When Memories Come Visiting

*Picture from http://www.transitionsabroad.com

There are days when all I want to do is immerse myself in memories. Everything about such days triggers off a remembrance, right from the morning sun rising slowly up the horizon, to the baby pigeon and his mom sleeping peacefully in a box-bed in my balcony. There was a time when Mom and I snuggled up like that on winter mornings in Delhi, letting the house-cats raise a pandemonium and the vegetable-sellers shout their hearts out before venturing to really get started with the day.

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Oh Delhi!

Outside Shiv Mandir in Chittaranjan Park, New Delhi

I travel to Delhi tomorrow. After almost eight months of living away from the madness. And while I can’t claim Pune has been particularly sane, I have been away from the morning Metro rush, the honking cars outside my house, and the slight chill in the air that starts coming in this time of the year. But madness, really? This evening, randomly, I realize I have actually missed it all!

All and Nothing

*Picture from http://www.kuwans.com/

Meera looked around the living room. Several years ago, it had served as the auditorium for her impromptu dance performances, set to the tune of the latest Bollywood numbers. It was in the living room that she had cut her birthday cakes, pored over Christmas gifts and spent many peaceful hours with her pastel colours. Tired out from her adventures, it was here that she had contentedly dozed off in Grandpa’s lap.

The room had changed. 

P&P Comes to Delhi

 

Pune is going through an especially scorching and unusually early summer. The mercury has been soaring; the cold-drink vendors have been doing roaring trade. The sun is beating down on the city like never before and if not for the calendar, you wouldn’t believe April only started. It is this city of her many wonders that I left behind yesterday. Yes, all over again.

When It Snows

Prize Winning Entry in British Airways’ ‘Go Further to get Closer’ contest

The view outside her window was magnificent. Snow came down silently, glittering in the light of the streetlamp. Inside, a rich aroma rose from the dinner table and she could hear her husband urgently fidgeting around.

“What are you up to?” she enquired, giggling as he dropped one filled glass after the other, the water pouring out unabashed. “Butter fingers you’ve always had!”

“Don’t rub it in.” His face dropped comically as he mopped the floor and washed his hands. “Let’s dig into my delicious dinner fare. At least I hope it’s delicious.”

She laughed and ruffled his hair. He had always been a good cook, a huge point in his favour when they were still in the lets-persuade-our-parents phase. While her Dad had said ho and hum, secretly very pleased, her Mom had been more vocal and openly proclaimed how a son-in-law who could cook had always been her dream. They had got married one fine winter night, snowless of course, as it always was in Delhi. The stars overhead had nodded in delight, the house she had grown up in decked up in lights bright enough to be stars.

Packed in Fragrance

It has been a while that I have been staying away from home. Put in Mom’s perspective, a “long” while. And yet, every time I return, my family of four is a fixture at the Delhi airport, complete with grins that go from end to end. We chug along in the now ageing car, letting the sights and sounds of the capital sink in. I discover new roads, a flyover where there used to be a dump and a new brand or two set shop in that corner my golgappa wala used to stand. When the house comes into view, I strain my eyes to see the house-cats – at last count there were four – and breathe in a gust of air that smells deliciously of –  well, home.

When Work Takes Centre-Stage

*Second Prize Winning Entry in Mia by Tanishq’s “As Beautiful as Your Work” contest*

*Picture from Tanishq Mia – studs in three tone gold

Life comes up with quirky afternoons. There are ones when you sit fidgeting over the presentation the next day, wishing time would either speed up or stop. And then there are ones when memory brings up discrete moments from the past, punctuated in neat little rows – times as fluid as a set of pearls.

There was that time when I was a neat-grey-uniformed girl in high school and would return home with a bagful of assignments and a mind full of chlorophyll, Akbar and Arithmetic. That pigtailed school-goer moved on from green ribbons to green rubber-bands, from grey-pleated skirts to work formals, from glasses that touched her nose to ones that are visibly smaller in size. The confines of ‘work’ may have changed but in spirit, little else has.