By Cassam Tupsy
Going barefoot to school with patched dress
Eating meager food, half bread and pickle
Two cents in pocket to buy sweets and peanuts
Satisfy with what poor parents could offer formally
Where have gone those days
Playing ‘canette’, jeu elastic and toupille on street
Hide and seek to meet joy with the exciting catch
‘boule casse cote’ another game extremely enticing
Small ball plastic to enhance the joy of football
Where have gone those days
TV serials like bonanza, Robin Hood, Hawii 5 O
Knight Rider, l’homme qui valait cinq milliard SD
Super Jaimie, le riche et le pauvre among others
All in all the seductive movies pleasant and powerful
Where have gone those days
Friends but no foes with different communities
In villages some going to madrassas other to pathsalas
Values we learned from these centres of high esteem
No cut- throat competitions among the poor were there
Where have gone those days
With fifty cents in pocket we would watch three films
Western and Indian: pictures like oo7, sangam and leader
On second January friends and family going to cinema soirée
House full with cine viewers, watching movies gleefully
Where have gone those days
