Postcards From J

"Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,  The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.   Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,   So early in the morning..." And then I learned that mulberries don't grow on a bush. Ok. My first memory - and the only one till recently - of the mulberry tree is from childhood. Probably as far back as 20-25 years at least. That tree was in a neighbouring compound but its branches hung over the wall that separated its owners and one of the buildings in our colony. Behind Building No. 2 actually. Where the water tank was. Still is. We'd sit on the tank surface to play make-believe games like Teacher-Teacher and House-House (was the word repetition for effect?). And during the hot summers, we'd happily fight for the red mulberries that were within our tiny grasps. Red because we were impatient. Red because we didn't trust birds or insects or friends enough to let them survive to be purpley-black-sweet. Along with the ti...

Among my co-travellers, one was flying in from Bombay with me and the other was coming in from Bangalore. The three of us were joining more friends - some already in Goa and some on their way by road. Sneha and I walked out of Goa Airport, and were received by Sharon whose flight had arrived a couple of hours earlier. One look at us lugging our trolley bags, and a fit of laughter ensued. Why? Well, the three of us had identical trolley bags - right down to the size, colour and make. That moment jogged our collective memories to four years ago when we embarked on our first trip as a trio to Thailand. Those bags were purchased from a shop in Pratunam Centre in bustling Bangkok to accommodate all the shopping we had done there. I had left Bombay with a regular bag for my personal things and a small sling bag for money and travel documents. The return journey, however, saw us bring back those now-famous-black-suitcases-on-wheels bursting at the seams with bags, shoes, souvenirs and...

I had a few ideas for a couple of posts - one definitely on Rahul Dravid's batting prowess over this past weekend in the 4th Test (or rather what this amazing cricketer means to me), and the second which was more personal about friendship and its changing nature. Over the weekend though, I couldn't do any writing as the Saturday was spent in rest (which is a good thing, no?) and Sunday was crazy with packing up all my stuff to shift into the neighbouring flat as we're getting some basic fixes and painting started tomorrow. It was bloody painful packing and moving stuff around. And worse when you end up with sixteen bags of your things. Yes, sixteen, belonging to just one individual - ME.  Time to de-clutter? Hell, yeah! In the process of all this packing and sorting, I did get quite nostalgic as I came across certain items which brought back a rush of memories. Maybe I should've snapped some photos of those things so I could've added them here... but hey, I w...