Seasons
I have been very fortunate to live in a hilly region where the seasons are more defined. You know when winter is over and spring begins. I have always been a cold lover and I thoroughly enjoy a cold winter. I am not talking about the ice and snow winters...but one where the temperature just hovers around zero. You are always wondering whether it will go below. I feel in the cold one gets a chance to dress up well...out come the mufflers, the coats in varied styles and cuts and my favourite polo necks. Another lovely sight in winter is the frost.....you know you are gonna get hit when you get scorching days and blue skies day after day. In the night farmers keep vigil over their crops, protecting them from animals and in the early morn they water hoping to prevent frost. But in my own personal experience I have learnt that no matter how much you try the frost somehow manages to creep in and cover the entire land in a sheet of white. Its a lovely, breathtaking sight and at dawn as the sun slowly crawls into the sky, the rays make the ice glisten and shine.
Out here in the Nilgiris there is a clear transition between winter and spring. You know its spring coz the plants begin to throw out new shoots at a much faster rate. But a good indicator of the changing season are the evergreen forests locally called sholas. There are some species of trees in these forests whose leaves change into spectacular colours just after winter. You barely know spring has begun that summer is already there.
The temperatures slowly begin to climb up. The sun of the hills is different from the plains in that it burns your skin to the very bone. I find it very dehydrating even though you hardly sweat. The nights are very pleasant and slightly warm which accelerates growth. So all of a sudden you find all the flora growing very fast like they got no time and have got someplace to reach. Its amazing to see these differences. This is the best time of the year. The air is still, the sun warm and the days waiting to be lived. I love spending most of the time outdoors...taking long walks or playing games and its lovely to sit out in the nights without sweaters or extra clothing.
The all of a sudden the summer seems to be over and a strong wind begins to blow. Its horrible. Somedays the wind just blows the whole day, whistling through the trees, blowing all the leaves around and breaking the stalks of tall plants. One is thankful if a couple of trees are not dislocated. The wind blows nice and strong for about two months and then the rains begin.
The monsoon is here. One always awaits the prediction of the Indian weather department which I never have been able to tell are accurate or not. If there is any other season that makes me smile its the monsoon. The first rains are the best. The earth is waiting parched and the rain falls drenching it, quenching its thirst. The sweet smell that permeates the air around this time is something indescribable. No doubt the monsoon does bring harm....many trees fall and roads are blocked. Its even hazardous to drive especially at night, but its an experience. The rains have never put me off. Just put on a long raincoat, an umbrella, good rain shoes and you are ready to take a walk.

I DO.....I DO
Those magic words that are uttered either in haste, when you are completely handicapped by love or after months of brooding and thinking to the one introduced by your parents. Year after year that day is marked on your calendar as the day of sheer bliss or the day of the greatest mistake. In general terms it is know as Anniversary. Couples have invented the Day We Met Anniversary, the D-Day Anniversary(meaning the day we knew we were made for each other) and many others, but the one we all celebrate sometime or the other is the evergreen Marriage Anniversary.
Now, men are complete dodos when it comes to such occasions. A typical husband (such as me) on this particular day would either just make do with a beautiful card...one of those big ones with mushy poems or a small gift usually a piece of jewellery or a voucher for a massage in a spectacular spa and think that he is the best and most caring, affectionate husband in the world till he sees the 'is this all?' look from his wife. Before he can even blink she uses that deadly and lethal weapon that only womankind can use to bring her man down........sulking. Then begins the wooing and convincing that he did want to get something else but just couldn't and how he values her the most in his life, even more than his expensive Android phone or his beloved Playstation (all this while he gets ready for office). But the wife wont have it and says that he should have taken the day off if she was that special to him. Now she's hit him real hard and delivers the knockout punch by retreating into a corner and sulking even more. The typical husband realises he's lost the bout and has to somehow salvage the situation and his self-esteem and to do so becomes the greatest multi-tasker ever. He begins talking non-stop of how his work is hard and its not easy balancing the personal and the professional and blah blah blah. Then he holds his wife gently, caressing her face, one part of his brain is coining up all the sweetest words and gestures possible, while the other is conjuring up stories to escape the boss's wrath at work. Finally after what seems like an eternity to the husband, the wife agrees to a compromise....he will take her for a night out, the husband agrees readily and is happy when she says that she isn't finished.....a night out on a weekday and soon. She stands with arms crossed, stern. He stares as if she just asked him for a foreign vacation. He knows there's no choice and just murmurs a yes and proceeds to leave for office, chest in, shoulders down muttering I DO I DO......

