Where memories reincarnate as Harish Babu...

A migratory bird always love to visit it's nest once in a while. And so do I. From the concrete jungles of Bangalore, I flew to my native place, to the jungles of imagination and memories.. The trip was memorable and I really got some moments that I won't forget ever in my life. The second month of the second decade of the century has started pretty well.

I boarded a bus to Coimbatore on Saturday, 30th January, night and reached there at 6:20 AM, the next day. From Coimbatore, I entrained a Passenger Train to Palakkad and from there I boarded a bus to Mannarkkad. I reached home at 9:20 AM. My brother opened the door and it was such a wonderful moment. The last time I saw him was on April 25th 2008; I met him after a gap of 646 days. We have never spent this much time in our lives without meeting each other. Ragesh and Harish, chips of the same old block and birds of the same feather !

Amma soon greeted me in her trademark style, with kisses on my cheeks. Ever since I started my solitary life way back in 1989, it was how she greeted me whenever we met after a gap of few days. Soon I was back to where I belong. Or should I say where I belonged? I don't know. The existential crisis has made me confused about so many things. * s i g h *

I always loved to be in Mannarkkad during winter. Each dawn waking up to the restless onslaughts of winds reciting those nostalgic hymns again and again. Thoughts fly back to the winter of 1986. We celebrated Christmas majestically with dad. Those were heavenly moments. And before the season has withdrawn itself behind the curtains of time, I lost my dad. The bitter sweet memories were rekindled by weather in a poignant form. The hymns recited by the winds in this winter morning in 2010 was no way different from the ones it sang in 1986. The best and worst moments always happened to me during winter. The seasoned thespian called winter played different roles for me in different years.

As the saying goes, all good things have to come to an end. My dream vacation ended on Feb 7th when we three left there. Now when I sit here in my prison in Bangalore, I recall those moments sadly. I know that when I am at Mannarkkad, during Winter, I am not Harish Babu but the incarnation of something else. And Mannarkkad is a mystic place that can bring out this ethereal change. Oh the tireless wheels of time, please take me back to my native place once again, the place that can make me content to an extend and the place where memories reincarnate as Harish Babu...