Light in the Darkness

This time, the electricity was very troublesome. The light came after twenty-seven to twenty-eight hours and even after that, it kept blinking for three days. "In some areas, electricity came after four days." Hearing this, we also remained patient and grateful. Alhamdulillah, the generator is running. We sit comfortably under the fan and think of those who do not have this facility. May Allah Almighty make things easy for everyone and give good guidance to the government.

Why do we love our childhood memories so much? Perhaps everyone does as we grow older. If we have to sit in the dark or in the light of emergency lights for some time after the power goes out, we remember our ancestral home in Heerabad, Hyderabad and our grandparents' room, where all of us in the family used to sit in the dim light of lanterns after the power goes out, and we would "light in the dark." Usually, the power goes out only during the rainy season. As soon as the electricity went out, our grandfather would first curse the electricity department, then everyone would worry about the children. The women of the house would quickly light lanterns, which were cleaned, oiled, cleaned and kept ready every hour. After the lanterns were lit, all the older children, wherever they could find space, would gather in one room. In the summer, fans made of palm leaves would start blowing and then fun stories would start and all of us children would listen to stories of India from our grandparents with great interest, how they lived there and what hardships they had endured after migrating to Pakistan. Sometimes, mental test questions and answers would start or a "ritual" would be played in which each person had to eat a fictitious item, but the condition was that it should not contain "r", "s" and "m" and if they came, they should come all three together. For example, they could eat ice cream or amaranth but not apples. They can eat bananas but not guavas, they can eat rice but not curry. Whoever makes a mistake is out of the game and the last one who survives is the winner. A favorite game of the dark was "Dumb Show", that is, they go to the lantern and ask about anything with gestures and the onlookers recognize the gestures and answer.

Sometimes "Kasuti" was also played and the whole family would guess a person, animal or building by asking fifteen questions. Children would mostly think of a person in their family who was easily guessed. All these games have been played in our family for generations. Once our little nephew thought of his grandfather when the question was asked whether he was married? The answer was in the negative. Later, when everyone laughed, he was surprised that "You had given the correct answer, when did grandfather get married!"

Sometimes the riddles would start. Our grandfather and grandmother remembered countless riddles.

Green was full of life

Nine lakh pearls were studded

She stood in the Rajaji's garden wearing a doshala.

The red cow ate wood

Drank water and died.

And countless similar riddles were asked to the children. If we did not know the answer to a riddle or question, our grandfather would not give the answer quickly but would ask us to think and we would always think about the solution to the question or riddle and our brain would get a good workout. And yes, I remember, there were also competitions in speaking tongue-twister phrases like "raw papaya, ripe papaya", the most interesting of which were delicious phrases like "the buffalo made a fat pota, the buffalo made a small pota" and "the camel's back was high, the back was low" and we would laugh out loud at the mistakes.

This environment often happened even without electricity, but when all these games were played when the electricity went out, they would really light up in the dark. Now the mobile has separated the family members from each other. This magic box in everyone's hands contains things of interest to everyone, so now no one has time to sit with the elders, but in our childhood there were really "lights in the darkness". We still remember riddles a lot, but there is one riddle whose answer we have forgotten. If any of the readers know it, please tell us.