Joy!

Hearing an old Kannada song I grew up with when surfing channels on the radio.

Getting little toffees wrapped in crispy green covers instead of change, that I longed for as a kid.

Discovering a tiny place that serves the best parathas for less than 20 rupees

Discovering that the yummiest kaara kulazhambu is bottled and sold

Discovering that me and V have done similar things as kids at around the same time when we didn't know the other existed

Bumping into the video of the animated song "ek titali anek titaliyaan" that was the high point of DD viewing long ago

Finding out that an old friend has gotten over her heartbreaks and found the happily ever after

Discovery of a perfect little sequence to add in the film to make all the difference

A subtle gesture that says your little brother looks up to you

The absolutely wonderful line that pops in to end the article brilliantly

Catching a smile on a child's face, playing in a park by herself

Glimpse of the innocence with which children trust you and hang on to your every word

The memories of hot bajjis, amma and my little brother on a rainy evening

Oh the list is endless...And it is in moments like these that the world seems utterly beautiful and an immense love for every person washes over.

Mysore.

I was in Mysore the whole of last week. Of course I had no time for sight seeing but saw enough to wish I lived there. First two days I went around the city, something kept coming up at the back of my head wasn't able to put my finger one it...then it struck me - there is not a single high rise building in that city!!! There is open sky everywhere. Not like the piece of sky I can see from my terrace but much wider and bluer. There are still so many trees that you can see the moon shining through them at night. In the evening when you are not blaring your TV off to kill boredom you can hear classical music coming from the Kalyana Mantapa nextdoor - live.

The mornings are clearer and the evenings are pleasant and there are lakes around which you can walk and see the most gorgeous painted storks busy building nests on the island. The city still has space for the not so young and hep ones. It still has the old world charm that made it the pensioner's paradise which made me regret I was not earning any pension soon enough.

But I also saw old buildings razed down and big names in construction advertising there. There are signs screaming that soon the sky will shrink and the storks will fly away. I do hope I am proved wrong or that it doesn't happen as soon as it seems.

Time Machine

Oh its such a delight to bump into old friends. Friends who you shared the laughs with, some who cried with you, some who helped you tide over, some one you thought was cute but had no courage to tell him so just said hi...it is always a pleasure:-)

But there's one thing though. Sometimes you realise that you and she have nothing in common but that thread of friendship shared many moons ago. You try very hard to work that enthusiasm back to see the magic happen again. Not always succesful. A friend of mine had a fine analogy (if I can call it so) for such relationships. He said we put memories and people associated with those memories in time capsules. We like to look at them as often as we can but we can never recreate the moment.

He said that many years ago, now he is part of my time capsule and I am guessing I am part of his for our conversations are not the same but always manage to have a good conversation because of the bond we shared back then.

Time capsule or no it is fun to talk about old times (its crazy how much of old times I have to talk about with so many different people...man I am getting ancient!)