Disneyland

It was one of my most memorable days in my life. Yes. It is that day when I went to see Disneyland, in Anaheim, CA. I was then 60+. I realised then that age was just a number and has nothing to do with our spirit of enjoyment. As Wordsworth said, the child is the father of the man, the child in me came to the forefront and I just became a 60+ year old child. I am not going to describe all those pavilions, displays, merry go rounds, star war galaxy, and other bewilderments exhibited in Disneyland. It was a heaven on earth.

At that moment I felt that every child must get an opportunity to see this man made மார்வெல் on earth. The thrill that I got was far beyond words. I felt so sorry that I have missed such a magnificent sight in my young age. At 60+ I had to react within certain boundaries, but had I been a child, I would have been above all those limitations and could have enjoyed them to the hilt. Enjoying is just a small word. I enjoyed it to the extreme.

We spent nearly the whole day starting from 10 A.M but one day is too inadequate to cover the entire Disneyland. By evening we have become quite tired. Our main programme was to see the final retreat at midnight, known as midnight parade, a fabulous sight. I was very particular about seeing that at any cost without missing it.

Since both of us ( me and my wife) were dead tired, we were asked to sit in one corner from where we can get a full view of the entire procession. At 11:00 P.M. we were seated by my daughter and my son in law, in a semi- dark corner, near a plaque, which said “ All missing parents can wait here”.

They also gave me a camera and asked me to click the various views of the procession. We were totally immersed ourselves in that other worldly grandeur, but didn’t fail to click pictures one after the other till the grand retreat was over. I was very happy to have witnessed the world’d most fantastic show and was doubly happy that I will have made a record of all those things for life by taking photographs.

When my daughter and son in law returned, they wanted to know whether I have exhausted all the films. At that time, cell phones were not known and Ordinary type of cameras with films were only used to take photographs. I was also no connoisseur of photography, but I told him that I have snapped for nearly one and a half hours, quite a number of shots and probably a few more films might be left.

He took the camera from me and on checking exclaimed that there were no films in the camera and he had forgotten to insert the film roll in the camera before giving it to me. Thus what was a great show in my life ended in a very disappointing anticlimax and I still feel bad about it, having missed a grand opportunity to record the most fabulous scenes in my life to show them to my children. It was like a marriage with the groom forgetting to tie the Thali on the bride’s neck at the right time.