For many years, I used to avoid being nostalgic because it saddened me deeply. The memory of; streams that I used to swim in, the meadows where I chased butterflies the day long, the grasslands I ran after grasshoppers in the long summer afternoons, the rain-ponds where dragonflies danced and hovered over swaying bulrushes, the enchanting wilderness I roamed about aimlessly after skipping school, the shimmering heat waves rising from stark, glaring wasteland that mesmerized me in hot summers, the fascinating fright of staring at racing clouds from atop a railway signal that made me feel flying at tremendous speed, the awesome trembling of earth under my feet when a rushing train shattered the quietude of wilderness, the long, weak, lonesome, parting whistle of the train long after it disappeared in the distance, the incessant cuck, cuck, cuck of a distant country flour mill rising and falling in pitch with wind, the frustration of being wet and shivering, huddled under a bridge in a raging winter storm; reminded me of an era lost forever. These memories of bygone days brought more pain than joy and I grew to stubbornly avoid nostalgia. It all changed one day. I came across a lonely pond in the wilderness. It was hot and humid and air was thick with the smell of decaying vegetation in water. There were bulrushes, bindweed, dandelions with their perfectly spherical seed clusters, thistles with thorny leaves and morning glory flowers scrunch up in the afternoon heat. Grasshoppers, green and grey, jumped ahead and sideways as I walked through the grass. Frogs dived into water with startling splash if I ventured closer to the pond. In the distance, water birds were prodding wet soil with their long, curved beaks. Butterflies were fluttering lazily over flowers when not chasing each other. But it was dragon flies who owned the pond. They were numerous and all over the place. Glittering in afternoon sun, their breathtaking colors ranged in delicate hues of red, blue, grey, yellow, orange brown and black. The air above and around the pond was zinging with their hectic exuberance. Darting, hovering, chasing and dodging each other in gay abandon, dragon flies were the unchallenged monarch. All this, together with the smell and the pearly grey brilliance of western sky in the pond, very vividly brought the memory of one such pond from my boyhood days. It was there that I discovered what a wonderful flying machine a dragon fly is. It can remain still in air, move sideways or vertically up and down, dart forward a measured few inches and, most surprisingly, fly backwards. Every movement marvel of grace and precision. For the first time in many many years, I watched closely. The dragon flies were going through all the maneuvers as ever. My growing up did not change their ways. The lonely pond, hidden in the wilderness, was exactly the place it ever was. To my wonderment, the tricks of dragon flies mesmerized me same way it used to. The circular ripples in the pond as an unseen insect touched its surface, was as fascinating. The buzzing of honey bees in short bursts as they moved from flower to flower had the same magic. As I sat in the grass, legs outstretched, a dragon fly alighted at the tip of my shoe. I stopped breathing. It was a large, bluish grey dragon fly with enormous eyes. The strong, crisp, transparent, wings had hundreds of geometric patterns that I had forgotten they had. So what was lost? True such places were numerous and at walking distance in my boyhood days but they are still there. Only you have to go a lot farther. Is it such a big price to rekindle the joys of yesteryears? What a fool I had been to miss that all for so long while my boyhood lay just a little yonder. Since that day nostalgia ceased to exist for me. For, nothing is lost. Whenever I am taken over by the desire to be myself, I just head to the wild to find everything as it always used to be for me. I don’t care if you call it escapism, living in the past, schizophrenia or some such ailment. It works for me. By the way, do you sometime long to fly freely through air like a bird? Find a railway signal in a secluded place away from the city clamor. It should be a cloudy day with strong winds. Mount on top of the railway signal, turn your face to the rushing clouds and watch. Very soon you would find yourself soaring through the wind with such tremendous speed that would terrify you. You test your nerves by fighting the impulse to look down and escape the horror of speed. And when you do look down, the shock of coming abruptly to rest is as jolting. The surrounding is so eerie, dreamlike and unreal. Everything seems to be moving slowly around you. Dizzy you definitely are. But as a beginner you may even experience nausea. It takes quite a while to find you are holding the ladder rails unnecessarily tightly. The trick to create the illusion of speed is that nothing except the clouds should be in your field of vision. No tree, no pole, no ground, no horizon and no earthly reference point should be visible. Not even in the peripheral side vision. Just you and the clouds. If you have difficulty understanding Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, this enthralling experience would help.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 20:31:14 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015