Stopping by the Alley.....

It's been quite some time since I last strolled down this alley. Stopping by the alley, I am reminded of the time when I had started blogging...

The world has changed or rather evolved since then...

....Laptops have given way to tablets...

.....The good old Windows XP has given way to Windows 7...

....Wi fi has become a household term...

....Blogs have been taken over byTweets...

Indeed my life has also changed....

....Sharing one’s life with someone has acquired a new meaning....

....Perspectives have been realigned..

.....Life's mantra rewritten...

.....Memory boxes defragmented...

Yet the enchantment of strolling down this alley never ceases to surprise my still ‘juvenile’ mind.

Yesterday was Vishu, The festival of renewed hopes and new dawns, a festival which promises better tomorrows as days go by. One of my first musings in this alley of dreams was about Vishu and the memories attached to it.

Memories of those carefree childhood summer holidays spent without an iota of guilt for 'doing nothing'....the excitement on the eve of Vishu day to collectbunches of Konna Flowers(Amaltasin Hindi, Cassia fistula) to auspicate the dawn of the New year... To peek into the puja room for a sneak preview of the auspicious Kanni (coiffured ‘Omen’) which mom and the other ladies of the house would have carefully arranged ....helping Grand Dad polish the old traditional bronze lamps until they shine as if dipped in molten gold...watching the blue green mangoes ripen in the mellow sunlight...counting and recounting the money gifted by the elders on the day of Vishu (the only day when cash is legitimately and willingly gifted to kids by elders as a token of prosperity). Time and distances have of course mellowed down the glitter of the festival but the memories it brings are still as fresh as the fragrance wafting from the burning Camphor flames.

‘Reclaiming one's life’ is a cool catch phrase which has been doing rounds now-a -days. But reclaiming one's own life isn’t easy when it comes to putting it into practice. The tendency to get stuck in the cobwebs of one's mundane thoughts and tiresome actions is so strong that repelling it becomes another task of its own. At times I feel that it is indeed a bliss to lose oneself in one's dreams, disconnected from the chaos around, like a kite that has just broken free from its thread, willing to lose itself to where its fate and the wind takes it to.

Recently, I happened to read a thought provoking quote on one of the most unlikely places....scribbled onto an aging tattered diary in my own handwriting with its carefully articulated cursive hand (which the nuns at school used to enforce) which I thought had gotten lost in those growing up years.

The quote was by none other than Mark Twain and it read like this

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.....

So throw off the bowlines.....

Sail away from the safe harbour...

Catch the trade winds in your sails...

Explore...Dream...Discover...."

...and here I am yet again trying to light up my alley with lanterns of stardust hanging in the frail threads of memories.... Indeed memories are like the shade of a cool glen...they are inviting enough to run into from the heat and burden of realities.