CHILDHOOD WAS A STEAL !

Whenever I try to remember my childhood, I find quite a few incidents related to stealing. At the risk of losing my “respectability” (imaginary), I want to narrate a few of them.

Bareilly had a sugar factory and naturally a large quantity of sugar cane from the nearby fields found its way to Bareilly in the cane crushing season by the goods trains. These, if I remember correctly, were brought in closed as well as open wagons. Well, an open wagon full of juicy sugarcanes (apparently unprotected) was irresistible bait for the children’s brigade. We would swoop down on them and try to pull out as much sugarcane as we could handle and........ bolt.

There was a practical problem though. Our tiny hands were unable to reach the high wagons. But then there were elders ready to lend us a helping hand,”helping” themselves in the process.

Eating fresh, juicy and “stolen” sugarcane using bare hands and teeth was an incomparable BLISS!



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