Fireflies : Day#19/30

A tiny spark that disappears if you blink, suddenly reappearing somewhere else.
Surrounded by the fragrance of moist earth, the twinkling with a orange glow seems almost surreal in the cool monsoon night.
You stare and suddenly there are many more of those tiny lights glittering about.
Fireflies! :)

My first encounter with fireflies was when I was about 4-5 years old, and although I don't remember much from times back then, I can clearly remember standing in our balcony after dinner and looking out for fireflies with my father. We used to have a firefly spotting contest and I used to pester him with lots of questions on light, sky, night, the moon, why the flies glow, how the stars twinkle, blah blah, the usual questions kids demand an explanation for and he used to patiently try his best to explain the workings of the universe to me...:)

Then I didn't think much about them, couldn't spot them that often after we moved homes, and our new home didn't have such a huge open space nearby...
So they were a reserved sight on the occasional monsoon trips/train journeys where you could spot them just for a moment or two.

Much later, during hostel days, as I walked back late nights to H11, they became a regular sight once again. This time around, I spotted a few glow worms on tree roots as well...It was almost magical...Fireflies and glow worms pottering about on cold windy rainy nights. :)

Of late, when I travel by trains frequently to Mumbai, there's a patch just before Palasdari station that has lots of fireflies flitting about. And the train almost always stops by for a signal here. The twinkling sight makes me super nostalgic...and I've started taking the train's stop and their being there almost for granted, a part of my journey home... :)

People

These days whenever I travel by trains, I really don't have much to do - no papers to read, no music to listen to (thanks to my cell sans its display - which resembles a landline now - just can call and pickup calls..zero display :P)
So I don't have much choice to pass the time - except stare, and stare some more at the people in the train...and this post is the result of all the staring and "people-studying" I have lately indulged in...
Not a character sketch or something, just an outline of the various people I came across...
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A lady who sells khaman dhokla and sev papdi. I had previously written about her here I just love it when I get to see her in the compartment..although I still haven't bought anything from her...
She makes me super nostalgic somehow...

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A vegetable vendor cursing her 3 yr old daughter and blaming her for nearly everything under the sun - from the crowd in the train to the fact that the vegetables were rotting for lack of customers.

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A blind couple who boarded the same train as mine and supported each other throughout the chaos on the platform and journeyed together - every single day.

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A lady who used to be in my train when I went to VESIT and used to ask me where I had been, every time I resumed college after the vacations...

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A lady who had her head covered with her pallu - only to reveal her 70 earrings - (35 per ear! - and I am not kidding!!) to the bewildered people seated beside her..
and went on to tell them about her entry in the Limca book of records.

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A group of collegians doing last minute train revision, through notes heavily underlined in ink of various colours,and an old lady advising them on how they better use pencils for marking the notes...

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A lady when troubled by a road-romeo, hurling abuses at him and threatening to call the police fearlessly. (We don't see many of these even though we claim on being fearless and liberal!)

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A lady selling ayurvedic powders and facepacks.Never missing a word out of the mugged up advertisement of her products and relentlessly goes into the detailed benefits of each of the products. I almost know her entire ad by heart after listening to it 8-9 times now!

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Different people different tastes,languages, religions - yet all of them have something in common - they all have dreams, aspirations, fears, grudges, tensions, payments to be made, taxes to be paid, and loved ones eagerly waiting for them to reach home - which makes them the same as you and me...

PS: Wanted to title it "We The People", but restrained myself from copying titles again! :P