Atlas found

The long hours I spend on the internet – in pursuit of knowledge of wisdom, of course – I discover many things. The one I found today is Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas Of The Planet Earth – which provides us with nuggets of knowledge about nearly all the countries in the world. Well, the website just gives us a sneak peek; the full book in print needs to be bought to be savoured.

Anyway, couldn’t resist giving you some of the country profiles I enjoyed reading (in total random order):

Australia
Once home to some of the most diverse and undisturbed wildlife in the world, the nation of Australia has fallen prey to a deadly scourge of nature shows, with dozens of endemic species being poked, prodded, and bothered to the brink of extinction.

Estonia
The merry nation of Estonia has been under foreign control for most of its history, due to the fact that its main form of defense is holding hands and singing.

France
Home to Earth’s entire population of 62.7 million people, every single one of the planet’s 427 cities, and all of its history, culture, and beauty, France is the only country in the world.

Belgium
While known worldwide for its delicious chocolates, mouth-watering waffles, and extraordinary desserts, there is a lot more to the nation of Belgium than first meets the eye. For instance, the country is also home to delectable pies, scrumptious pastries, custards, ice creams, and truffles.

India
Mired by rising poverty levels, polluted groundwater that threatens the lives of millions, and a rapidly crumbling infrastructure, the nation of India have every intention of addressing these problems just as soon as it finishes telling Midwesterners how to install Windows XP on their home computer.

China
With over 700 billion citizens manufactured since 1892, China is the world’s largest mass producer of Chinese.

United States
The United States was founded in 1776 on the principle of life, liberty, and the reckless pursuit of happiness at any cost – even life and liberty.

Go find out more from the website, if you, like me, are in endless pursuit of knowledge, often from nooks and corners of the vast world of internet. I, for one, after going through Onion's atlas, figured out where exactly Estonia is on the map.

We make memories everyday

Ah, so I come back at last.

No, there’s no excuse for being quiet all these days. And neither is there any reason for suddenly coming alive today. It was simply purely whimsical of me. Or maybe, as they say, real life intruded; so, was probably busy dealing with real life.

Anyway, if you are wondering about the title of this post, I must admit I stole it from a random comment on ted.com, which I sometimes visit for the numerous wonderful, informative, and thought-provoking videos posted on the site. There was something I liked about that sentence, and I thought it should be the title of my next post (whenever it was going to be written).

As it turns out, something about today (I don’t know what) made me put up a post.

So, what was about that sentence I read that struck me, I asked myself later. After all, it’s just a plain statement, and it doesn’t even tell us anything that we don’t know already.

Well, maybe, it struck me because I somehow realized in a flash that all these routine, mundane, and uneventful days I am living are in fact quietly turning into a vast pool of memories. Everyday, unknown to me, I am building up memories – the people I meet, the things I do, or don’t do, the thoughts that cross my mind, the things I avoid, the hours I spend working on my desk, the smiles I share, the words I speak, the meals I eat, the books I read – all these end up knitting an intricate web of memories; how and when these memories will finally emerge I cannot tell. Which seemed mysterious because I don’t know how much of what will stay in memory and at what unexpected time I will remember them again.

I often tend to remember some utterly insignificant things when a much more important thing was happening to me. For example, every time I remember the meeting at the railway station when I was seeing someone off for the last time, I remember the red blinking lights of a weighing machine on the platform. Or, when I try and remember some particular conversation, I remember the cramped PCO booth with dangling wires from where I was making the call. Or, when I try to recall a very old incident from my childhood, more than anything else I remember a steel glass rolling on the floor, the spilt milk getting soaked into the sand.

Memories are indeed trickier than we can probably imagine. Who knows what I’ll remember of these days when I look back. What of these days will remain?

I guess I am just rambling. Better shut off now. Until later.

From halfway

She frowns. "The thing about camellias, you know, is that when they're about to die, they won't tell you in time. If they lack water, they don't look unhappy for a while, and show you they're suffering; they just die."

