Pitter-patter

I now call it the 'sibilant music of the rain' or sometimes call it 'ebullient gushings'; depending on my mood. I was in Bombay last Friday when on my GTalk I put up a line that read: 'The sibilant music of the rain and Mumbai Magic!' That is the precise moment when I thought of the title of this blog - 'pitter-patter'!

Ah yes, you got it - Mother Goose and the other rhymes that we sang as children! I was suddenly caught up with "Fire in the Mountain Run Run Run" and "Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses"! But somewhere down the lane all the 'pitter-patter' died and we were chanting "little drops of water, little grains of sand" and even as you read it, I am sure you are completing the rhyme. Yes, I know :-)

Sometime later between Chiti Chiti Bang Bang and the Sound of Music came in 'W. H. Longfellow' as we put it then. And sonnets and ballads became the word-of-the-day. The Romantics came in with William Wordsworth - "And then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils"!

Pause. Somewhere down the line you begin to think with an air of nonchalance that Longfellow, Wordsworth etc are stuff read by school children. I thought I was 'uber-cool' because just becuase I was caught up with the other literary buggers that I know of  like Piet Hein and his Grooks and W. H. Auden of late.... Pause again -
I read Longfellow's The Rainy Day again (after eons I guess) and I'll write it down for you:

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Now do you call that juvenile?

Zindagi, or something like that ..

For the first time in life, I hate to admit it - I missed Ahmedabad! I know I must have lost my mind to say this. But its true. And as I say this I know I am contradicting myself. I had to go to Baroda last week and there I was left wondering... Ahmedabad is just three hours away!

Just three hours away --

Remember every night you used to listen to the radio on your cell phone. And every night the advertisements would announce "Amdavadnu radio... aha"!

I know...now I hardly listen to the radio.

Remember walking almost everyday to Himalaya Mall or C G Road just to entertain yourself? Or else knocking Dipti and Saurabh's door saying 'I am hungry'!! Yeah, Saurabh .... and considering he's probably got Pixar and Walt Disney in his stomach! Makes me smile. Or Dipti's good food..

Yeah... I now talk to them 'online' and READ -"Till know that You and I were just "Ape"ing the Aliens

  Guess what Darwin would say

  Must have turned in his grave"

And then seeing 'Welcome to Sajjanpur' when the Lehman Brothers had just shut their doors forever... The whole lot that included Mona, and Leela mam; laughing when probably lots of people across the globe were biting their nails...

Yet I'd say Ahmedabad was boring... lonely at night...

Man - Swati was good! Darpan Academy was even better and so was Gandhi ashram...
My constant companions - Sam and Pushkar. Sitting up late every night and talking gibberish! The best was having no groups. Friends, friends of friends and their friends were all welcome... I don't do that in Pune! Architects, Engineers, MBA grads, Social Science graduates were all together....

But I missed the tekdi there.. I missed 'chaila', 'gadhva' and 'dukkar'! Got sweet 'shak' instead of 'tikhat bhaji'...

But you got to shop!! And the material you got there, you wouldn't get in Pune...

Ah yes, that is true... But Sihagad is so close here or lets say Tamhini or Bhushi dam... All Amdavadis think of is Mount Abu, and for booze I am sure.

But you still miss Ahmedabad... you still miss the rickshaw wala's who put their feet out to indicate they are turning instead of using their hands...

Ah yes, and it still makes me laugh. I do miss it... But my heart screams boring and a sad place and my head  sings 'zindagi kaisi hai paheli'

Chala yete mi
Che
Aujo!