team sharing all the good and bad times together.The festivals and joyous moments were celebrated and shared with great alacrity and happiness. There were some sad and tragic moments which brought us all even more closer.With brothers and sisters of all ages to interact with,we learnt and experienced different aspects of life at an early age.

Living in a joint family has its own advantages and disadvantages.I did not see many disadvantages and happen to recall all the happy times especially during the summer vacations when we had lot of fun together.The heat never seemed to bother us children during those days.The entire house seemed to be echoing with fun and laughter.

The carrom-board championship used to be the most popular and boisterous event. There would be a big fuss, heated discussions,anger,frustration and one by one we would play and lose, leaving two finalists in the end.Another attraction in the hot summer months was the sound of the icecream man. Sometimes one of my uncles would treat us with all the icecream we could eat.We literally created a rampage with the icecream man struggling to keep track of the ones sold !
I cannot remember the number of times we tried to save the sparrow's eggs.Every time an egg would fall down the nest, it would become a project for us to place it back in its nest.I still stand baffled as to why the mother sparrow would renounce that egg and drop it again.This act made us sad ,but we never stopped helping and trying to save the fallen eggs.
Then,we would line up on the terrace all excited, ready to help the cousin flying a kite and battling in the sky with other neighbours.This was the most popular sport we had during those hot and humid summer evenings.We also played cricket,breaking glasss windows of other houses a few times.
Sometimes the heat outside forced us to stay indoors,but failed to lower our spirits.We played games with cards.We could sit for hours and chat,tell stories and jokes.We never missed watching cricket tournaments on television.Infact our parents,uncles and aunts joined us too making the house a stadium in itself.
And how can I forget to mention the times when some of us mischevious ones would creep into the 'prohibitted for kids' area and steal the goodies,choclates and pickles from jars and pantries? We would collect all relished snacks and have a picnic of our own.In all we remained busy having fun the entire summer.

Now that we are grown-ups, all that energy, curiosity, simplicity and innocence seemed to be lost somewhere back in time.I miss what I consider to be the golden era of our lives.But,we all still remain in touch with each other.Thanks to the internet ! Even though we live miles apart,we still remain as one big family, sharing our happy and sad stories regularly.