Time.
Time......a concept so wonderful, a concept that has changed the very way we look at our lives, our day, our very existence. Time allows everything to be categorised, divided and arranged. To measure time we use various tools from the normal wrist watch to sophisticated chronographs. Even our body seems to have a built in clock that lets us know when the body needs anything. But time is not good. We have no control over it....no way to stop it. We live , we go about our daily chores, but at some point we stop to rest...but time just keeps ticking away. I always wonder we always see our watches plenty of times but yet we can only think about the time gone by. For me the way I measure time is from weekends. One weekend is not over and the other one is here and I sit back and try to figure how fast the week went. If only one could make time go slow or may be even stop it for a while to allow us to bathe in the glory of some achievement or moment but that shall never be. So as The Doors sang: "No eternal reward shall forgive us for wasting the dawn" I say don't waste time.

Seasons
I have been very fortunate to live in a hilly region where the seasons are more defined. You know when winter is over and spring begins. I have always been a cold lover and I thoroughly enjoy a cold winter. I am not talking about the ice and snow winters...but one where the temperature just hovers around zero. You are always wondering whether it will go below. I feel in the cold one gets a chance to dress up well...out come the mufflers, the coats in varied styles and cuts and my favourite polo necks. Another lovely sight in winter is the frost.....you know you are gonna get hit when you get scorching days and blue skies day after day. In the night farmers keep vigil over their crops, protecting them from animals and in the early morn they water hoping to prevent frost. But in my own personal experience I have learnt that no matter how much you try the frost somehow manages to creep in and cover the entire land in a sheet of white. Its a lovely, breathtaking sight and at dawn as the sun slowly crawls into the sky, the rays make the ice glisten and shine.
Out here in the Nilgiris there is a clear transition between winter and spring. You know its spring coz the plants begin to throw out new shoots at a much faster rate. But a good indicator of the changing season are the evergreen forests locally called sholas. There are some species of trees in these forests whose leaves change into spectacular colours just after winter. You barely know spring has begun that summer is already there.
The temperatures slowly begin to climb up. The sun of the hills is different from the plains in that it burns your skin to the very bone. I find it very dehydrating even though you hardly sweat. The nights are very pleasant and slightly warm which accelerates growth. So all of a sudden you find all the flora growing very fast like they got no time and have got someplace to reach. Its amazing to see these differences. This is the best time of the year. The air is still, the sun warm and the days waiting to be lived. I love spending most of the time outdoors...taking long walks or playing games and its lovely to sit out in the nights without sweaters or extra clothing.
The all of a sudden the summer seems to be over and a strong wind begins to blow. Its horrible. Somedays the wind just blows the whole day, whistling through the trees, blowing all the leaves around and breaking the stalks of tall plants. One is thankful if a couple of trees are not dislocated. The wind blows nice and strong for about two months and then the rains begin.
The monsoon is here. One always awaits the prediction of the Indian weather department which I never have been able to tell are accurate or not. If there is any other season that makes me smile its the monsoon. The first rains are the best. The earth is waiting parched and the rain falls drenching it, quenching its thirst. The sweet smell that permeates the air around this time is something indescribable. No doubt the monsoon does bring harm....many trees fall and roads are blocked. Its even hazardous to drive especially at night, but its an experience. The rains have never put me off. Just put on a long raincoat, an umbrella, good rain shoes and you are ready to take a walk.

M CANT CHANGE
M came out onto the balcony at his usual hour...dawn and was shocked at the sight that greeted him. The compound adjacent to the building he lived in, was bursting with activity. Two massive earth moving machines had taken up position to bulldoze the unused godown and a couple of tractors were waiting to be loaded up with the rubble. M just stood there astonished.
Every once in a while he would peep out to check on the progress of destruction while he got ready. He had his breakfast listening to the sound of the machines scraping the ground, removing the overgrown weeds and finally smashing the building. He left for his weekly shopping wondering what new construction was going to come up there.
That evening when he returned M stood on the balcony and surveyed the scene. The building was razed to the ground and there was rubble everywhere. The machines stood silent. M felt sad at what he saw. This backyard was a kind of silent friend. M had no friends. Whenever he was sad, worried or just wanted to think he would stand for hours and gaze at this barren piece of land, dotted with trees here and there, the highway on one end and banana fields at the other.
When he had moved into this appartment the godown was a busy one and always active till the late hours of night. In the beginning he had hated the flat, the noise....the roar of truck engines, the drivers shouting at each other...just hated it. But after a while he got used to it. One day the business ceased and only the building remained.
M saw how with the absence of humans, nature had become the temporary owner. He had seen an increase in eagles...from one bird there were now about twenty circling in the sky sighting prey, squirrels scampering around looking for food, egrets scrounging for insects and worms, rare sightings of peacocks and pea hens early in the morning and when the trees flowered even a host of colourful butterflies. Off late there were snakes as well due to the thick undergrowth and even huge fat rats. He wondered what would happen to these creatures once all the greenery was removed..
It was dark now and M proceeded to have his dinner. M toyed with his food, not eating. Everything was changing and changing too fast for him. New roads, new buildings, too many vehicles, too many offers and shops...consumerism was the word and M did not understand it. M also did not understand technology. He had always known that someday most of the houses and empty lands in town were going to be replaced with buildings. He just didn't want this empty land also to disappear under a concrete monstrosity. Two months back the entire stretch of road outside his building going into town was denuded of trees. Everybody said it was progress and development but M hated having his serene life's landscape being altered and invaded every now and then. After all he was an old man and he was finding it difficult to cope with constant changes however small, in his lonely, routine life. M let out a sigh and began eating.
While he ate he felt amused at the thought of over a hundred people living in two buildings with only a ten foot high wall separating them. He imagined people peeping and looking from across and staring into each others appartments and lives. Maybe friendships would be formed, love might blossom or even enemity might take root, but privacy would go for a six. People will be known by their acts and not names. M imagined himself looking at a man and thinking 'aah, thats the smoker on floor six' or 'she's the secret admirer of the young chap in my building' or 'thats the old man from floor three who keeps shouting at night'. M suddenly felt sick and ate his food in silence.
M set the alarm, got in bed and switched off the lights. He waited for sleep, sleep that for some hours would make him forget that he was unable to change, old to change. The world as he knew it was crumbling and he could only watch and then just move on. He was neither sad nor happy, he was just annoyed and helpless.

