Memories, sweet memories!

Another year has passed by . With the advent of every Durga puja, I feel that I am moving away farther from my childhood. Of course the memories still are fresh.
With every passing year, I realize more that the very innocent and small pleasures of childhood are very precious and with all the stress of a normal adult life, these memories are a treasure - the planning that I had done as to what would be my puja dresses. We had this tradition( as any other traditional Bengali home) that we would buy dresses yes- loads of them actually during the pujas:) including shoes, matching sweaters and jackets and not to forget the very important girlie accessories like the braclet, the necklace that was in trend and the earrings that you simply could not do without! How would the dress-up be complete without those earrings! It was the only time ever I think that we really dolled up:)
The days just before the pujas would be so much more interesting with topics to discuss and talk about- what we would wear, where we would be waiting for a friend, how some of us had an advantage as we lived close to Durgabari. Some friends will understand this very well:)
And then, the actual days of the puja would be out of the world for us! Those days, I remember we never had a trouble of getting up early in the morning. We would wait and strain our ears to hear the sound of the "dhaak". And the first sound of "dhaak" would make us very excited and me and my brother would make up a case as to how we were getting late and that all of our friends would be missing us already. There would be stalls outside Durgabari that we would wait to see in case we liked something from there and could get it. For the boys it was generally the "pistol-bomb" All the boys would be bursting out those bombs and all the girls would be mad that they were making a lot of noise and how it was so unsafe:)
Evenings were thronged with cultural programs. In my younger days, it was more of an enjoyment from the audience and as I entered my teens, I had also started participating in those programs - be it a quiz or singing.
I wonder whether we will be able to give those small pleasures to our next generation- the treasures that they can pass on to their kids , the memories they can reminisce in their adult life, the memories that say " I look forward to the pujas, how my mom and dad had made the pujas so enjoyable for us" , the culture that is associated to the pujas, the Bijoya pranam that had so much of a meaning in our lives .