Yet again winter..

This should probably suffice for this entire winter. The pics below are from the 'picturesque' bus stop where I spent quite a bit of my time this year, both in the summers and now in the winters.

Winter again..

I walk alone along the lonely road, in the company of the sombre overcast sky and the empty trees. The wind decides to occasionaly creep up from behind to look for any leaves hidden in the safety of the tree branches. The anxious streetlamps wait for the faint evening light to subside as well. Eveything around is so peacefully silent and cold that I cannot help but remember the cozy winters spent back home with family in Naini.

I listen intently to the trees as I walk along. The leaves are but the rustling sound that you make as you walk along the road. The ideosyncratic fall colors are but the democratic brown now.
However if you listen intently you can hear the trees whisper the word 'snow' as a constant chant..You can feel the anticipation for snow and then the hope for the spring!

I get frequently distracted by the groups of birds noisily making their way back home. They are like the memories(I cannot think of another metaphor) that frequent you when you are all alone, may be to give you company or to mildly torment you, I am not exactly sure.  All I can offer is a kind welcome as they come to revisit the now vacant branches and comfortably rest for a while.

And perhaps hum along as I make my way back home..

"Woh pathjhad mein kuch patton ki girne ki aahat
kaano mein ik bar pehan ke laut aayi thi
pathjhad ki wo shaaqh abhi tak kaanp rahi hai
woh shaaqh gira do, mera woh saman lauta do
woh shaaqh gira do, mera woh saman lauta do.."

Sometimes my mind surprises me then it completes a visual image with some old hindi song..

A hazy shade of winter

There are few times of the year when everything around slows down, everything else briefly gets all silent and  you feel all the more closer to the place you live in. Its seems that the place belongs to you alone and you do not have to share it with all the passersby on the roads or the stream of cars making you wait at intersections. You feel a particular kinship with the solitary beauty of the place, standing aloof and vacant. Its weird because the same scene might very well be the sorry tale of a lonely soul left all alone in a deserted city.

Since I am again all by myself for the Thanksgiving break in Champaign, I try to tread carefully given the dichotomous situation I find myself in. Now the reason why I ended up all by myself for the break could range from- being lazy, not listening to friends, saving up a little to buy some gifts for friends and family.. etc..the list can get very long. So in everyone'e best interest lets just skip this part.

I sit by myself doing things that I like most, starting with going back to swimming after months.(Thankfully my body didn't hurt so much the next day!)
Reading a stolen newspaper for straight three hours..ahh what a feeling. I might have to do some explaining for the stolen piece. But in my defense the newspapers lie dumped on the ground near the mailbox and I have never seen anyone religiously picking up their copies. And secondly with all the proliferation of smart phones and internet, who in US wants to sit down and read some over 100 printed pages of weekend Wall Street Journal. And thirdly my public apology to whoever sorely missed their weekend newspaper because someone else picked it up and actually read it when they were out of campus for a glorious Thanksgiving break.
Honestly I sat down with a newspaper on a Sunday morning after almost one and a half years. Somehow in the course of settling to the new ways of life in US, the television and newsprint paper have totally gone out of my life(substituted by assignments of-course! ).
The television got a revival since August this year when one of my friends moved into an apartment with a Television set and my room mate started her weekly trips to Chicago to her husband's place. (Those two chance coincidences have spawned a lot of things, the television viewing being one of them.)
But the lowly old newspaper was missing from my life until today. It was a reunion so dear, i remembered all the lazy Sunday afternoons spent with a newspaper and my diary! Imagine my joy at finding an article on Oscar Wilde( her wife actually) but I wouldn't complain because it had a generous sprinkling of Wilde's pithy, witty, rye-humored quotes.
I smiled inwardly reading this quote:

"The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life"

And you bet it went to my diary, though slightly modified, since I am not so aware of the married life as much  as the Facebook life of people. I wonder "when people will begin to get suspicious of anything that looks like a happy Facebook life!" I bet it will be the marketers who will get the wind first because they have the highest stakes in this marriage!

Diwali

The Diwali bling..!

Shubh Deepawali

Photo credit: sr

Take Flight..

These images so remind me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull...

The flight of ideas could possibly be as real as the flight of wind and feather...
We can be free..
We can learn to fly!

Photo credit :sr

The opposite of Black hole!

Guess who possibly could be the opposite of black hole?

If black hole stands for all hope lost, the opposite of black hole, well is opposite. It is full of light, hope and inspiration.

I should perhaps offer a little help to make the question answerable.

Who won the US Presidential elections 2012?

If you answered Barack Obama you actually answered both my questions. Yes Barack Obama is the opposite of black hole. I had this brainwave when I read Barack Obama's speech after his re-election in Chicago. I missed the actual histrionics since I just read the speech text and didn't watch the actual delivery nonetheless I can still confer on him the title of 'opposite of black hole'.
Sometimes victory speeches have a cockiness, sometimes they are outright humble and sometimes they picture an imagery that elevates people to envision a glorious future with no black holes. They call it the American vision, it is interesting to look at the dichotomous reality of the vision, but topics of politics and economy later. The blog is intended to be the opposite of 'black hole'!!