An apple pie a day can make Jack a less enthusiastic boy
...not my best rhyme by far!

Like anyone who was born in the 80s, I have had some fascination about postcards mailed by people from faraway cities, especially international destinations. As I grew up, traveling seemed to get less challenging, more celebratory and without the premium that people once put on postcards. The traveling demographic today is rather different...so drastically convenient that perhaps a good journey or a memorable trips seems readily attainable. Back in the day, receiving these postcards meant a lot of sighing.

Lohri – yes, it is essentially a Bonfire Thing!

There is a recurring discussion each time it is Lohri time here in Delhi – is this a real festival, why aren’t more people celebrating it or is this just a bonfire that makes people come together? For me, the cheerfulness is essentially about the bonfire thing. In a way, it is the perfect recipe – winter season and the opportunity to light-up a bonfire in metropolitan locales that are inhumanly low on person-to-person interactions, where running into each other seems like a mishap. Lohri carries the aura of coziness in the most literal sense. For the more dedicated Lohri enthusiast, this bonfire is like a beacon of sustaining sub-cultures that are in stark contrast to the city pattern that compartmentalizes and mechanizes our life.

Are your dreams always wintery?

This is a bit strange and somewhat personal – I tend to dream very sporadically and within the realm of visuals that my mind sketches, there is always a preference for winters being the background. As long as I am dreaming about having turned into a father, raising a family, the retirement years or feeling good about my financial might, the landscape is always extreme winter. Really cannot understand the reason for this. There is nothing special I have achieved in this time of the year. In fact, the last two winters have been rather hard on me, financially, health-wise and from an emotional perspective. Even when the mind ruminates about how I can make my mother’s last year’s happier, the setting is always cold, with the temperatures dipping rather drastically. When dreaming about my imaginary baby son, whom I would love to call JUNIOR, the setting is same – the boy-toy is dressed in cute, costume-like woolens.