Remember the summer holidays when you were a kid ? Remember when you counted down the days till which you can play with your friends all day long!!? But you had to go a journey to see your family deity or to some lame waterfalls that had no water flowing. Duh ! It’s summer !! It’s not the waterfalls’ fault. But your family elders stood their ground and left you with no option but to travel to some Hill Station , that was supposed to be cool , but really isn’t due to the hike in tourism. The dreadful day of the travel has arrived and you are pulled from your bed and forced to get ready and threatened to travel naked upon your protest to get ready ! You maintain a grim and dull expression all the way to the train station , to get attention but fail terribly as you are ignored and the luggage take away all your importance !! How dare they !
Ah , how you wish you still had school so that you didn’t have to go through this agony !! All your pain immediately washes away when your eyes fall upon the Magazine stall in the station platform. Your eyes twinkle and brim with happiness when you see a colorful copy of “TINKLE” , clipped to the line at the top of the stall. You approach your parents with “puppy dog” eyes and a “hopeful” heart , and after much fuss and blackmail to jump in the tracks , your parents finally resign and buy you a copy of that month’s issue of “TINKLE”. You jump happily and look at the person in the stall as your “Savior” and hands you a fresh copy of TINKLE. When you feel the magazine in your hands and the NEW smell of it wafts up to your nostrils , you are in Heaven !! If it is a Double Digest , you are in even more luck !
When your parents move away, but you stand you ground and look up and point to the copies of CHANDAMAMA , CHAMPAK and AMAR CHITHRA KATHA , they sigh and get you those copies as well but is warned that those magazines are final and for the entire journey. Those words don’t reach your ears as you look at the magazines that you are holding with eyes of hearts !! <3<3
When you are a kid of the late 90’s and early 20’s , and a kid who loves to read comics and stories , you will understand the feeling that i am talking about.
As soon as the train arrives , you pester your father to make your berth. In India , if you are big enough for either of your parents to share your berth with you, you get your own !! If you feel as Royalty if at all you are traveling in A/C coach , as you get a light and curtain for your berth separately. Once you climb on the berth, close the curtains and switch on the lamp and settle down with your magazines , the outside world dissolves away !!
You don’t need water,food. You do not have a care in the world , even if lightning struck outside your curtain ! 😉 All you need is “Suppandi” , “Shikari Shambu” and “Tantri the Mantri” and your characters from The Mahabharatha , The Ramayana , Panchatantra , the ever favourite Akbar & Birbal and the stories from Champak.
You worship those magazines throughout the journey and preserve them cause you need them on your journey back home. Unless your trip lasts more than 15 days cause TINKLE and other magazines are fort-nightly or monthly issues.
These Magazines have made or broke our childhood but are a definite and fond memory of our childhood.
It’s sad that those magazines have lost the thrill and popularity in today’s generation. They are published even now. But they were the Golden Eggs to us, geese back in the ol’ days ! <3<3
Thank you Uncle Pai for twinkling our childhood with TINKLE ❤
~Masha
P.S. If you wanna see the reason for our twinkles and also want to be TINKLEd !
Unstoppable Thoughts 