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Dear Readers,

                    I am writing after a long hiatus and the reason for this is the insatiable desire inside me to travel and experience new vistas of this journey called life. Since the past few days, I was travelling down south in Goa and Karnataka and the sheer pleasure of immersing oneself in the monsoon drizzle kept me at a distance from all modes of technology and communication. 

                    It would be futile to attempt at drawing a sketch of the scenic splendour that my eyes were greeted with  this time because the vast range of spectacles that I saw have befuddled me. From the roaring coastline to the lush green thickets of the Western Ghats, so many colors were splashed on the canvass of my mind that to paint an exact copy seems improbable. 

                      As of now, all I can say is that the feeling of coming home after a wonderful holiday envelops my soul at this very moment. On one hand, I am cozy in my room basking in the warmth of home-coming after days of vagabond bohemian peregrination but on the other hand, I lament the end of a dream wherein I had become habitually indigenous to a different landscape and cultural setting. My heart makes frantic calls to the part of my soul left behind on the western coasts of Mother India which is still getting soaked in the saawan downpours......

54

Dear Readers, 

                    Some old people talk as if they are thick volumes of books speaking out to you. On my recent visits to Ajmer, that great historical city referred to some as the 'Gibraltar of the East', I met one such aged scholar and what a meeting it was. Thanks to a dear old friend of mine for taking me to his place. This old gentleman happens to be a historian and is a scholar of repute. His erudition was getting reflected in his neatly    cropped sentences showering names of famous works and authors. 

                  In a brief spell, he painted such a vivid canvass of memory and temporality that all of us his listeners were lost in wonderland. He told us qissas of upright bureaucrats of the Raj and acquainted us with some really old and rare buildings built by the Turks, the Mughals and the Britishers in that wonderful city which served as the provincial capital of Rajputana for more than a millennium.    

                      He drew a vivid oral sketch of Frazer road, one of the most glamorous streets of  Ajmer town during the times of the Raj. A street which was ornamented with huge trees giving ample shade and was well frequented by frivolous memsahibs dressed in white linen and hiding from the Sun under white umbrellas. He told us about a former principal of Government School, Ajmer ( the building of this school was designed by none other than Edwin Lutyens) who was so principled and bold that when the AGG of Rajputana started frequently using a road passing through the school premises, he wrote him a letter informing that this road is not a thorough fare! 

                   Dear Sir! Cheers to your health and this city of mountain gale.....May the two of you live till eternity and until we meet next...Khamma!....