SHE

I saw her after a long time. Her voice was still sweet giving some reminiscence of the distant past. She had given up singing though. Bangalore is too vast a place where you can meet an old friend when you are on a shopping spree. But it so happened that I met her in a commercial mall on a sultry sunday afternoon.

We stayed in a small town in central Tamil nadu long back. I still have fond memories of that place. She was my neighbours daughter. My earliest memories about her was playing with a bunch of friends around a papal tree.

"So you are in Bangalore for how long?" she asked.

"exactly 2 years.." I said. I had been Bangalored for so long.

"You must be living in a PG and should be a smoker" She asked.

"The first half of your sentence is true"

" I am with I******s for last two years, I moved to Bangalore recently"

" Oh cool.. Welcome to Bangalore then". I had a warm smile.

"Hmmm.. I dont like cities da.. I still like the woods and the papal tree that we used play around"

" I still go back to those days.. When I am down.. you know". I must be lying here.

"Oh.. Really.. you used to think about me" She giggled.

"Not always.. But sometimes when I see a Papal tree"

" Are you still afraid of butterflies..?"

"Ya.. I am still.. I still consider them as insects.. Its wings are ugly advertisements"

"Hmm.. I had missed you for long time.. I always thoug............"

Trrrrrrrrrrrrring..

My cellphone alarm rang and I got up. I had to rush to WC. Life is like that.

Summer of 91

Some photos gives an opportunity to go down memory lane. It makes you to go to your distant past when things were as simple and as direct as it looked like. These photos are sweet reminiscence of a ignorant phase of life.

We do grow up and eventually start playing weird games for existence. We get tired of proving ourselves worthy. Sometimes a few extra leaves of currency proves its worth better than you.

A candle dies because of its own light and humans also do.

This particular frame which the photo freezes was a humid July morning.. I had lost a button in my shirt as i always used to bite it. I was little shy because of swathi(who was sitting beside me). That was the maths teacher and the English teacher standing to our left. They did teach about maths and English, but they didn't reveal about the tricky game of life lying ahead.

So with our innocent faces.. We smiled..

For us the world ended within the compound walls of the school. The neem tree outside the wall is something which is extra-terrestrial..

I still feel the stinky smell which one can feel when they go near the coconut tree(seen in the background).. The smell of jasmine which pervades as our English teacher(mallika) enters the class. The sound of bell was the declaration of independence.

Life ended within short boundaries.. The word 'Happiness' was properly defined.. Now its little itchy to define happiness. I define and redefine it nowadays. May be you might also be doing the same thing.

The swaying Tao pendulum is in its 'Yin' phase (this is for my Chinese friends). The Karma is

accumulating.. The good Shepard beckons me in return for the sins. Somewhere back in that summer of 91, I didn't care much about these and hence smiling.
Life is a box of chocolates!

October sky on an April night

It was one of those hot and humid Saturdays. Temperature was soaring at its peak yelling out a mighty song for the ever dwindling pedestrians. Hardly any people come out these days in the afternoon.

The April nights are cool though. The breeze comes from the North fluttering the flora and the hearts of the listeners.

It is a full moon day. And the streets lights are off due to some strange political (or metaphysical!) reason. It is the time for the moon to take the role to light up this third rock from the sun. The moon had a saintly halo around it (science says.. Halo`ing is due to stratosphere)

Stars are pins on a giant black haystack. They do twinkle. Stratosphere is a giant artist and it juxtaposes the stars and the moon. It has given poets and scientists their daily piece of bread. And this night it is giving me a company on my lonely walk back home.

Ah! Here is Orion constellation (or is it?) . Just turned my head and covered Betelgeuse which may be hundred light years away. And this patches of clouds and city lights, they are villains of space lovers.

Locked in the maze of sky and littled by the littleness of earth, I recollect the October sky of 1957 when the first man made satellite Sputnik(USSR) brushed a master-stroke in the canvas of sky.

fyi...Man is just a Social Animal!