At the Park.....

My everyday walk in the park continues. It has become kind of a ritual now. I feel very strange if I haven't walked for atleast an hour, or 45 minutes. Going to the park is very rejuvenating for me. I can see people all around me, aunties and uncles, girls and boys, kids and toddlers. It is nice to see people of various shapes and sizes walking around with a specific purpose in their minds - to lose weight, to lose weight, and to lose more weight. I see aunties briskly walking - generally they are the typical Punjabi-looking aunties - those who will wear tight-fitting chiffon salwar-kurtas, regardless of their obese figures. These aunties start their walks with a vengeance, huffing and puffing along like old steam engines. But very soon, as is obvious, they burn themselves out. And by very soon here, I mean 5 minutes. Or 10 minutes at the max. Then they are joined by their other equally fat aunty-pals and they have a merry time, gossiping about the state of affairs in their homes and what-not. Then there are some uncles who come for a walk. Some of them look really funny, dressed in shorts and Nike trainers and colourful tees. They are already past their prime, but dressing nattily sure has not taken a beating. They saunter along at a brisk pace, outdoing everyone around them. They walk in an athletic style, throwing their arms around, exercising them regularly and all that. There are many kids who play there as well. Childish games, things that remind me of my childhood that is like a distant fleeting memory now, only to me cherished and remembered.

Today, I saw snowflakes in the park! I am just kidding. Those were not snowflakes actually. They were just the cotton buds or flowers (or whatever the technical term might be!) of the cotton tree that shadows the runway. The tree is huge, literally. It covers a good portion of the runway and now that summer is here, cotton buds keep drifting all over that area. Gently and delicately like snow, it is a pleasure to watch them fall and cover the grass like a white carpet, blotting out everything underneath them. It is truly a beautiful sight, one which makes me stop everyday for atleast sometime. I like looking at the sight of the dandelion-like cotton buds, with their soft white threads drifting outwards. They look so ethereal. The other day I caught one as it was wafting down the sky towards the ground. I caught it gently in the palm of my hand and looked at it. It gave me a simple childish joy, something I am quite incapable of describing. It was equivalent to holding a small remnant of my childhood in my hand. How many adults would actually stop to gaze at these simple sights that Nature offers us? I haven't seen any aunty or uncle in the park even glance at the white wonders. That is why they offered me such plain, unadulterated joy. I blew it away with a slight huff and watched it make its way towards the grass, where it was joined by other comrades as well! Just like the snowflakes which we don't get here in Delhi. But atleast those cottony things recreated the joy of a snowfall, albeit briefly. And in a totally different manner.

:)