From An Equal Music, Vikram Seth

I'm halfway into An Equal Music, and even when I picked up the book, I knew An Equal Music was different from A Suitable Boy or The Golden Gate, the two Vikram Seth books I've read earlier, and enjoyed – The Golden Gate for its yuppy quirkinesss and A Suitable Boy for the sweeping canvas. But, for me, An Equal Music is not proving to be an easy read. There may be few reasons: first, it's a book with western classical music as a theme and there're a lot of details I had difficulty following; second, the style of writing, at least to me, seemed so unlike the earlier Seth I've read, and much of the time I had to struggle, despite the book being divided into short readable chapters. Besides, even after reaching halfway, I'm still not getting a pulse of the characters, and I wonder if it is intentional on the part of the writer, or is there something lacking about the way it's written. I'm still reading it, however slowly, and I hope to complete the book in a few days. Vikram Seth is known for writing about immensely diverse themes and reading An Equal Music after A Suitable Boy I cannot agree more. And probably because A Suitable Boy remains so entrenched in my mind, An Equal Music is turning out to be a bit disappointing, after all.

At office

I generally keep office out of this blog, and it’s better that way, I guess. But, something happened at office today which I thought I needed to write, maybe just to get it out of my system and forget it. After all, I know people who does that – write to get things out of system. I thought I too should give it a try.

So, it happened that I had booked a conference room for a meeting today, but I didn’t really check out the time zone (being a global company, the web request system has too many time zones available, none of which I was aware of). Therefore, when we go to the conference room, and are in the middle of a call, someone dashes in and interrupts us. He comes in without even caring to knock. He has a frown on his face and almost makes us a gesture to get out. He has the air of someone who seems to be extremely busy, and therefore has no time to even have a decent talk to explain anything. “I have a booking for this room right now,” he says. I, being not very good at countering and always overvaluing politeness, try to mumble something like, “But I did make a reservation for this!” At this he frowns upon me and opens his laptop to show his reservation. I did realize, by then, that I might have made a mistake (which I absolutely did because my reservation was showing a different time zone) and so we abandon the call and move to the next conference room available. Luckily, the next room was unreserved and our call resumed smoothly and there was a not-too-bad ending to the whole thing, after all.

Now, what I want to convey here is that, is it wrong to expect politeness and decency from people around you, especially when you are working in an environment where everyone is (supposedly) highly educated? (The person who stormed into the conference room is a Principal Software Engineer, I later found out from the intranet, and probably is a heavyweight or something, but for me he is simply a man without manners.) I agree that people might be awfully busy and there might be lot many important things making them busy all the time, but is basic etiquette such a difficult thing to practice, after all? Or, is it a notion that politeness is synonymous with weakness? Is it that to move ahead you must get a permanent frown on your face, and intimidate others with your manners and words?

Well, I don’t want to appear to be shocked with this behavior – I have had my share of encounter with rudeness; in fact, plenty of them. But yes, it did manage to unsettle me for a moment because so far (and I’m indeed happy to say this) I didn’t really encounter too many nasty people at my workplace. Maybe, this was a precursor for things ahead!

Whatever, sorry to have disappointed you, if were expecting something different to read here. But, well, one needs to vent out occasionally, and what better place than a blog for doing that?

PS: While walking back home in the evening, I was thinking of this incident and it reminded me of an old essay I read in my schooldays – A.G. Gardiner's On Saying Please, which you can read here. A.G. Gardiner (1865–1946) wrote some delightful essays under the pen-name Alpha of the Plough and this essay is a good example of his excellent style and humour. It is sad that essays never enjoyed as much popularity as novels or short-stories. A collection of A.G. Gardiner's essays, namely Pebbles on the Shore, is available here.

YouTubed

Just dropped in to link two YouTube short films (what else?)

Check out The Danish Poet and Harvie Krumpet, winners of Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for 2007 and 2004, respectively.

Last night, I was having a look at The YouTube Screening Room and found these two absolutely entertaining short films among others. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

By now it must be obvious that I’m wasting a lot of time watching YouTube videos, and it’s no wonder that some of them is spilling over here. But, well, no more YouTube videos in future, I promise.

Aparajito

A few days back, when I was watching Aparajito – alone, late into the night – a strange sense of sadness came upon me. There was this particular scene where adolescent Apu, sitting by his somewhat dazed mother, is trying to explain a globe to her, and she looks at him with a look that is a mix of tenderness, awe, and happiness. Or the scene where the mother is packing Apu’s suitcase with much care, remembering to put all the things he might need for the journey ahead to Calcutta where he is going to study in a college – while Apu is eager and impatient to experience the new life of freedom and learning, his mother is concerned about the loneliness she feels to let him go away from her, which she comes to realize, is probably forever.

