Wonder Years

"Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house like a lot of other houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back, with wonder."

If it were a novel, it would be my favourite one and I’d read it through all my joys and sorrows. If it were a movie I’d watch it over and over again till I knew all the dialogues but still be amazed by it. But it is a TV series that spanned 5 years and something I grew up with.

Wonder Years tells the story of Kevin Aarnold as seen through his eyes. It is narrated by an older, wiser but equally wacky Kevin. Kevin is a typical boy somewhere between boyhood and teenage. In each episode he shows us the world around him( USA in late 60s and early 70s). He has a loving mother, an indifferent( yet sometimes amazingly caring) father, a hippie sister and a dumb bully elder brother. He finds an amazingly loyal friend in Paul Pfeiffer. His life also revolves around Winnie Cooper, the beautiful girl next door and his classmate.

Kevin tells us about his first kiss with Winnie (most of us waited for it with more anticipation than our own first kiss), his crush on his English teacher Miss White, his physical fights with his brother, his neighborhood and school. We experience his friendship with Paul grow stronger through many minor tiffs. Over the years Kevin realizes that it doesn’t matter if your friends are not typically ‘cool’, what matters is that they care. Winnie and Kevin go from being neighbors to friends to lovers to friends again. The best part about their relationship is that every time they break up and have a round of faultfinding and yelling they sit together and discuss where things went wrong.

The unique thing about Kevin’s narration is that he blows up the most ordinary of situations by his theatrics and talks in the simplest of terms about the big, complicated situations in life.

There are few things in life that are timeless and Wonder Years is surely one of them. No matter how old or young you are once Kevin starts speaking you can’t help feeling that he is talking about the best part of your life, your childhood.

So, go watch it. It is being freely shared on the LAN. The warmth it gives you is nice to experience in these cold winter nights.