its me!!

Do you know digging ditches can make the world a better place? You don’t? Don’t worry. I didn’t either. Not until I went to Spiti and dug one myself! *** ‘Spiti is pretty, and you do get to travel around but staying with the locals is something you don’t get anywhere else. That’s the best part,’ Ishita Khanna, founder of Spiti Ecosphere explained the program that we had enrolled in. We all nodded in unison. ‘You stay with them, observe their routine, help solve their problems,’ the promise and anticipation continued. To  solve their problems , we were going to dig trenches. Dig trenches? How will that help?  I wondered. ‘Spiti is a cold desert. We barely get any rainfall here but ample snowfall. So, the trenches you work on, get filled with snow in winters. The snow melts in summers and increases the water-table.’ *** Geared with picks and shovels, we marched towards the fields. The prospect of making a difference in someone’s life thrilled me....

The first case of COVID-19 was reported in India in January 2020. Not many paid any heed till the lockdown was declared. It was hard to ram the bitter truth down the throat about my quashed travel plans due to Chinese misadventures. To spend my time productively , I buried myself in books. Their storylines were based in fascinating locations: Iran, Kashmir, Vietnam, and Mussoorie. I related the most with Ruskin Bond’s autobiography. He recounted several commonplace instances of his life with grace and appeal, resurfacing several of my own. They were rather commonplace instances yet stayed with me even after decades. Road trips to Kaimganj fall in such category. **** Every summer after the exams, Amma, Parul, Nupur and I, rushed to Kaimganj, a dusty town some 130 km from Kanpur. Usually, we traveled in the Pawan Express or the Passenger. Sometimes, when we were lucky, we got my grandfather’s jeep, a luxury without the need to rush to the station or queue up to get the tickets or s...

I dashed to catch the 14:43 fast local to Dadar. The next one was scheduled only after fifteen minutes. Not that a pretty one was waiting for me or I had anything specific to achieve, still I didn’t want to miss the 'fast local with empty seats'.  ‘Why’, You ask?  Then you must not have seen a local without empty seats. During the rush hour, the number of humans traveling in a local is more than half the population of Belgium.  No, that’s not a statistically proven statement and am sure its incorrect, but you get the hint. People jostle to get in and then can’t even scratch themselves due to intertwined limbs wedged under the deluge of humanity in the compartment. ‘Is this going to Dadar?’ I asked the old man sitting on the window seat. ‘You don’t even know where the train is going and yet you boarded it!’ the old man remarked with an irritated frown as if he was doing something important and I had disturbed him. Grumpy bugger , I said to him. In my head. Assuming ...