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.