The good old days.

A kite made of plastic bag. Its shape was nothing like a kite. It was just a plastic bag tied to a long raffia string. It didn’t consume much effort and wide space to fly it. In an instance, it was up in the sky. My brothers and I were content. As long as it was a kite to us, light enough to fly high. Who cares if the kids from neighbourhood laughed?

I could not retrieve the specific year when I learned to ride a bicycle. There was no mini tricycle to begin with. Vividly, I remembered there was my late grandmother’s old bicycle with a huge frontal weaved basket used for wet market shopping. I fell many times due to its heavy weight for a ten-year old. It was a proud moment when I finally conquered it. So proud that I didn’t mind humiliation from neighbours and school mates for riding a granny bicycle. I rode it everywhere, showing off. At the age of twelve, I earned a cool bicycle from my late grandfather out of good results at school and behaviour. My cousins were not pleased.

Those were the growing up days in a small town when life was economically tight but simple. There was no easy access to expensive entertainment but only make-do with what’s available. The environment in which my brothers and I grew up in encouraged imagination and creativity. Enticed to being a cashier, we converted a praying table’s drawer into a cashier machine with huge calculator mounted on the top, used cut-out coloured paper in differentiating notes, and took turn in role playing cashier-customer relationship.

Power of play, we were anything we wanted to be.

Financially scarce situation made me a prudent person, straightened my focus, and strengthened my determination towards achieving goals I could not have possibly achieved. These values are still remarkably cultivated today.

I’ve come a long way. Moments like these left me with impeccable life lessons. What’s your story?

“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.” — Karl Lagerfeld

Photo by chefswifediary