Warm Winters

It was a B.E.A.utiful day...!!!  (as Jim Carrey would say)...:)

A cute little baby winter, standing innocently at your door steps, watching you as you wake up...and when you go out to check the weather an adolescent chill pinches your arms...she is just playing with you as she is yet to learn the rules of nature...you don’t have any option other than to just smile and cover that area of your skin with your warm hands...that touch is just enough, to make it warm again. This trick is then passed to the water...it’s cold enough for you to come back to your senses...

As the day proceeds, the cool breeze’s play is still on but is now supported by clouds...and the time when you look out from your window you see pretty shy drizzle falling from sky as if God is now shedding off his last remains of rain from his lap...Aaah! A treat to a longing soul, my Lord!

The noon is quiet and slightly cold; everyone’s sleeping peacefully as if they haven’t slept for ages and need a serious relaxation...You take a look around to find new leaves on the plants and some extremely beautiful and lovely floral species that flourish only in winters...It’s the time for change...new births! Beauty is always inspiring...and what can be more beautiful than this moment that has inspired me to write again...

I have a terrible habit of dwelling in the past that sometimes makes me hopelessly miserable...it takes no time for me to open my memory treasure box and look at the stuffs dumped since time unknown...

I love winters...the first feel of her...just love it! It amuses me when I get confuse on what and how many warm clothes to wear and finally come to decide that let it be just one, after all it’s winter, how can you enjoy it without shivering!!! What’s more pampering than wrapping yourself in a rajaai and just sit idle, being too lazy to move!!! What’s more adventurous than walking through the fog with an icy cold nose...and when you blink you find your eyelids freezing, too!!

When we used to be kids, my brother and I, we used to play with papa what we called “the-cave-game”...two people were supposed to hide inside the blanket and burrow themselves completely and “the wolf” was supposed to look for the weak spot and attack the cave...it was exciting and thrilling!!! I remember, then I used to avoid the quilts because I believed them to be cold stuffs (because their covers used to be so!!!)...then papa used to make me sleep with him in his quilt. It was just trust that made me go to him after my bitter experience, he he, :D...This story is reminded to me by him every winter as if he is telling me for the first time...Then there used be my cute pet cat (now I hope I should have named her, in fact all of 3 generations!), who loved rajaai’s...that furry ball used to sit beside me and we both used to enjoy the warmth...!!!

Home is so beautiful in winters; thanx to my parents’ interest in gardening...It is filled with colorful and elegant floral plants that make me proud every time I look at them. I used to miss home in winters. Partly because of the reason that in college it was usually examination time due to which students were a rare site on campus in the evenings...and for a grieving and afraid heart (due to exams!!) it is almost intolerable. The freezing and dry wind of Rajasthan had a somber silence that it never failed to convey to my heart.

These and so many other memories came gushing over my mind at the mere feel of the cool breeze...Winters are always depicted as cold, unemotional and unpleasant, but trust me, they can be cold only when you don’t have any warm memories...I am sure you all must be experiencing some déjà-vu...I would love to hear it from you...good, bad...any? I must have skipped something...

The change has begun and I can feel it...

A Train to Far Far Away...

Billy Strayhorn has very correctly said..."A Train was born without an effort, it is like writing a letter to a friend"...So why not do justice to this definition!!!

So just to make you familiar with my condition let me tell you, I am presently inside an AC coach of Kolkata Amritsar express...heading to Ludhiana. Its a perfect time to camouflage with the dark surrounding and open my memory case. My dad had promised me to gift me a costly and stylish cell phone after I return from Punjab…he thinks once I leave home, I won’t return…was that a bribe??? :P

I too am not very hopeful about my journey this time, because m not feeling any excitement about it in me, and this ought to be very strange! Whatever I am doing is because I have to…Packing has become so exhaustive and I don’t even remember what I have packed!! OH YES…I forgot my tooth Brush!! Even the idea of the AC coach has made me claustrophobic and nausea tic…I could imagine myself running desperately to the ends to get out and my fellow passengers, who are in fact ZOMBIES, staring at me and chanting, NO, NO, NO!!! And the worst part, I can tell this to nobody!

Things were not like that before…Train has played very important part in my life…:)Train journeys had always been a summer treat to us...Like every kid we would wait for summer holidays so that we can go out to our “nani ghar”…Earlier Gaya to Punjab was a 32 hours gap, and it was just perfect for us! Everything about the trip was exciting…the 15 day packing…the re-packing!!...the window seat, of course…all sort of comic books, Nandan, Nanhe samrat, Champak and then fighting over who will read which one first!!...waking up at 1 in the night…all this filled us with an inexplicable happiness and joy that can still be felt…it’s like when a soft breeze blows and very caringly lifts the petals of your memory from your heart and gently puts them back…only thing that matters is how and when you experience this breeze…I now realize why that was fun, because we were together…

Travelling alone is also fun…I remember the first thought that came to my mind when I was travelling alone…it was, “If I die here, when will I be identified? For how long my body will lay unclaimed until someone accepts me? Does my life deserve this kind of fate?” and guess what I started writing some extra emergency numbers in my personal notebook!!! Travelling alone is Independence, I don’t know of what, but it is…Travelling alone is travelling with yourself…I really don’t know ‘ki AC se ladki ka kya connection hai’ but I don’t mind as long as I have a window to gaze out. There have been many beautiful, not so beautiful and some ugly experiences I will always remember…

I have a peculiar habit of keeping the finest of pens with me while travelling and on being asked the reason; I used to tease my friends that someday some fine man may ask me for it!! There were times when I was glad that I was alone…being alone is better than getting bored with someone else!! But there were times when I wished that I had not…

I remember once, on way back to hostel, I got unwell…I reached Jaipur at 12 in night and had to wait for the bus which was not before 5…I managed to control myself but things got bit serious in the khatara roadways bus…That was terrible…I was sitting by a young man...I so desperately wanted that man to turn into someone so that I could rest my head on his shoulders!!! I was silently planning that what if I pretend to sleep and put my head on him…I don’t think he would have mind it…Did I do it? Crazy!!! That day has taught me about my limitations and that I alone cannot handle myself.