Aparajito, probably the least recognized of the Apu Trilogy, is an amazing film. It might not have the early lyrical appeal of Pather Panchali, or the later beauty and romance of Apur Sansar, but it’s a film of poignant realization – a film about growing up and growing apart, a subtle portrayal of increasing alienation from the one who loves you most.

Aparajito essentially is a story of mother-son relationship – a relationship that changes inevitably over time. It’s about a lonely mother who invests all her life to her son with the hope of a better future, only to realize that their futures can only grow apart, and about a son who is caught between the excitements of his dreams and his duty to remain close to his ageing mother. In fact, there’s nothing new to the theme, but the way Satyajit Ray crafts the film makes it an indelible experience to watch, almost emotionally draining.

It is a very difficult moment when you have to let go. It is specially so when you have to let go of something/someone you have nurtured all your life. You know it’s for better, but you can’t accept it either. Like Apu’s mother, who sees her son off with a vague smile, only to plunge into terrible loneliness the moment he is out of her sight.

Slowness

"There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. Consider this utterly commonplace situation: a man is walking down the street. At a certain moment, he tries to recall something, but the recollection escapes him. Automatically, he slows down. Meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has just lived through starts unconsciously to speed up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himself from a thing still too close to him in time.

In existential mathematics, that experience takes the form of two basic equations: the degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting."

- From Milan Kundera’s Slowness

I started reading Slowness a few days back. And either as a result of paying too much heed to the book’s title, or because the book contains some wonderful passages (which demanded pausing and re-reading and pausing again), I am finding myself still stuck at around the first quarter of the book.

But, of course, I am in no hurry.

P.S. Also, by the way, here’s a somewhat related piece I wrote long back, In praise of slowness, which is neither about Kundera nor the book, but about slowness nonetheless.

Up there

• Atop the hill, after a steep climb, the gate of the fort is a welcome sight. There is nothing very majestic about the gate – it's rather narrow and without any decorative curving – but it's still strong and sturdy, and it's standing there even after centuries of guarding and protecting. Before I enter, I touch the cold stones and wonder what all this gate must have witnessed.
  

• The clouds keep enveloping the rocky fort – hiding everything behind the veil of mist. Occasionally, the veil lifts and the valleys below are visible – tiny little villages, fields, waters of a dam, thread-like trails vanishing in the hills.

• We sit near an edge, sweat trickling down our face after all the climbing, as the cool moist breeze caresses us. The grass flutters in the wind and there is no sound except the buzzing of wind through bushes.

• Tall strong walls of the fort, once invincible, stand dilapidated. The stones slabs are covered with soft velvety moss, wet with the drizzle. From some cracks in the wall wild flowers bloom with abandon.

• A stray dog climbs with us and keeps our company, probably knowing that at the end there will be some food. We feed him crumbs of biscuits.

• There is a little chit-chat for a while, as we stretch our legs and take some rest, eat, and drink. But after some time everyone sits quiet, immersed in own thought. Only silence floats around us.

In the Mood for Love

It’s 1962 in Hong Kong. Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) have just moved into an apartment building as neighbors. They both lead a rather lonely life because their spouses are always away on business trips. Over repeated and prolonged absences of their spouses, they both come to realize that their spouses are actually carrying on a clandestine affair. They are both heartbroken as they realize the truth. And over time, out of their mutual loneliness and sorrow, there grows a tender relationship between them as they seek refuge in each other’s company. But they are so conscious and dignified – they don’t want to be like their spouses, they say, and they vow not to get carried away – that they refuse to acknowledge the love that they both start feeling for each other. Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love is about the subdued melancholy of love that both these characters experience, the tumultuous feelings they want to bury within them, and the enormous restraint that they exercise to avoid ending like their partners.

In the Mood for Love is a vibrant, colorful, and dizzyingly romantic film. It’s about love – unrequited and unconsummated. So when, near the end of the film, four years later, Chow, in the ruins of old temples in Combodia, whispers his secret in a hole in the wall and buries it up with mud in the hope of getting rid of his secret (it’s an old belief), it becomes a scene of extreme poignancy. And, of course, what heightens the mood of melancholy of the film is the impeccable acting, the dreamlike cinematography and the haunting background score.

I found the whole film to be available on YouTube (that’s where I watched it but probably it’s not the best way to watch the film). Incidentally, the film will also come on Zee Studio on 24th of August, just in case you didn’t know already.

