My oldest memories

I was born in Srinagar, a city in the northernmost state in India, known for its scenic beauty and political unrest thanks to a very considerate neighbor. After I was born, I was taken back to Mumbai where my parents lived at that time. I have a few memories of back then, though they are a little blurred, here's an attempt to relive them.
My favourite hot spot was the tiny wondow that overlooked an extremely busy street. If mom had to get me to stop crying or eat portions of horrible tasting 'cerelac', that was one spot in the house where all this could be done effortlessly. I loved looking out the window and wondering why all these people were doing what they were doing. The ragged man smoking a bidi in a corner would catch my attention or a little child running behind a cycle tyre with a stick, rolloing it along would make me smile and make those weird baby noises. But the one thing that made the window most interesting was the big elephant that walked down the street every afternoon at 3. By some baby intelligence, I always seemed to know the moment when the elephant would walk past, as if there was an alarm clock in my body telling me it was time. At the same moment every day I would look at my mother with hope that she will pick me up and carry me to my little window. If the look wasnt sufficient, I would begin waving my arms and making those silly baby noises. If that too failed to communicate the message, I would start crying.
I must admit we are much more intelligent and manipulative as babies, and whoever said that children are innocent has got to be really unaware of his own intelligence as a child. The only difference between children and adults is that children manipulate for immaterialistic gains while the adults' end-goal is of a more materialistic, worldly nature.
Anyway, so I would finally get my way and mom would take me to the window to hush me. And there it would be.....walking down the road with grandeur befitting a King. He would move his head and swing his trunk as if enjoying his daily afternoon walk. Throwing a banana at it was something mom taught me. That was the first lesson in general knowledge. What is the elephant's favourite food? Bingo....Banana. Now when I think about it, I realize one more thing which most of us dont. Knowledge comes from the smallest things we encounter in life. We learn from everything that happens around us, but we just dont realise it. We feel all our learning has come from the schooling and higher education we have, but the fact is that life teaches us much more than what those books can. The problem is that we are so ignorant towards life's virtue of being a teacher that we rarely learn from our lives.
When I was a year old, we moved to Pune, another wonderful city known for its cultural richness and quality education. I have many wonderful memories of Pune where I spent almost 13 years of my life. First time I made friends, went to school, learnt how to ride a bicycle and so many other things. Once in a while, we would go and visit my parents' families in Srinagar. I immensely enjoyed those trips and was very fond of outings into the forests and mountains of Kashmir. I have blurred memories of my maternal and paternal grandparents' houses. The one most deeply etched in my memory is my maternal grandfather's beautiful house and the garden around it. There was a grand wooden staircase that I remember and the sprinklers in the garden where I would play in the water for hours together. I was particularly fond of flowers and used to compare different flowers to animals. There was this purple flower I remember which I used to call the 'dog flower' because it could be opened and closed to resemble a barking dog's mouth. If you stretched your hand out of the window, you could pluck a pear or an apple from the trees. It remains to date my most cherished oldest memory.
Sometimes when I think about all those small things I remember, I envy my parents. While I have my little elephant, ragged men and busy streets to remember, they have memories of lakes, gardens, snow, trees, mountains, valleys and much more enthralling views. They spent their entire childhood in the lap of nature's beauty while I spent mine in steel and concrete.