The year was 1998. I was 4 but I have a vivid memory of that time. We used to live in a colony. All the employees of the company where my dad worked lived there with their families. I was the King of the World. My mom let me roam around everywhere outside the house alone. I went out every morning and came back home at night after dark. Time spent in school was no more than a few hours and homework was an afterthought. One could say my life was equivalent to a free range chicken.

I used to yell out calling for my friends and they used to respond and come running down after finishing homework. We used to have so much fun! That place was huge! We used to love exploring different places. We used to play in the playground and there was a huge club for banquets and a big stage for events in the colony. We played all sorts of games. When we played hide ‘n’ seek I used to hide under cars. It was very dangerous but it was thrilling. There was one time when someone started the car and that scared the shit out of me. Never did that again hehe.

We had so much fun as a group. We would go out to get Pepsi- these are flavoured ice sticks not the popular cola brand- my favourite was orange flavour and cola flavoured magic crackle pops. We used to have amazing birthday parties where everyone was welcome. The standard meals at those parties would be cake, samosas, potato chips and one aunty made these aloo tikkis (potato patties) with chhole (chickpea curry) that were legendary and those were present at almost every party or event. I made special deals with her for those aloo tikkis. Her daughter was my best friend and we eloped a few times, that was the deal. There was street food but I miss the samosas from the club the most. There was this one time I snuck out a basket full of samosas from the ladies’ kitty party that was going on in the club and shared it with my friends. I must have had about 8 samosas myself. I could eat a lot even then because we were so damn active and were perpetually hungry. That heist was legendary because we never got caught.

Everyone had landlines at the time and I had memorised all of my friends’ phone numbers so I could call them out to play. There was a senior kid who had a “computer” in his house and we all used to go see what it was about. He used to show us how he made drawings with MS Paint. He was the only one with a PC in the entire colony. That was the first time I saw a PC and the feeling was whoa! I didn’t know anything about it but it was very exciting! He did not have internet and we didn’t know that anything like that even existed.

I used to go out looking for trouble because there was this one kid I didn’t like and I used to sneak away his tricycle and ride it for a bit then sneak it back in. I had my own tricycle but I rode it so much that it gave up on me and broke into two pieces. One time I got caught returning the tricycle by his mom and I sweet talked my way out of that situation. I told her I found it down the road. She probably dropped the matter because she didn’t want to argue with a 4 year old. That didn’t stop me from doing it again though.

Famously I was known to flirt with all the ladies in the area. All the girls in my class loved me. One of the senior boys even gave me shit for it when I got caught flirting with his sister. His friends were teasing him that I would elope with her and that drove him mad. He was in grade 10 and I was in Lower KG. I had every intention to elope as I had a deal with his mom and I did. I took his sister home and told my mom that we eloped. She said okay but then it was dinner time and her dad came by and took her home. We eloped again the next day.

The Diwali festivals were epic in that colony. I still remember the Diwali on the eve of the year 2000 or the millennium as they were calling it, there was a huge roll of fireworks laid out on the street. There were exactly 2000 fireworks in that roll and they all went off sequentially. That was an epic moment! I remember holding my ears and jumping in place with excitement. The sweets were home made and were made with ghee and milk. The quality of those sweets is something I have not had ever since.

I used to play with everybody and in my building there was this older bro(he was in college) who used to argue with me from his balcony. I used to call him crazy monkey because he started it! But then he moved to another city. So I started arguing with his younger brother.

My dad used to take me everywhere on his motorcycle. A lot of Indian kids probably have this memory. I used to ride on the fuel tank of the motorcycle as we drove around the city. That was an unhinged and unsafe experience that will never happen again but the feeling of the wind ruffling through my hair and the thrill of getting a front seat at high speeds with nothing in between my face and the road will never be replaced. When the bike was parked I pretended to ride it myself. I spent a lot of time doing that.

I got away with a lot of things as a 4 year old and had a lot of fun doing things I shouldn’t have been doing. We moved away from there soon after. I never stayed in touch with my friends after that and they probably don’t remember me now. Last I heard was that the girl I eloped with got married with another man and has a baby of her own now. I am so happy for her. She will always be my first love. I have a lot of fond memories of that place and I will never forget the colony. If I were to relive a year from my life it would be the year when I was the King of the World.