Visit to Chandigarh

After a gap of almost 7 years I visited Chandigarh. My own town, although no body lives there now, but some times you develop relationships with roads, trees, mandirs and many other non-living things.  Living and non-living things was a class 6^th chapter. I remember mugging up the differences between living and non- living things. But today I feel how redundant are these differences. You may love the brick house as much as you love your own parents as all your childhood memories are attached with that brick house. You may adore the zigzag roads through which you have gone to your school.

During this trip I visited my old school in sector- 18, sector 17 market, the rose garden and walked through the roads of sector16. In the rose garden once my daughter fell into the rose bushes. I tried to locate those bushes where she fell. I can still remember the tears in my husband's  eyes No where I could find those bushes. I still remember these bushes  were having many small white roses. That day Swati was also wearing a frilly white frock. When I was lost in searching those bushes a young man came and asked me "Have you lost some thing?" Instantly, I replied yes. He offered me help to find it but I replied "no son, you will not be able to hit upon it as it was lost 37 years back". He looked at me with strange eyes.

When I was studying in Punjab University my nieces and nephews were very small. I think I was their gang leader. On any cloudy day I would pull out my bike and ask them to go to Sukhna lake. Everybody use to be quite thrilled, especially my eldest niece. We use to go biking enjoying almost everything. They all knew that Bua always has money and they can put forward their demands. I use to fullfill their desires. On this trip, I took an auto and went to Sukhna lake  and could feel the presence of all children around me asking me  "Bua, ice cream,  golgappas, Bhutta. I sat on a bench for some time and finally realized that there is no one there to make these demands. All the kids are married and have their own children. I am now old. Some street boy called me Dadi and requested me for some money for eating something. I searched for money and found the smallest note with me was of 100 Rupees. I gave him that and told him to have whatever he wanted. He was a little astonished but how could he comprehend what was going on inside me. A short trip of 7 days made me realize that the days pass away and every day we get older and older and finally the final destination will also arrive. More so at this age I could finally understand the difference between the living and non living things. NON LIVING THINGS remain forever while living things shrivel and grow older and older and you carry the big burden of memories like a huge sand bag with some small sand particles and some pebble stones. Some fine memories remain so deep rooted that you want to keep in touch with them.

Out of the fine memories are the ones which I experience whenever I visit my eldest niece who stays in Gurgaon. She is a big boss in a big company but for me she is still a little child who used to accompany me to sector 17 in her small frocks, used to run and say "catch Bua catch", and get scared at my scoldings. She still remembers that her Bua likes Kulfi.  If I am in Gurgaon and she comes home on time she makes it a mandate to take me to a kulfi shop and get me the big sized kulfi. I do not know how much it costs. But in my eyes it costs million of dollars as I can see the contented smile on her face.