Earth

With Chiyu, Shreya and Funskool clay on an evening turning flowers at homes. When they were tots in Dahisar, Chiyu mixed water with street dust while Shreya cooked the watery paste playing ghar-ghar; Ajoba and Aji collected small stones for vegetables; upset with fooling her grandkids, Aji once made bhel for them, fed them as they messed tiny fingers. Down the street came Dakhi, early from office, bristled at her kids in mud; upturned Aji, Ajoba had disappeared from the scene. And this evening Chiyu and Shreya turned clean pressing plastic clay; no mud on them; as if they had not played with earth; they washed their hands with soap after massaging plastic clay. Will, one day, fifty years hence, there be earth and children and grandmas and grandpas; maybe robots will do what children do today... do not know when Chiyu picked Ajoba out of his thoughts ......  'abhi Deepavali chutti ayega, maja karenge' they chirped together; and then Aji told them of Dombivili times when Deepavali meant making mud killas ... surprising in the delicious Marathi film Killa, there is no killa manufacturing by kids. Led by Vidya; 1980s at Anand Arunoday Co-op. Housing Society... Vidya, Dakhi, Ganesh, Sachin, Rani, Swapnil, Satej and more kids existed in mud, rolled in mud, became mud .... no plastic clay, earth dear, soft earth, brown with grass and pebbles... Vidya would assign jobs and at a corner of the garden they would pile up mud with plastic mugs of water .... together they mixed themselves into all of the clay and Aji could not identify them... it took days for the killa to be made as it was broken down many times by erupting quarrels ... by the next morning they would all gather for killa ... the killa was named Killa .... designed by grass, sand, dry leaves and other waste products ... yes, those times they were free and there was not plastic clay or if it was, there was no purse ... the killa had diyas, a moat with water and paper boats and a few ants reminding Ajoba of Swami and Malgudi days .... then schools opened ....Aji finished with the Killa telling... Shreya and Chiyu have decided on a plastic clay killa as Dakhi from the kitchen bawled against making a furnished home earth dirty ...'kachada nako' .... Wish schools could think of a Killa game with mud for Deepavali 2016....