While walking with Jay Jay and Sharmila to downtown, we saw this on the road side. As you can see, it had rained before this and this was in a shaded area (covered by trees). It is fairly large – about 9 inches. If you zoom it, it looks like those things you see on the sea beds. (sea anemones?) Of course, this is in land – at about 1100 feet above sea level.
Is this a mushroom? Anybody knows?
It was 1982. I was in tenth grade. My sister was in eighth and my brother in fifth. Early that year, every loudspeaker in any event in the neighborhood worth the flickering tube-lights that adorned them had the “Zamaane Ko Dikhana Hai” songs blaring at decibel levels that would make a steam engine back off. There was a particular one – “Hoga Tumse Pyara Kaun” that had completely gotten into the heads of us three siblings. We used to sing the song all day long.
The lilting tune was set to the rhythm of a steam engine’s motion. I have not seen the movie – or any that you can name – but I can imagine the scene had a man and woman singing on the roof of a train or something like that. I may not know my movies but I do know my steam engines. The instruments bring out a steam engine’s sounds extremely well while keeping the mellifluous flow of the words.
In our house, while growing up, watching movies (specially Hindi movies) was a big no no. Listening to Hindi songs was frowned upon grimly. Parents called them “lareylappa“! Not sure how to translate that – uncouth? boorish? lout? But this song got to my mom too!! I recollect she mentioning she had heard that song on her way to school and the tune was nice.
That was all the license we needed to sing the song whole day long!!
I was sitting out on the balcony early in the morning with my cup of tea. Everything was going on as you would have expected. The sky was getting brighter, the school buses came by, cars started plying and then boom!.. something very strange happened. There was a glow of orange all around. The sky became overcast and turned more and more orange by the minute. The picture here does not do justice to how it felt. It was like the whole world was lit by a huge orange halogen lamp.
And then just as suddenly, the thunderstorms rolled in. The sky got dark quickly and your run of the mill mid summer Atlanta heavy rainfall with rolling thunders ensued!
