The five people you meet in heaven, it is a book written by Mitch Albom, same, author of Tuesdays with Morrie . Its about Eddie, a war veteran who dies on his 83rd birthday in a tragic accident trying to save a little girl from a falling cart and goes to heaven. You may not believe in hell or heaven, not necessary, Eddie says heaven is not a lush garden of eden, it’s a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. They were your loved ones or distant strangers, yet each of them changed your path forever.
A baseball flies over Eddie’s head and goes into the street, this at a young age. He chases after it and runs in front of an automobile, a Ford model A. The car screeches, veers and just misses him. He shivers, exhales, gets the ball and races back to his friends.
Another angle of the same story, a man is behind the wheel of a Ford Model A. The road is wet from the morning rain, suddenly a baseball bounces across the street and a boy comes racing after it. The driver slams on the brakes . The car skids, the tires screech and somehow he regains control and car rolls on. The child had disappeared in the rear view mirror but the man’s body is still affected, thinking of how close he came to a tragedy. His heart pumps furiously and leaves him drained. He feels dizzy and meets with an accident and dies. When Eddie dies he meets this man in heaven where he learns how he is the reason for the car driver Joseph’s, death. And the story goes on about the other four people….
There was a point in the book where he talks about his early childhood. That triggered an idea to check my earliest child hood. I stop reading and close my eyes and travel as far as I could down the blurred memory lane of all my yesterdays. I should have been somewhere between 3-4 years, where I could touch the first recallable scene. It was in Mumbai, then Bombay.
The scene is a class room, the teacher stops talking and starts sniffing. Somebody has pooped and she is walking past every child and stops near me. Yes, i am the one. The next scene I can recall is walking home with a school maid. The next is my grandfather getting left behind at the bus stop in a family outing. One more, I climb upon a side grill to open a door in my house and I fall down ending up with a bleeding cut on my eye brow. Well the only good thing about the cut, it became my mentionable identification mark in my documents wherever applicable. A cut mark above the left eyebrow, ok, pass. My mom says I used to bite other children and they were scared to come home. The Three scenes mentioned above , I am not sure which occurred first.
Meanwhile, I checked with a few around me. One of them said,” I am sitting on the steps and crying when my aunt comes to pick me up and I refuse to go with her and my mom is shouting to leave me alone and let me sit there and cry “. Another person says, “I am being carried around by my grandfather and he is showing me the crows on the branches of the tree. One more , “I can see my uncle walking into the room in a hospital where I was admitted for an operation”. All these people claim they were around two and half years old. May be at a younger age, your recall scene may be of an earlier than mine , something between 3 to 4 years.
This is an interesting exercise, please share your earliest memory with me, it takes 2 minutes or less ,travel down the memory, never mind how busy you are, I can assure you it may not be a shitty one like mine, a much better one. Get your partner to participate with their EARLIEST. Trust me, it can be fun.
Here we go, start the fun, close your eyes and travel back to the beginning of your remembrance, just the earliest will do…..
Rajmenon's Blog 
Your beautiful blog has refreshed few of my earliest memories too. My Dad’s younger brother used to live with us until I turned five years and he was very fond of me. He was a movie buff and I remember the first time I saw a flight land on a screen and he explaining about that mode of travel. I could be a little over two years. That scene has etched in my memory so strongly that whenever I come across a landing flight I can feel a connect between my heart and brain. Much later I loved to play with a rubber ball. I loved pitching them to the wall and throw it as high as I can. Had pestered my Mom enough for the ball and she surprised me with one in her grocery bag. I was Six years then and that ball meant the world to me, I used to have it in my pocket even when I went to bed.
Sailendra, I saw your reply now, the only one to respond. Thank you.