At the dentist's clinic

I am waiting nervously at the reception of the dentist’s clinic. There are quite a few people waiting for their turn but looking at their faces I cannot tell if they are at all nervous – they just sit quietly reading glossy magazines. Which, of course, do not make me any less nervous. The dentist is going to drill my teeth today and all the while I am repeatedly asking myself “How painful it is to get one’s teeth drilled?” Obviously, the only way to know it is to wait for my turn.

I do just that – wait – when I overhear a conversation at the reception counter. A woman has come looking for an appointment with the dentist and the girl at the reception counter is asking her some preliminary question before fixing up an appointment.

“Name?’ the girl asks, the woman replies.

“Phone number?” the girl asks, the woman replies.

“Date of birth?” the girl asks. “Why do you need that?” the woman counter-questions, a little annoyed. The girl understands, smiles, and replies (with a mock apology) that she needs it because the software on the computer asks for it. The woman, somewhat irritated, tells the date of birth anyway – the date and month quite audibly, but just before she tells the year she leans over the counter and whispers in a manner reserved only for top secrets agents.

“Wow! You don’t look like it,” the girl says, excited. The woman is visibly pleased and mumbles something to the girl.

Meanwhile, I am much amused with all these happenings and am quietly smiling to myself, oblivious of the drilling thing I am about to undergo. And probably because I was sitting very close, or because I was unknowingly eavesdropping, I overhear the year that the woman mentions so surreptitiously. My head automatically starts calculating. But before I could calculate her age (I am rather slow at calculating) the dentist calls out my name and in an instant I forget everything else and run inside the chamber.

And now, while I am writing this, I have already calculated the woman’s age, but the drilling experience have made me so completely forgot her appearance that I cannot remember if she actually looked too young or too old for her real age.

Unread

"He is a man without qualities… There are millions of them nowadays… What he thinks of anything will always depend on some possible context – nothing is, to him, what it is; everything is subject to change, in flux, part of a whole, of an infinite number of wholes presumably adding up to a superwhole that, however, he knows nothing about. So every answer he gives is only a partial answer, every feeling only an opinion, and he never cares what something is, only 'how' it is."

– Robert Musil

For some time now, I had been literally struggling with Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. I knew I was being more than ambitious when I picked up this mammoth book – I’d heard that this book was notorious for challenging the readers’ patience – but didn't realize it'll make me give up so soon.

The first time I picked up the book, which was some months back, I couldn’t go beyond the first few chapters. So dense was the language and so varied were the thoughts running through the book, I felt like burdened with a heaviness that almost exhausted my mind. This was perhaps because none of the books that I had read so far prepared me for something like Musil’s way of writing. This is a book built on ideas – and for most part it leaves the plot (there isn’t much of a so-called plot, anyway, and the book actually remained unfinished when Musil died) to take long rambling pauses and expound thoughts/ideas that seems to go farther away from the actual plot. All these seem to leave the story hanging, leaving me all the more flummoxed at being taken to so many directions and yet not going anywhere. In fact, there’s not much of the linear story-telling that we’re otherwise used to in novels; there’s very little exterior detail about the places and people that inhabit the book; and the book is just a dense cloud of thoughts that grows thicker as it progresses. Obviously, it demands continued patience and lots of will from the reader. And, I must admit, right now I am facing a shortage of both.

I was again toying with the book last night when I realized that, perhaps, I picked up the book at a wrong time – for this is a phase when I am in a strange frame of mind, and I’m least prepared to commit myself to a book that demands such extreme attention.

So, right now, I am keeping the book at an arm’s stretch, just to allow myself to flip through the pages at times, and remind myself that it is lying there, unread.

Tagged, again

Plain Jane tagged me to:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

Now, there are a few books lying around, unread. And, looking at them gives me a guilty feeling.

So, I skip the unread ones and from the table I pick up a book I read long back – Milan Kundera’s The Book of laughter and Forgetting. On page 123, after the first 5 lines, I find:

“A novel?” asked Banaka disapprovingly.

Bibi corrected herself evasively: “It won’t necessarily be a novel.”

“Just think about what a novel is,” said Banaka.

Now the thing is, I don’t know what is being spoken here, although I claim to have read this book. So, curious, I want to re-read the book (which is good enough since I’m not reading anything these days, not even newspapers).

Coming to the last part of the tag, I realize that I don’t even know five people whom I can tag. So, all of you who read this, consider yourself tagged.

