Blyton, Enid. Ten O clock tales- and other stories.

I read my first book, by myself, when I was 6. It was called Noddy and the Aeroplane. I slept with my copy of Noddy by my bedside.
My grandmother went from speaking broken English to speaking it fluently. Given that she sat tirelessly next to me, every afternoon, while I read from Amelia Jane aloud.
I have read every Famous Five story, relived every Secret Seven adventure in my mind several times. I have looked up words like pixie and delightful from the Oxford dictionary when I was six, because the words "sounded nice"
The copies of The Wishing Chair series from the local library have chocolate marks on pages. That is because- at night, when everyone slept, I'd sit with a bar of Dairy Milk and read the books. I liked to think I was eating something fancy. Like tea and scones. And crumpets. So what if it wasn't raining and I didn't have a fireplace?
I hoped and hoped that my parents sent me to a boarding school. I dreamed of living with people my age, and opening my window to lush green lawns. Of sneaking in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lemonade into the rooms at night. From ages 7-9 I read and re-read every book in the Mallory Towers and St.Clare's series.
I had no qualms to admitting that I had an imaginary friend. I had no difficulty in convincing my best friend that I had a flying horse and a belt that took you back in time.
I wrote my first story when I was 10. It was about a girl who sees a ghost in her books cabinet. And befriends him. It was poorly written. But it didn't matter. In my head, it was something that was mine.
I cook up stories when I am walking, in buses, during long lectures, while lying on my bed, while eating and while talking to people.
I don't find bus-stops mundane. I don't find empty lanes spooky. In my mind- everything has a certain character to it.
When I pass people on streets, I think of their life stories. And make some up for good measure.
On winter mornings, when the watery sunlight lazily creeps into my room, it makes me smile and think of quaint things. Like snow. And hot chocolate. And feather quilts.
It doesn't matter if she was a bad mother. It doesn't matter if some department head in some university thought her work lacked literary value. It doesn't matter if she had characters like Mr.Pink Whistle and Big Ears.
What matter is that she was an excellent writer. She made sure I give an imaginative spin to things that are dangerously commonplace. She made sure that children all over the globe saw magic in everyday lives.
I grew up. I read other things. Things of "consequence"
I admitted sheepishly that there are no gnomes. Or flying chairs. Or badly behaved broomsticks.
But on sleepless nights, when the house is quiet, I pretend that there are elves living below my bed.

And to you this whole thing may sound lame and cliche and pretentious. To me, it's my best childhood memories. And there's very little out there, that has the potential to taint those.

Common-place.

It's the powder blue building by the rail tracks. It smells of fish and socks. It quakes, unpleasantly, every time a train passes. The rooms are clustered together. The doors are always open. The men, the retired and the unemployed, sit on old worn out cots. Playing cards, smoking foul smelling cheap cigarettes. The women, after they have finished their morning gossip over lukewarm tea, race after grubby children. Their own, more often than not. The grubby children, apart from dodging their mothers, chase each other. Sometimes scarily close to the tracks. Their noses running, their hair disheveled. Some poke at a snail, curiously. Some eat mud. And grin at each other.
The men walk around condescendingly. They drop in, at their neighbours' houses. Stop by for a glass of tea, some biscuits from a tin. Pretend to help the children with their studies. The children cling on the men, gleefully. Begging them for a chocolate. The men laugh indulgently. Hollow laughter and alcohol breath. They'll stop by for dinner sometime, they tell the woman of the house. She nods emphatically. She'll make mutton stew, she promises. And her husband can bring some country liquour, the men joke. She turns away with a shudder. The idea of drunken men in the house, makes her stomach turn.
The girls return from school. They hold hands and laugh. Their hair held back with frayed ribbons. The chipped nailpaint and the calculated walk- suggest the urge to grow up. They gush over one of the newborns. They turn away when the men walk by. They think of their own clandestine affairs. Young and foolish.
The night brings the men back from work. They snap at their wives, carelessly throw their wallets on the table. It hasn't been a good day, they mutter. The women bustle around with tea and oily snacks- bought hastily from the railway station. The men reach for the bottle and call out to their friends. The women try suggesting against it, but are soon quiet. The slap on their aching backs has made the required point.
The girls hide themselves in kitchens, reading in the yellow light. The children, sleep early. Their grubby feet covered with threadbare sheets.
The drinking begins. The jokes are crass, the voices obnoxious.
Somewhere, a child stirs. Calls for his mother.
Somewhere, a man- drunk out of his mind, leers at the a girl. Walks towards her. An hour later, walks away from her.
Somewhere, a girl runs a blade across her wrist. Her mindless affair, now over.
A fight breaks out, the alcohol bottle crashes. The dark brown liquid staining the stained carpet.

It may be the same day. It may be different days. It eventually all merges into each other. Into an all-too-familiar blur.