Summer nights in the villages of past

 

During our childhood, the village was far smaller. The houses were small with plenty of space around. The electricity would continue playing hide and seek. During the summers we would sleep in the open on charpoys. The street dogs got a night-long stringed roof over them as they slept under the charpoys. But then you can’t just sleep at night, especially if you happen to be a canine species. Maybe they felt playful during the night and the chappals and jutis would be found missing in the morning. These were the favorite toys of the dogs.

It was a usual sight to find someone searching for his missing footwear in the morning. The lucky ones would find the item still somehow usable even after very serious canine attempts to decapitate it. But humans are one step ahead of the rest of the species on this little planet. They are born to go seeking solutions. The habit is so chronic that when all the solutions for the time have been found, they create fresh problems in order to have the satisfaction of seeking new solutions.

We also had our solutions in this regard. Our slippers, chappals and jutis turned into pillows. We tucked them under the durries and bed sheet and rested our head on them to avoid a situation of beginning the day with finding the solution to the puzzle of missing footwear. A short-sighted solution, like most of our solutions are, because it would surely give cervical problem to the elderly in the medium term.