It
has been raining on and off in Gurgaon. A few days back as I was taking my
morning walk I came across a stretch which had some small puddles on the
pavement. There was this very familiar smell coming from earth wet by the rain waters.
The smell just transported me back to a time long long ago. And as I put my
foot in a puddle, in a split second of a moment, my mind raced through visuals,
smells, sounds, feelings, emotions and a whole lot of memories from my
childhood.
When
I was in school we used to go for our vacations to Kolkata. It was always during
the months of July-August… the peak of monsoon season in Kolkata. As I stepped
on the watery pavement that morning I was taken back to those vacations in
Kolkata. My granny used to live in a small hamlet (better known as moffetshawl)
on the outskirts of Kolkata. The wet
muddy streets and broken half done roads from those days splashed under my
feet. I could see the dark streets wet with rain, I could hear the croaking of
thousands of frogs in the stillness following the rain, I could smell the green
moss by the ponds now overflowing with the rain, I could feel the scent of the
leaves and the barks of the trees with each breath that I took.
In
those days the concept of invertor had not yet penetrated into the towns and
hamlets. So every house had haerikanes (kerosene
lamps). As I found my mind walking back in the streets of that little hamlet I
saw the warm yellow light and smelt the burnt fragrance of the kerosene. Every
house big and small, of brick or mud had
this yellow light emitting from its windows. I saw the black soot of the
kerosene on the glass of the lamp, the little insects crawling and flying
around the yellow light. I saw my dear ones sitting near this yellow light and
fanning themselves with hand fans made of dried palm leaves.
My
granny’s house had a big roof top where we would spend hours lazing around. I
heard my dear neighbor telling us ghost stories while we sat around her with
eager eyes and ears under the darkest blue sky on that rooftop. I felt my
sweaty face and neck but I knew it was not bothering me for I was enjoying the
cool breeze coming from the tall and tallest of coconut and shoopuri (bettle nut) trees, and from
the wavy waters of the pond in the backyard.
I could hear the rains splashing at the blue windows while I lay awake
inside the mosquito net watching the fire flies glow in the darkness of the
room.
I
was not bothered by the few mosquitoes that had managed to enter the mosquito
net for I was waiting for morning to come when my cousin and I would rush to
the backyard and jump into the cold and freezing rain water that had filled the
pond beyond its muddy walls. I was not bothered by the red and black ants
called Kaat pipre (wood ants) whose
one sting was enough to make you forget your past, present and future for there
were fish to catch from our neighbour’s over flowing pond!
As I
took my next step and my foot fell on a dry patch I was back in my present. But
the short trip back into my most memorable years of childhood stayed with me
for the whole day. What amazed me is the capability of the mind (in a more
scientific term the brain) to store all these experiences - smell, visuals,
sounds, colours, textures, events, feelings and emotions - over so many years
and then run them through like a short film in a split second of a moment or
one can say in a blink of a moment! Truly the human mind and its consciousness
is a magical universe in itself.
