Bitter Sweet!

Most mornings see me keeping time to go to work. Once my morning chores are over, I am dressed and ready to board an auto rickshaw to my office. This is the luxury of living in Pune after half a lifetime in Mumbai. No more locals and buses for me. That means no more “sardine tin” style packed sweaty, smelly throbbing masses of humans, the stench of a dirty city and the incessant grating noises of all kinds. 

Everyone keeps saying that Pune too is going the Mumbai way but I feel it still has a lot to offer me. The day it doesn’t I am so moving on! 

Today morning I saw a dragonfly hover over the interlocked paved road as we waited for the traffic light to turn green. Dragonflies are tiny creatures, their bodies so long  and thin, with gossamer iridescent wings that one can barely see them while they keep hovering speedily – so like a chopper in mid-air!

Richly hued in two three shades of blues, it glistened away while all around us the morning traffic hummed, sunshine a bright dazzle as it is now the start of the October heat here in Pune. It did the chopper-thing all the while that we were stationary and once the hum changed to varied noises of gears shifting, it sped away. Wonder what was it that it was searching for.... food? water? mate? Come to think of it what do I know of what a dragonfly lives on or for! One more search for Google today I must say!

 As my funny lil’ contraption of transport raced away from the spot my mind jumped back to my childhood when I caught them with my bare hands and admired their intricate beauty up-close before setting them free.

Such exquisite creatures! The reticulated veins on those transparent paired wings and its large mosaic eyes accusingly glaring at me, constantly reflecting light and its jaws clamping over air! 

Two things stood out in my mind while on that nostalgic trip. One that I - as a lil’ girl - was much braver and two – of late I am almost startled to discover that so very many pieces of my childhood are still there to be accessed. Something like this and the pictures come rushing in – pulsating with all their details. 

This has never happened in the last two decades that I was hectically busy raising kids, keeping a full time job and being a care-giver to aging parents. 

Amazing thing this human memory is! I never knew that my mind could conjure up such vivid images so quickly of things past! Things so trivial but replete with smells, shapes, shadows and sounds! Quite a colourful memory I have! I guess all bitter sweet things will come visit me now, as the future unfolds. I am already excited!