An afternoon at home

I am sitting on the tiny balcony, an Oscar Wilde book in my hand. The air, until a little while ago, was smelling sweetly of pomelo flowers. Very sweet indeed!

Then there was this smell of dust. It is that time of the year when the roads are sandy, dusty and they soil your feet. I find it hard to breathe. There is some dog smell also.

A cuckoo is cooing sweetly, while the crows caw.

There are tiny kids playing cricket on the dusty playground few feet across. I watch the child, a girl or a boy, I do not know. They are at that age where you do not get to know what the sex is from afar, when there are no curves in the body and the hair is boyishly short. I watch the kid, smartly posing as the ball comes, bending the knees like a professional would. Impressive, I think. Myself, I have always been afraid of being the batsman in a game of cricket, afraid of embarassing myself by not hitting the ball once.

Sunlight vanishes as I write this. Conch shells are being blown by the women. Mosquitoes are nagging at my legs, time to go inside.

For years, I have sat on this balcony. When I was younger, this hour would mean the hour of light snacks and getting back to the heavy books – physics or maths. Today, I really don’t have much to do. Today, I am a grown woman visiting home on a vacation. There are only couple of days till I get back to my real life, my work life. Until then, I wish to soak in the smells, the sights and the sounds of this hour. Like a much cherished pickle, for another desolate afternoon, in a city eons away from here.

Highlights from my Home Trip

I am back to Bangalore after a week long vacation to home. Even though my mother kept complaining that it was too short a vacation, I had the most of out that time.

Highlights from the trip:

• Surprised the brother with a wallet, as a gift for bhai phonta, which is observed in Bengal to celebrate the brother-sister relationships. He literally flipped when he saw the gift. His expression was priceless – made my day
• Had a long-planned lunch with the brother and a good friend – it was a treat from me. It feels really great when you get to feed people who love to eat
• Gorged on too many lovely dishes made by Mom. It had been so long since I ate a meal with more than one side dish! Absolutely relished it
• Visited my maternal uncle’s place. Gifted sari to Grandma, bought from my salary. Feels like an achievement
• Met cousins, chatted and had some good time with fried snacks. Had my fill of junks for a month
• Spend two hours each on two consecutive days standing in front of State Bank of India to deposit old currency notes
• Started writing a short story while standing in the bank queue. The first draft is now ready – will polish it some more and send to some people for feedback. I am hoping to send it to some magazines once I have the final version ready
• Finalized an offer to host a guest post by a published author on this blog. If all goes well, the post should be live on Nov. 25th

The trip really refreshed me! I met so many people, was part of so many conversations. It felt good to step out of the shoes of an analyst with an ID card. In fact, so many times, unconsciously, I was feeling for the missing lanyard – have gotten so used to have the ID card around the neck.

I am especially happy about the creative liberty this trip gave me. I have a couple of ideas that might flesh out into short stories in near future. I promised myself I will try to finish the non-fiction WIP on Fear and publish it by end of 2016. Hope to get some work done on it this weekend.

Have you been on any trips recently? Do you want to talk about how a trip rejuvenates the mind? Share your experience with me in the comments below.

Until later,

Write On!