Clouds in the valley...

The other day I was looking at the articles on my website, and I found some in particular, that really touched me. As in really made me feel connected enough, to smile at the moments of joy and feel melancholic at words of yearning and despair.   When I looked at the other articles, they were good, but didn't seem quite as intense. It was then that I realized that the fault was not perhaps in the words - c'mon, I can't criticize my own works, after all - but rather in the content. Most articles were describing places or events, while a handful were more philosophical. At this point in time, I realized I could categorize most travel essays into three categories: Descriptive, Narrative and Contemplative (you see, years of consulting will make you classify even the most banal of objects around you into something apparently spectacular, either making some 5Ts or ending in 3 similar sounding words!)   Descriptive essays would be those where you end up talking about the plac...

If you are lucky, Life sometimes takes you back to the most vibrant of your down memory lanes. If you can withstand the overwhelmia and still breathe in peace to savor a fresh set of memories, you can't get luckier... Why do I write this, you might wonder? After seven years, Nishant has gone back to Paris! Paris - the place where the insanity for Bohemia all began. Sometimes it all feels like fast moving scenes in some old pastel colored movie set - an imposing cathedral here, an art noveau edifice there; small, artistic shops selling bits and pieces of nostalgia by the Seine; gargoyles frozen in time trying helplessly to show onlookers what it means to gaze at the cityscapes from that altitude atop the imposing Notre Dame; the smell of musty books in Shakepeare, walking about in the autumnal rains in the imposing gardens (and rushing in to an old seemingly decrepit house only to discover gigantic canvases of Monet). Then, the first snows of winter - falling,...

Isn't it one of the best times of the week - a Sunday morning? I do agree that a Saturday evening wins the race by a slight margin, but yes, a Sunday morning is still a close contender! As I drink a strongly concocted Tata tea in a vibrant red cup, and contrast it to the blue skies of a sunny Sunday, there is a peaceful smile on my lips, content in my eyes  and a flurry of thoughts in my mind. I start going back to the library of my life, and search for Sunday mornings in various times of my life, amidst myriad places that I have called home. My first flashback brings back memories from Shillong - the Scotland of the East, where I was lucky to have spent my kindergarten years, thereby allowing the hills to forever emblazon me as a 'mountain man.' Those were days when dawn and early bright mornings would attract the little child in me (rather than the pensive fading melancholy of dusky evenings that became such a salvation as years passed by). Those were days when I...