Paper Boats

Childhood is like a paper boat. It’s light, delicate, colorful, yet sailing steadily on the difficult waters of life. And making paper boats is a significant activity for young children across the globe.

I remember the paper boats from my childhood days. It was the first thing I learned to make using paper. They were mostly white because they were made from school notebooks. I enjoyed making them mostly during the monsoon time so that I could ride them on the small streams of water formed around my home.

I made paper boats of all sizes, and play with them for hours together. I’d this world of my own where I’d make up stories with these different paper boats.

I remember one such story where a comparatively big paper boat was a passenger ship and few smaller boats were pirate ships. The pirate ships would try and reach the passenger ship, and the main task of the passenger ship was to sail fast and stay safe.

I used to put all paper boats on the water one by one. The first paper boats that were the passenger ship would go ahead followed by a few small paper boats that were assigned as pirate ships. This activity was of pure joy for me.

I’m quadragenarian now, and as I’m writing this, I feel adulthood is also like a paper boat. It’s light, delicate, colorful, yet sailing steadily on the difficult waters of life. Although I still make paper boats, I miss my childhood days.

And this article can’t be complete without this emotional song in which the writer/singer craves his childhood and is willing to sacrifice everything to get it back.

Do you have any similar childhood memory? Please feel to share it with me.