Been a long time since I have written!! Just been busy and lazy at the same time. Its been now about 2 months since I have started on bench research at JNCASR, Bangalore. Something which I hope will be of help in my future academic career and honestly something which I really wanted to lay my hands on. Anyway that’s not what I am writing about today. Today Nature has inspired me to finally break free from my shackles of laziness and monotonous bench routine. Today after a long time, may be some 5-6 years, I have got a nostalgic feeling about my childhood and those days of jhadis. Gosh, where are those days now!!
I am sitting under a shade surrounded by bamboos with a small lake in front of me. Innumerable water drops merging with their like and metamorphosing into countless air bubbles – forming and popping… The smell of wet earth, tinkling of rain drops, a cozy chill in the air and the dawn of dusk…really I feel like a child close to my Mother bosom. And incidentally today is Earth’s day. See the irony…a mother neglected by her children still cares for them…
The last time I had seen such awe inspiring sight was probably during my school days. I still remember me playing in the lunch break under a totally dark sky with cool wind rushing into my face and occasional rain drops tickling me…people playing around, windows gently rocking into walls…And then some half hour later sitting in class in fear for its thundering like never before and the mango tree outside swaying as if drunk and wanting to break free from its roots. The sound of rain drops on windows frightening in a non-threatening sense and the dark sky lightening up with mile long thunderbolts and a cracking sound causing glass panes to shiver and as if moving my own bench also!! And then going home cycling and getting wet…and eating warm pakodas, carefully wrapped in a dry cloth by my mother lest I will get cold…And then probably I went to sleep and waking up with skies still dark and occasional drizzling with everything around me so vivid and clear – grass green like never before, soil brown like never before…voices around me so clear and crisp…felt like my senses rejuvenated…And then waking up next day to find its still raining with skies so dark as to needing lights to be switched on and going to school wrapped in raincoat and the smell of samosas coming from canteen. Who would want to worry about the learning in such a nice weather!! Since it used to rain the whole day and most of the classes got canceled, we people used to go to canteen every hour or so to eat and just hang around…What a bliss!! And then in noon breaking up and the cycle repeating for the next 2-3 days. Those were the days of jhadis man, really good time!!!
But alas, either I got too busy or weather changed over the next few years so much so that even 10-15 minutes of mild rain was relieving. But then there was always that void, the memories of past. And today, just after having tea as I was coming out of library, I felt attracted to a tree with pink flowers swaying gently against a totally dark background of cloud laden sky. Just when I was roaming around enjoying the beauty of scene all of a sudden skies opened and it started raining with cool winds gushing in. I got a bit wet also but really that’s something which I had desired. And then just when I thought its over…it started raining like something which I had long forgotten. Rain drops wanting to delve deeper into earth, skies thundering loud enough to mask any and every sound around them, wind and trees testing each other in a friendly rivalry, flocks of birds trying hard to find a shelter and getting scattered around as if the wind wants to caress them…everything seemed so soothing.
And here I am sitting under the shade with a crane in the lake in front of me waiting patiently to catch a fish, getting drenched in the transaction but not minding it. Oh what a pity… perhaps gone are the days when I could also get drenched like this without being looked down upon by people with questions in their eyes. But someday I hope I will do that. Someday I will relive my childhood.
Its still raining pretty strongly…
