Since my childhood I am inquisitive abut the stars and the universe.
I still remember vividly, I used to spend hours looking at the stars in dark
nights. Like many other things, my father is responsible for this as well. He provided
all the ingredients to ignite the imagination in a child’s mind. In this case
he provided few books on space - mostly Russian books translated into Bengali.
Anyway I have absolutely no intention to irritate you on sharing my knowledge
on space science. Yes it is in true sense rocket science to me and I understand
as little as any other common modern day sophisticated clerk- a software engineer
does. But I still spend some time in the evening looking at stars mostly during
power cut and when no power backup provided in our apartment. I still like the
philosophy behind it. Yes the philosophy. When you look at the stars you do a
time travel. When you are seeing a star today. Actually you are seeing the
stars at the state of it thousand and millions years ago. May be it does not
even exist today. These all things excite me.
Let me introduce to the main topic. It is all about time
travel. As I have already given you an example of it. But is this the only way?
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| Lavelle Road in the morning |
Now I have to walk through Lavelle road in Bangalore to
reach office. It is one of the best roads in Bangalore where for the sake of development
everything is not broken and trees are not chopped of. You can still get a feel of old Bangalore; how
it used to be, along with a co-existence of Microsoft office building and High-end
ultra luxury ITC hotel. Few days back when I was rambling fast though this road
I got to see the pathway surfaced with yellow flowers, Radhachura flower. Just for reference, the English name of the tree is Peltophorum
pterocarpum. I am definitely not going to claim this is the best flower I have
ever seen and that is the smell I like most. But I have my own childhood memory
associated with it. We used to have the same tree infront of my house. I have
so many childhood attachments with it. Yes, this summer season is their blossoming
season. Post an afternoon nap in hot Bengal summer, I used to find our balcony
is completely covered with those yellow flowers. I have seen so many birds
building their nest in it. All those memory immediately flashed back with that sight
of these yellow fallen flowers even before looking at that tree. So who says
you can only travel time looking at the star. Don’t you think this is also a
time travel for your mind! Sometime some perfume makes you remember someone
special, some smells of room fresheners refreshed back the memory some hotel on
vacation. These all are time travel. You just have to pay little attention to
observe your mind.
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| Peltophorum pterocarpum. Picture taken from internet. All copyright reserve to original source |
Anyways today I can't get out of the hangover of Radhachura. All on a sudden, one
day that tree fell down during a mild storm. I have seen tree standing strong
against so many of those storms before. But there was some vested interest. Our
neighbours wanted that trees to be chopped off as it was preventing them from
extending their house. I saw my mom crying that day when they were cutting that
tree to clear it of. This was pre “One tree one life slogan” era. Now it has
just became a slogan and popularity stance. Companies only ask you to think
about environment when you are taking print out. In line they are more concerned
about the opex cost. Just observe how many unnecessary print out they are taking
for the sake of process, not making the process paper free. Anyway, back to the
story - I saw my mom crying and I am pretty sure she was not crying thinking
about polar bear and how they will suffer with one more tree gone and the increase
of global warming. She was crying for that attachment. That we really do have.
After so many years, I moved to Kolaghat Engineer college . Away from home for
first time. Somehow I never enjoyed my stay
away from home in Kolaghat and I always used to be little depressed and thinking
about home. During my second year, infront of our hostel we used have the same
tree. Somehow I think that tree was closest friend of mine during that time. I
used to feel that is the lost thing I have from my home. After that I have
crossed so many radhchura trees. But that day again walking down Lavelle road refreshed
all my memories. It taught me a great
lesson. Sometime just give little attention to small things and you may feel as
they say as tag line of add campaign “Life is just awesome”
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