During the rains

The rains are here. Sometimes it’s a heavy shower, sometimes just a drizzle. But, most of the times, the sky is overcast, the air is humid, and the signs of monsoon are just about everywhere – from the hillsides that are turning greener to the mud stains that are appearing on the clothes. And now, if I get to hear frogs croaking somewhere one of these days, the monsoon picture will be complete.

Indeed, if you ever pause and think about it, each change of season seems truly overwhelming.

The onset of rains, however, did nothing much help me come out of my present state of disorientation. If anything, it made me more of a sloth. I kept passing my time in usual idleness. When it rained, if I happened to at home, I would stand in the balcony, leaning on the railing, gazing at the dark monsoon clouds as they filled up the entire sky. Sometimes, waking up from sleep, if I found it to be raining, I would keep lying on the bed listening to the sound of rain, and allowing my mind to wander. Occasionally, coming out of office, if I found it to be raining, I would wait for the bus under the gulmohar tree, and watch the raindrops dripping from its leaves.

I know I have this tendency to go gaga over rains, but I sincerely find it worth going gaga.

PS: I have to admit that I didn’t have much to write anything of late. Or rather, on a more honest note, I couldn’t really bring myself to write anything. Many a times I sat down and typed a few lines, only to delete them later and wring my hands in despair. It seems silly of course, how this inability to put up a post, was affecting me. I hope, with this post, I break the barren spell.

PPS: This post is the result of a comment from Plain Jane.

After the rain

It rained yesterday. While going home, in the bus, I sat watching the windowpanes blurred by the splattering raindrops, and it made me happy, like always.

The rains, however, also brought about too many difficulties -- clogged drains, flooded roads, traffic jams, power cuts, slushy pavements, and much chaos in general.

I somehow dodged the troubles and reached home safe. But, of course, when I reached home the electricity was out. On another day, I might have cursed badly. Yesterday, however, I managed to keep my outrage at bay, and lit the candle that was lying unused by my bedside for far too long. And I contemplated, later in the evening when I lay in my bed reading by the flickering flame, that this was indeed a fine evening, that the power cut was quite tolerable, that the crawling lines of printed black words in the yellow light looked pretty beautiful, that the shadows in the wall looked dreamlike and mysterious, that there seemed nothing amiss at all.

And, then the lights came. Everything suddenly came to life. The small flickering candle-light started looking inadequate and my interest in the book started waning. Finally, I snuffed out the candle, shut the book, and opened the laptop.

By the time I finally closed the laptop I realized, much to my chagrin, it was already quite late and I had just wasted away my evening.

Just read

He sets aside a weekend for his first experiment with prose. The story that emerges from the experiment, if that is what it is, a story, has no real plot. Everything of importance happens in the mind of the narrator, a nameless young man all too like himself who takes a nameless girl to a lonely beach and watches while she swims. From some small action of hers, some unconscious gesture, he is suddenly convinced she has been unfaithful to him; furthermore, he realizes that she has seen he knows, and does not care. That is all. That is how the piece ends. That is the sum of it.

From Youth
by J.M. Coetzee

PS: Sometimes, you happen to read something and, unknowingly, you start liking it so much that you want to read out it to someone sitting next to you. Since I don't have anyone sitting next to me right now, I'm posting it up.

From the mountains to the sea

Whoever was happy with the thought that this blog is dead already should be ready for some disappointment.

I’m back.

Well, I had a short vacation recently, and I thought it appropriate to use my vacation story as a come-back vehicle. And, additionally, this time I have a few snaps to tell the tale.

… on a bright day, on a small train…

… winding through the slopes of mountains…

... gazing at the horizon...

… long winding dusty tracks that get lost in the woods…

… panoramic view at the top…

… one old bungalow named Mon Repos…

… abandoned in the wilderness…

… sitting by the sea…

… collecting colorful shells…

… watching the sunset…

… lying under a green canopy…

… boat ride to a sea fort…

… old cannons on guard….

… the road back …

Excuse me for putting up so many photos. By now you must have realized that this is just a shabby effort to hide the fact that I could not write anything worth putting up here; hence, the profusion of photos.

Filmy evenings

The past few evenings were spent at NFAI – sitting inside a dimly lit and freezing cold theater – among eager crowds, loud laughs, and hesitant whispers; among teenagers with their hordes of chattering friends; among aloof and not-so-young people with a grave air; among the hustle and bustle of somewhat unruly crowd and the harassed staff; and of course, among the eclectic mix of films. These were enjoyable evenings.

