Summer Schools

With just a little over a week left for most school vacations to end, parents must be sighing in relief. The vacation seems to be an endless worry for most parents. Even so, the editorial of The Mint's ( a financial daily) weekend supplement Lounge - wrote in detail of the different options parents have for keeping the children occupied this summer. Options are plenty - there are dance and music classes, cricket coaching, swimming, personality training for those as young as 3 years! And the courses cost a small fortune. And working out the logistics leave the parents a harried lot. Sending children to summer schools does have its advantages I guess. There are some new skills that are learnt. For working parents this is a boon. But strangely mothers who do not work also opt to send out their child only so that they have some time for themselves!! That never ceases to surprise me.

I don't think our parents ever worried about keeping us occupied in summer. They were glad to keep us indoors, if they could, to avoid the summer heat. Children rarely ever said they were bored during the vacation. There was so much to do and no TV to distract us.

For me summer vacation meant I could get up a little later than usual. There were piles of books to read. Music blaring from the old transistor radio. The back yard was set up for the kitchen garden. Board games were brought out. Afternoons spent playing carroms and ludo. Stamp and coin collections were updated.

My grandfather's Underwood typewriter was taken out and along with the Pitman typewriting manual I would progress from the first lesson ( asdfg ;lkjh) to the lesson that would begin the use of numbers that were located on the top row of the keys. At this stage, each summer I would lose interest in my typewriting lessons. This continued for at least 6-7 summers. The self training has stood in good stead and my speed at typing (at the computer) without looking at the keys are a result of the practice. But I still need to look at the keys to type in the numbers!