on some summer anecdotes :)

these are some of the shared memories which we lived in the city and a glimpse in the normal lives of two indian kids growing up and how much summer matters.

so, where were we?

reading advice: before reading this article please try putting your headphones on and play this song for better experience :)

my last post was about my self reflection on growing up and self analysis and leaving things behind, hopefully the post delivered the message, so continuing anurag's archive we're today not alone but i have a guest today with me with whom i’m sharing my experiences as a jaipur boy growing up.

everyone say hi to shubhi and also thank you her for giving me time for this post.

Thank you, Anurag! Hi all, so this is pretty exciting. I have only in recent years begun to appreciate this city as much as it deserves. I do not think I can encapsulate all aspects of this experience in this essay, so I won’t even insult it by trying. This isn’t about the culture, the heritage, the history of this city; this is a general exploration of the years we have spent here; at the end of the day, our lives are more similar than we think. You’ve probably passed by my favourite spots in the city palace or the forts without knowing, and I probably long to visit your city.

well, that was a good introduction for our guest so, let's talk about the city, where i was born and raised, i was born in jaipur but mostly my early years were in maharashtra and himachal pradesh, i finally relocated to jaipur when i was 8 and to a kid raised in shimla it was at first a little hard to adapt to the heat waves of jaipur and the warm, dry heat of jaipur, in shimla we didn't even had fans and coolers but when i relocated to jaipur, eventually i got my introduction to the thing that is called as a cooler and i saw my first AC, so if we're sharing my anecdote let's see what our guest has to say as a girl raised in jaipur,

I spent a couple of years as a child in the older parts of the city, where there are the narrow lanes behind the “pink city” that millions of people come to visit every year. There is an entire evening routine of monkeys who are too used to the cramped buildings and the old havelis that haven’t been painted in decades. We didn’t get milk in packets back then; it was a shop nearby, I remember. The shopkeeper had a big vessel of boiling milk, the thick cream or malai floating over it. My grandfather visited the famous Govind Dev Ji temple every day and sometimes took me with him on his cycle. His love was in the act of cutting and peeling mangoes or some other fruit for me,

so let's start with me,

anurag's anecdotes : The Shelter

so it started, when i was at age of 9-10, we had a big park in our locality, the park was everything a park looks like, green, grassy and had decent benches, it was my first month living in jaipur and i was excited finding more about the city and i was going to park with my elder sister and my elder brother and he introduced me to his friends group and when i looked around it was something so peaceful i have never seen in my first month in this city, the city never sleeps it wasn't some well cut isolated army housing like in shimla it was a living booming city and have a lot of people living their lives, in the park i saw people lying on the green grass, lovers sitting by benches laughing, some marwari uncles discussing politics and how much the state of living in this country has gotten worse from their times and kids bare feet were running on the cold soil and people we're laughing and within the pocket of a run down wall of a nearby apartment from the house me and my friends saw lucy, she was a black mixed with white fur and brown eyes, we were scared at first if she is friendly and docile or harmful and aggresive as our mothers told us that stray dogs are a menace for living in the societies, we waited for a while and the, lucy silently gave us a look as if she doesn't mind us in her territory and instead we followed her trail, or maybe we just assumed she was leading us, as we entered the narrow lane of the blue run down apartment we saw the sight of maternity, and we saw motherhood, we saw the sight of the dog and her puppies lying on a tore up, towel and a blanket and a bowl of water beside them, probably the house keepers nearby were a little kind and i saw some Parle-G biscuit packets lying there and we immediately looked at the mother and her 4 kids, and as we we're just getting known to the reality the door of the nearby house opens and a woman with a kid, really a toddler and with a chewing toy in his hand standing comes out, the woman was as how most of the women in the society how it's was there to dress, wearing minimal gold, hair tied in a braid, a mangteeka and wearing a rajasthani poshak, we didn't do much as she noticed us and asked if we live nearby, we immediately told her about the house we come from and what's the name of our grandfather, actually where i live we had a close knit society and everyone knew each other by the name of the house, like thakur sahab ka ghar, agarwal ji ka ghar, choudhary sahab ka makaan, it was like that, maybe i was living in a small village of it's own and as we looked at the lady and she told us that she was just heading out to buy grocery for the puppies, we immediately joined the trail of the mother and she walked us to the nearby convenience store we knew and immediately asked for 2L of milk and some honey for her kid, and we were just looking at her jewellery and i was looking at the jaipur people like some exotic creatures i saw for the first time, although my family is from Rajasthan, we got to the spot where the puppies and the mother was and she brought a different bowl and told us that the puppies are a week old and we're taking care of them as much as we can and a lot of stray cats are walking by so we also tried to get them a little shelter but her husband was busy and she was far much involved with her own son that she didn't had much time to build a temporary shed for lucy, so me and my friends at first were hesitant to actually think about something like that so for first 2 weeks we just visited lucy and played with her and fetched her water and biscuits and taking care of her small tiny babies, after that my elder cousin brother found a cardboard and some wooden planks in our house which we got while we were cleaning down out store room and making space for some things, he immediately with the help of me and my friends took the slab to the corner where lucy and her puppies stayed and we went there spent the entire day getting the planks together, after a while the neighborhood grandpas also laughed seeing us show the effort and joined the thing by doing some carpentry which would be too much for 10 year olds and after the hard work of a day, lucy finally had a shed where she could stay and nurse her kids and also we tried giving her anything we brought from the nearby store or anything which our mothers had in excess, we helped her a bit in ways we could, she mostly used to live alone there which i as a human could comprehend seeing not much dogs around, she was a amazing dog and a more amazing mother, sadly one of the four pups died within a week and we buried him nearby and the other pups were healthy and we named them, sheru, bhura and tyson,

