A Picnic to remember

Picnics, one of the most cherished things and pastimes ever in our daily lives are fast disappearing due to the recent COVID - 19 pandemic, declining family values, addiction to technology (particularly smartphones and the internet), rapid urbanization, a busy but sedentary lifestyle and globalization. Picnics can be of anything, be it school, college (in the term of field trip), corporate (in the term of team outing) as well as involving family members, friends and neighbors. Any child, who grew up in the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s would remember those fantastic and  memorable picnics destination, be it a hill station,a  zoo, a beach or even a park. This time, I will be going back in time i.e., in my class 4  school picnic, which was considered as the best one in my life. 

It was back in the year 1998, I was just a 10 year old and a 4th standard  kid in the Indian School Bahrain (4K) (at that time, there was no social media, internet, smartphones). In the beginning, Our class teacher, Stella teacher made an announcement to all the friends and classmates of Standard 4K about a picnic field trip to the Italian Circus and many of my friends are very excited about it. For that, we have to pay 10 dinars for the trip. Then on Tuesday, May 12th 1998, it was the day of the trip and all my friends and classmates are extremely excited about going to the circus, so there is no class at that same time,  but we concluded the class with only 4 subjects each. After all the classes for the 4 subjects are over, we got ready for the picnic i.e., field trip for the circus. Immediately after reaching the circus, all the 4th standard children  along with their class teachers of all classes screamed as they reached the circus and then the show started. It began with an acrobatic performances of the circus acrobats, which was then followed by animal performing  various stunts, clowns doing the comedy sketches, juggling and funny pranks, as well as magic shows and tightrope walkers When the first interval is almost over, all the kids and teachers had a lunch, which was then followed by a second interval, which consists of mainly acrobatic performances again, as well as unicyclists,  trapezes, dance acts etc. with a grand finale of all the performers bidding farewell to the show. the show ended and the kids and class teachers went back to school and their respective classes.

Fast forward to 2021, we are all gown up, married with our kids, social media and the internet invaded our lives as well as the COVID -19 pandemic. Once the pandemic gets over, we will plan for a picnic, travel abroad for the holidays. get a job as well as to shun social media and plan a picnic in the near future.