3:42am

To sit on the green cushion on that little window sill in the Landmark at Spencers and browse through the books that are making news across the world, read them listening to the wide mix of music ranging from Middle Eastern to Oriental to the very soothing ragas of Indian karnatic while watching the various expressions of people who moves around you, some holding on to their umbrellas or office folders, and some others holding the hands of their loved ones walking with an eye on one and their mind on the other...

It’s 3:42am. I am wide awake thinking so loudly inside me, how much I will miss India be that in Heaven or in Hell.

“The Subramani” who can talk to you at length on topics ranging from ‘mudras’ that will heal your pain to that of the thoughts and reflections of James Allen or Gabriel Marquez, or talk about the ‘differences in sameness’ and the ‘oneness of all,’ talking for hours in a row while shifting the weight of our bodies from one leg to the other and yet stand in one place and reflect on the principles and values or its deterioration that governs the human endeavours... topics that hop from one to the other and yet every topic so deeper and richer than the other...

“E. P. M. Gonzales” who is old in age but young in thoughts who can discuss anything and everything from the works of Ken Blanchard to that of Daniel Goldman, quote at ease the verses from Gita or Bible, the secretion of hormones and its effects on our emotions or be that the positive strokes and the real-life application of Transactional Analysis that we can discuss till – in his own language – the last cow has come home...

The simplicity in the richness of this experience is one that I will miss so dearly.

The ordinary men and women in their simplest form and nature who kept on intriguing me every time with the knowledge of what more life has to offer. Just when the sight of life get obscured by the darkness of experiences you face every day, here are some with their words – no matter how superfluous they appear to be – and reflections that serves as a balm that offers a soothing sensation for the aching soul, and a little ray of light that shows the potential dimension of yet another side of what is life and how it can be lived... in its simplest form.

The Landmark, the Subramani, the Gonzales, how I will miss them all; and in the nostalgic memories of being connected with these, how I will miss India...India being the experience of living a life in a pattern and texture that was until now unknown to me and one that I was just beginning to explore.

In the midst of my pursuit of life and the deception of living, I failed to enjoy this India!

It’s 04:14am.