Nostalgia

Of people and places,

Of times and things.

Nostalgia…

Every time that familiar song sings

Nostalgia…

Of roads you cross on windy nights

Of sunsets, day breaks and the signal lights

Nostalgia…

Everywhere you catch that scent

Nostalgia….

Of balconies and terraces and coffee shops

Of times when your heart just stops

Nostalgia….

Of happier times,

Of unlived lives,

Of unloved moments

And of unsaid truths.

In things and words

In tea cups and old books

In messages and pictures

In car keys and unfamiliar roads

In everything you do,

There is nostalgia around you…

This nostalgia kills you with pain and pleasure, with joy and tears.

This nostalgia…. Makes you wish you could touch those things again… be in those places and laugh with those people… But then…You and I are now in two separate worlds… between that past and this present what connects is this nostalgia.

Let it then take me… Nostalgia.

That cheap smell of Phenyl in the air.
The red hot muddy ground.
The half empty water bottle.
Those loosened clothes.
Th pulsating hearts.
Those beads of sweat.
The dried mouths.
Those final few seconds...

And then the screech of the whistle. The goal. That mad cheer. The head rush..

Nothing like a great game of basketball like those days in school.


P.S: Was riding past my school and heard that whistle that once signaled the end of PT class for IX 'A'

The Chant - 1

The entire building was vibrating to a hum...There was silence otherwise across the entire street and every step taken was towards Daija's single bedroom flat right on top of the oldest building in Naroda... Everything around Daija's house had changed but just not that one building. It was probably Naroda's oldest surviving treasure chest and the keeper of it was Daija.

The room where Daija lay was abuzz with chanting. Everyone who walked in sat next to Daija and chanted for a while, had a cup of chaai made by Kishan and left. No one uttered a word other than the chant. Daija had been telling everyone she met for the past two years that when it was her time to go she did not want to hear crying, remorse, sad stories or 'haai haais'.. but just the chant.

32 years back when Daija and her son Amin came to Naroda it was another life for them. They had left all their belongings and shifted here so that Amin could study and start working here. He did. he studied language and began teaching at the nearby school. It worked very well for both Daija and Amin. She used to carry lunch for him everyday and soon her food was the talk of the teacher's room. As days went by Daija's house was flooded with people stopping over for chaai, daal and the likes.3 decades later Kishan was making the exact same tasting chaai for everyone as Daija lay on her cot looking at the only photo on the wall.. the one of Daija's wedding... and there hung on the wall a young and beaming Daija with her Babu, as she called him...