Sadly, according to the law of nature, dogs couldn't live that much and lucy died 3 years later but her kids are still here, nearby, maybe i don't recognize them anymore or maybe it's been a while since I've felt like a human exploring things and creating stuff, maybe my connection with nature has faded but hasn't gone, and by this I'd like to end the tale of The Shelter and Lucy gets a conclusion.

Shubhi’s anecdotes: Isarlat

My best friend and I are incredibly passionate about history, she more than I. You wouldn’t need the local guide if she’s there; she has already been in the history rabbit holes and came out finding comfort in the biographies. So every time she’s in town, we almost always decide to go to the older parts of the city, explore, or just revisit the monuments we’ve visited before. Last summer, we visited Hawa Mahal—if you’re a history nerd, don’t just click pictures of the Mahal’s jharokas from the outside, there is a whole lot to see inside the palace, not just that, the view from above is worthwhile. We decided to visit Isarlat as well, a spot that even a lot of locals have not explored yet, which, I guess, is a good thing. It is a seven-story minaret built by Maharaja Sawai Ishwari Singh in 1749 to commemorate his victory against Madho Singh, his half-brother, in the Battle of Rajmahal. It has a spiral staircase/ramp, and there are cross sections that allow light and ventilation. I, like an anxious animal, even with these cross-sections, kept asking my friend if we were going to get trapped in the tower as my friend dragged me upstairs. But it is a good thing that she did because it is a beautiful view.

anurag's anecdotes : we found a spot!

As, we moved to the cliff, the sun in the morning was looking at us, the first ray of sunshine hitting directly to our bagpacks and the way, we were looking at the spot and we saw the sun directly looking at us, it was morning we were sweaty from walking all the way up to the hills, the aravallis are the main hills that seperate the western and eastern rajasthan, we climbed a little until we saw a open waterfall and our tiredness went away and we changed our clothes had a short bath and again went to our way, after climbing for some hours we were finally there, it was a beautiful sight of the farmland and the cattle down there, the people were streching getting ready for their work, the kids were getting their wickets and setting up the last game they played, the milkman was riding on his bike and the women were just awake,

the sight of the city, absolutely gave me a serene current,ladies and gentlemen we found a spot that day.

Shubhi's anecdote : the beautiful furry friend.

I do not think I can talk about my childhood and not talk about my dog. When I moved to the place where I live now, there was this really beautiful black dog who somehow knew how to do “handshakes”; he would put his paw on our hands or legs as if demanding pets and treats. He had brown eyes. I can still imagine them in my head right now. He was especially my first best friend because I did not have friends at school, and I was still new to the neighbourhood. It was almost a sort of reassurance to myself, “Well, at least I have him.” While he was young, he would follow us everywhere, even as far as a kilometre or two from our area, and he would run behind our vehicle. He would often take his food bowl with him after his meal. The onset of summer in late March often reminds me of his last days. He would always come running to my mom, my dad or me every time we left the house, but on that one day, he was running away, and I don’t think he could even see what was happening around him. He was running around, scared, and we could not do anything about it. He lived a long life of at least 14 years, but early summers haven’t felt the same since 2023.

So, i guess that's it for now, and don't forget to subscribe to Shubhi, and i want to thank her for giving this project her time and writing this article for me!

i hope everyone loved this tiny abstract of our childhood.