When all that we needed was "fun"..

**This one was posted by me sometime back in my Infy blogs..re-posting it here now.**

“Hey u r the loser this time also”, shouted my brother with a wicked grin of victory on his face.

It all started when dad got me a new bicycle, BMX Kangaroo, a petite one painted yellow. I was just 10 then, but still remember the glee on my face after getting it..the contentment of possessing a valuable treasure. Gradually I learned the basic lessons of the act of balancing on a two-wheeler from my brother. He was my companion during childhood days, and his friends were my friends too. The idea of racing came into our minds at that time. By then, I became a not-so-bad cycle-rider and my brother and his friends, adept bike-riders. The memories of the first race we had are still afresh in my mind as if it all happened a day before. Every time we had a race it became a routine for my brother to bawl with joy “I won, I won” and I would be there muttering “It’s okay. Participating is more important than winning”. I still can’t control laughing at myself when I think about all those. But in a way I meant what I said. Fun and frolic was all that mattered to us ultimately, rather than the rage for competing and winning.

Don’t know when things started changing. We started getting new friends, this time it came to just “his” friends and “my” friends. Those old ramblings in the streets, the cycle-rides, the games we played together..everything started to fade away. Years passed by and I confined to my own group of friends and he, to his own. Now we both are grown-ups; I still can go to him for almost anything and he would be there for me when the whole world turns back. But still if I am asked what I love most, the present or the past, I would have only one thing to say “I want my childhood days back”.