SIMPLY MADRAS
I am in an air conditioned railway car on my way to Madras, now renamed Chennai. Chennai....sounds so alien, so drab, so uninteresting. I dont know why the name had to be changed. Madras sounded so much better, so much full of character. Madras...the capital of Tamil Nadu, the city of long distances, scorching summers, strong coffee and the stinking Cooum, the city that lives in my heart. The name Madras brings back vivid memories in my life and as I lay on my berth, my thoughts oscillated between my childhood days and teenage years associated with Madras.
A trip to Madras was something my I looked forward to. I enjoyed being with my aunts and their families. Holidays with my aunts and cousins were times of merriment. We cousins used to play games all day and in the evenings we were taken to the marina beach where we wet our feet, played with the sand and gazed at the lighthouse. Madras was where I had first seen the ocean and was mesmerised by it. Then there were the day trips to nearby Mahabalipuram, a town with many temples. One memorable trip was the Madras Darshan, a government trip that took a busload of passengers all around Madras showing off its beaches, temples, the Government Museum. It was fun, though whether we learnt anything is doubtful. There was one time when my brother and I were both affected by an in-grown toe nail and we both had to be operated. There we were at my aunts place, both our toes bandaged and in pain. It was a hilarious sight. Madras has only given me smiles.
My mind fast forwarded to that day in Coimbatore when i decided to join an obscure college in Madras to do my business management. My aunts were my guardians. I can see in my minds eye the red diesel engine throbbing with power chugging slowly into Madras Central dragging the blue coaches behind it. This was no ordinary journey for it was my first journey alone and it marked the beginning of my college life.
I can see myself standing with my bag, shading my eyes with one hand against the bright sun and staring at the red exterior, the tall clock tower and the caps on each building. I can see the crowd hurrying all over the place, and me being mobbed by a multitude of drivers of taxis and rickshaws. I can still feel the stale and hot air, the sun scorching down, trying to burn everything. Even now as I recall that journey I am filled with excitement. I remember I had smiled and murmured 'Welcome to Madras'.
I spent two years in college...two hazy years...filled with images of nameless roads and streets, innumerable roadside eating joints, countless days and nights of drunken stupor, numerous hours of movies and music, endless discussions on myriad topics and death wish bike rides. The only constant in an ever changing landscape of memories were the faces of people, family, friends and strangers, those rare gems of people who decided to take the risk of holding my hand and considered me worthy. We became a group and in the two years of staying together we became a close knit gang. Every member shared their life...the past by telling, the present by sharing and the future by dreaming.
A shift in the scene...I am in Madras sitting in a car with my fiance at the wheel. Driving around the city, just the two of us, showing her my favourite places and reliving my earlier days. It just made me feel ecstatic and fortunate. I looked back at my relationship with Madras. It had been in limbo for over five years. I hardly visited anymore. It had rekindled ever since I met my fiance. Madras is her home. I just sat in the car and thought what Madras had given me. It had provided me with the happiest days of my life, a practical knowledge on the real world and a course on surviving on my own. Now it also gave me the love of my life. What more could I ask. Madras has forged a very special place in my heart. It is a city that has changed in many a way, but its a city that has always made me happy and god willing will continue to do so.