Flyaway Mind

It had been a long time since I lost those keys, the keys to the wooden cupboard upstairs at home. Out of blue, my Mom found it out last weekend. It had been years since I had opened the cupboard. It was stuffed with old school books, magazines, few greeting cards, a dead spider and few cockroach eggs among other stuff.

I flipped the pages of my history text book.The papers have turned into a dull yellow with rusty brown spots scattered around. History used to be one of my favourite subjects,unlike most of my classmates who perpetually cribbed about mugging up boring events and insignificant dates. For me, History classes were never boring. Rather they triggered my imagination. I used to imagine myself living in the Harappan civilisation, fighting in Bolshevik Revolution, praying to the Inca gods and travelling through Amazon rainforests. As for exams, I am sure I gave vent to my poor suppressed imagination on the exam sheet.

There were my school note books wrapped in brown paper with those colourful name-slips glued on them. The brown paper must be a product of the yesteryear's school-going generation. I wonder if brown papers are still available around in our stores. Inside the book, the blue fountain pen ink had started fading away..

My handwriting looked so unsteady & childish, so very different from what it is now. When we initially started using fountain pens in school, I remember the trademark blue ink smears on our fingers, where the fountain pens used to leak. During lunch break, you will find a gang of kids ritually rubbing their fingers against the stone wall near the wash area to get rid of those blue spots.

On the lower deck of the cupboard, there were a collection of Balarama (kid's magazine) & a bunch of greeting cards belonging to my sis. She had collected it over her school & college days. It was an era when Bday cards & Christmas cards were a rage among the college goers. It must be the time when Archies cards started invading the Indian gift shops following economic liberlisation.

Then I found my old school magazine where I had written a small article. It was weird reading through it. The words which I had penned a decade back sounded so strange..It was like rediscovering the old self and realising how much a decade has changed me..Maybe years from now, when I read this blog I might get a similar feeling.. Maybe I will feel good.. Or maybe I will feel it's all so silly...

I absolutely love this feel of finding old stuff unexpectedly...the feel of the memories associated with it..It's always nice to find an old friend in a crowded bus rather than at an Alumini meet..It 's nice to find an age-old photograph while flipping an old book rather than seeing a newer pic on Flickr or Picassa..

I remember the time when I opened my Grandfather's wooden chest many years back. I got two coins, one dating back to as far as 1897. It was only a quarter anna coin or so, with the head of a British King. It was a real treasure for me. I feel like hiding some of my stuff now, so that many years later when I accidentally discover it, it will feel extra special.

It's been terribly long since I have updated this space. Somehow, whenever I tried putting down something, words just stopped at my finger tips. Lots have happened since my last post. The most important being, I got my new roomie M. Well, I mean, a roommate for a lifetime ;) But the sad part is since M is yet to complete his research, we stay apart. So am back to my PG and will continue to write bachelor-life-like stories ;)



















This pic was taken by a dear friend B. He had attended the function, clicked lots of pics and surprised us with an album, which he sent by courier. A truly personalised gift which we treasure.. Thanks a ton B !!!

Last Sunday was a lazy Sunday. I slept till around 11’0 clock, then got up and fixed myself a quick brunch of upma & tea. The sky was overcast and it was a perfect day to snooze off. I was lying on the bed, propped up against the pillows, trying to read the book “Snow” by Orhan Pamuk , when it started raining heavily. I could hear the faint thud thud against the glass windows.

My roomie was screaming from balcony at the top of her lungs. I rushed out thinking that her clothes might be outside on the lane to dry… ‘Hailstones’, she screamed on seeing me. The ice cubes on her outstretched palm were already melting. I could hardly believe this. It was actually raining hailstones in Bangalore!!! I collected a few hailstones from the balcony and tried catching a few as it pelted down… Many people in our seven storied apartment had come out to their balconies to watch. The kids were excitedly scampering around. And on the ground floor, few people were out drenching in the rain and collecting hailstones in a bucket.

My room mate usually stocks up eatables for the rainy days. She loves preparing hot soup or making banana fritters when it rains.. So we go out to the balcony, sit on the steps, watch the rain and sip the hot soup or munch the fritters. I remember the first time when we bought Knorr instant soup mix. It almost ran out of it’s expiry date because it was summer and it didn’t rain for a long time in Bangalore.

Boca Grande is the newly opened restaurant near my house. Boca Grande is a Spanish word meaning “big mouth”. And I had won their puzzle contest which earned me free-dinner-for-two. I was planning to go along with my friend for a lavish dinner on Friday. But severe hunger pangs propelled us to hit the place on Tuesday itself. The handsome owner welcomed us, showed us around the place & told us that as the sole winner, we are entitled to eat to our hearts content.. kewllll..For once, I could devour all the delicacies without having to worry about the ultimate BILL. We scanned through the menu card and started off right from starters. Smart as we are, we ordered the highest priced items in each category and items referred as ‘BC special’.. heheee ;) Food was yummy but the problem was with our appetite. By the time we had the starters and cake-shake, we were almost stomach full. Half way through our main course we felt we couldn’t hog any more. We decided to take a break, chat a while and then try to finish it off. But it was of no avail.. Thus with a broken heart, we left many of those special items untouched :( And I was disappointed that I couldn’t have those tempting mouth melting desserts. Nevertheless, we packed off scoops of Belgium chocolate ice cream with lotsa nutties for my roomie.


I like dancing away to glory. That is if I am dancing to my own tunes and dancing to my own specially copyrighted dance moves. I joined free style dance classes this week. Yesterday was my first day. Initially I was enjoying every bit of it. The instructor was teaching us random steps and we were following it. Later it turned to aerobics and finally to Bollywood dance. The music was “soni de nakhre sone lagade”. I started imagining myself as Govinda and suddenly I couldn’t dance anymore ;) I found it difficult to get along with the ‘continuation of steps’. Hope it gets better in the coming classes. And to add to the insult, two girls in my class are dancing even better than the instructor. They need to see the steps only once and they can dance like some divas. Well, yours truly is feeling really J :)