Travelling for me is exciting because it is a time when you belong to nowhere and nobody…it’s just that you are going from some place to somewhere…For me, I neither belonged to my hostel nor to my home…I used to be so proud of my frequent travellings, m still…whenever I got saturated from a place, I escaped to somewhere…although I didn’t have much options but that didn’t matter…But every time I was sure about the purpose of my travelling, and what I have to do next. Khanabadosh!!! This is a word once I was given…This is what I am missing now…

Now when someone asks me from which place do I come from, I reply…from many places! It’s interesting to watch people when I tell them about my place of origin, where was I brought up, where I studied…they find it weird. They think it’s useless. Maybe it is but I love living everywhere and yet nowhere and if asked about “my” plans about my future, I’ll prefer the same…

O.K. so far the only good omen about this journey has been the rain…and I think, rain in monsoon is pretty usual so I should better stop taking it in a dramatic way!! So after a badly done last minute packing and unsaid good byes, I am finally here…and you know what, I am beginning to like this berth of mine…the moving train is setting my body to a light rhythmic motion that is soothing and pleasant in its own way. The sound is working like a massage all over my body…Maybe this is the way Mr. Almighty is now pampering me. Is this again a bribe?? It’s like when mothers make their babies go to sleep; gently patting them...Yes, it is relaxing in the same way; both for body as well as my brain…Can I have one such for the heart??

I am not sure about the answer but I definitely know that I will be sleeping peacefully now and travelling to a land where I can fill my regrets…:)

Rendezvous with Mother Nature

Yesterday night was my first official encounter with the rain. It had rained only thrice since I arrived here. It was 10:30 at night and the town was half asleep. Usually these initial rainy conditions are accompanied with power-cuts, mosquitoes (Himesh Reshamiya’s fans!!) and hot humid weather. We had just ended with the discussion that Indra’s job should be handed over to the queen of soaps, Ekta Kapoor...she handles this rain thing very well in her serials...heavy rains and a story in each of them. Indra devta seemed not to be happy with this idea!! And to make his position secured, he demonstrated a tiny version of his power...well, our idea worked...and we were on our way.

Sitting in the rain with head tilted above, I realized how much I wanted to see it...and how much I miss those rainy days of my childhood. It used to rain heavily in those days...heavy enough for my heart to be content. We were the lucky ones. If the rain started at 3 or 5 in the morning, which would mean school’s ground must have been filled with it and...what else...chhutti!!! Praying this and secretly and devil-ishly smiling in our minds we used to just lie down and listen to the “tup tup”...when woken-up by mother, we used to rush to the window just to have a look at it...and the street of course, just to analyse the situation!! A secret smiling code transmitted to the other...Dressing up for school had never been so fast and interesting on any other day. A childish cosmic energy would help us to get ready for school in spite of knowing that the school would be closed today! It was a chance for us to be in rain...a chance to see the principal standing at the gate under her umbrella and asking children to return back. We would go all the way back to home through a different route (a long one) crying to other students, “wapas jao, chhutti hai!!” no matter which school he belonged...:D

Sometimes, we were not that lucky...going school in car is not always a boon...we were the dry ones and had to attend school in little less rainy conditions. Ahhh...par class mein kiske man lage jab bahar barkha rani nach rahi ho...dark and gloomy class...yellow and boring bulb lights...a teacher speaking some strange language...and restless heads turning left right, sometimes to doors, sometimes to windows...and the best part, when at dismissal I used to think, “kash mummy ne ye banaya ho” and to my surprise there it was already served before me...Maybe this is why rain is an answer to a child’s prayer...

I remember when I was in my first year in hostel...I was a lone lonely loner for the first time ever...it had rained so beautifully...a depressed dry heart of mine got so elated like it had found the thing it was looking for. With umbrella in one hand and shrinking to my half volume to avoid getting wet, I called home (I don’t know why). I told father suppressing my tears, “it’s raining heavily here”. He just laughed. How stupid I was...it rains heavily everywhere else...what’s the big deal...

I just wanted to share the rain with someone...just wanted to tell how beautiful I was feeling...just wished someone to see the rain through my heart...for the first time in my life rain had brought such strange feeling to me...to be with someone...Maybe this is why rain is an answer for a longing soul...

Now sitting here in the dark and feeling the rain on my skin, I wondered how it used to be fun, and then an emotion and how it has become an escape. I questioned myself why doesn’t the bathroom shower gives this kind of pleasure...after all it’s just a matter of getting wet from water falling from a height and giving you a tickling feeling behind your neck. This is Mother Nature...something inside you is connected to her...It’s like the relief you get whenever you see your mother’s face...the assurance you get in her presence so that your heart can say everything’s fine...the refuge you get in her arms...The same is with mother nature...No matter how old you get, every time it rains you will feel the love and blessing pouring down, every time you feel it you get to know everything’s fine, the assurance you get that you are being listened...Maybe this is why rain is a refuge to a tired mind...

Akele hain chale aao, jahan ho,

Kahaan awaz de tumko, kahaan ho..

Good work Mr. Indra! But you could have done better!! :P