Except for a day, when my glasses broke and my eyes were rendered practically useless, I went everyday. Everyday, after office I would head straight to the venue, quietly slip inside the auditorium, wait for the films to begin, catch the fragments of conversation floating around, look around the sea of unknown faces, and generally try to fend off a feeling of loneliness induced by all these goings-on around me.

I don’t think I got tremendously affected by any of the films on offer. They were either mediocre, or good, but not great. Of course, this is just a personal feeling. There is every possibility that I missed the points altogether.

Still, a few films come to my mind as I write this.

• Long Weekend, which is a hostage drama. But more than suspense, it’s an exploration of relationships.
• Bye Bye Blackbird, which is period drama with a traveling circus in the backdrop. The only things I remember of this film are the dizzying, and dreamlike shots of trapeze performance.
• After the Wedding, which is a drama around a family’s secret. It’s a bit high on melodrama, but is a good watch anyway.
• You and Me, which is funny and breezy. Marion Cotillard and Julie Depardieu, both, are treats to watch.
  

Before I finish, I should as well talk about another film. It wasn’t part of European Union Film Festival and is therefore somehow unrelated to this post. But, I’d specially like to mention it because I found it much more satisfying than all the films that I watched in the festival. Yesterday, NFAI showed Satyajit Ray’s Sadgati, a short film based on a Munshi Premchand story exploring the the deep-rooted caste system in India. Satyajit Ray refuses to view the story simply as a oppressor versus oppressed, and brings out the complexities of class dynamics, which, over years of unquestioned practice, have affected the psyche of both classes. Sadgati is short, solid, and shows the assured touch of the master film-maker.

Six stories

If you are not averse to digital storytelling and do not mind reading an interactive story, you can check the site We Tell Stories and read the six stories listed therein.

I somehow stumbled upon it today and have already read The 21 Steps and Fairy Tales, in between my work at office. Both the stories, I must admit, I enjoyed – The 21 Steps, for being funny and intelligent; and Fairy Tales, for letting me shape the story my way. Needless to say, I’m eager to read the other stories as well; but, you see, one also needs to do some work while at office.

Anyway, if you have got some time to spare, you can read them.

Enjoy!

They said

• Something I considered the biggest asset of yours… was your lazy attitude.

• Though you can do hard work, you prefer doing that only when the problem knocks on your door.

• I had always confided in you with my problems, like many of us, and it is the trust you command that has made us do it.

• You have enough capabilities. Yet, the way you make use of it (rather, don’t make use of it) is puzzling.

• I should not give you advice as my case is also hopeless.

• … All of us seem to be infected with optimism disease (to quote Rushdie) that we’ll meet some day. But, practicalities are insurmountable and however good friends we may be, I know that you won’t catch a train to Mumbai if you feel like meeting me and neither would I do something that impulsive. Except, optimistically speaking, through serendipity, we might be at the same place at the same time. But then what? I know so many people, good friends living in the same place who haven’t had the time in years to call up and say hello.

• Rest is laid unspoken.

These are lines extracted from one of my old diaries. Years ago, while we were parting after four years of staying together, my friends in college wrote them down for me – reminiscing, thanking, advising, admonishing, and generally asking to ‘keep in touch’.

Except for occasional phone conversations or emails no one is really ‘in touch’ these days. And even if we end up talking on phone sometime, the conversation becomes tedious and forced. The lively banter of yesteryear is now replaced with more important talks of career, money, investments, marriage, etc. (which, I admit, are definitely important, but somehow doesn’t really make up for stimulating conversation).

But, why exactly this sudden spurt of nostalgia, you may ask?

I blame it on summer heat. Besides making my days dull and lethargic, it is also giving me sleepless nights. And on sleepless nights it is only natural to find yourself crowded with old memories. Old memories – they come to you in the quiet of the night, keeps you awake, only to fade away in the bright daylight.

Once

The fiery red flowers dot the roadsides, announcing the onset of spring with a sudden youthfulness. Oblivious of the dust, smoke, pollution, and the scorching Sun, the gulmohars are in bloom again, driving away the drabness with a vivacious display of colors.

But, sadly, the gulmohar tree I used to walk by last year is no longer there. Don't know when it vanished. Maybe, in the process of road-widening it has been chopped off and disposed away. The place where it once stood is empty now. There is nothing to suggest that there once stood such a beautiful tree.