I am helping my wife to edit and proofread her thesis. It interests me, but it’s not for me to work in a linear fashion. I edit a sentence and then go all haywire to read all around it, all over on the internet. But again, what of it? What will I do of all the knowledge I gain around this thesis?

There is no worth to life unless you get to share it. But I am a restless man, fettered to myself. Like Ghalib says: bas ki hoon ghalib aseeri mein bhi aatish zer e paa.. one restless in chains with fire under his feet.

The summer is getting hot and hotter. The summers at least have hope of rains to come. When Faiz pleads kab bhejoge dard ka baadal, kab barkha barsaoge?, he is only concerned with the when part of it, mercifully not with the if. Yet, we, with nothing do to, and nowhere to go, have nothing else to do but to sulk. What do I do?

But again, not everything in life is random. When one leaves home in the morning, they almost certainly know where do they want to go? And life perhaps is a sequence of many such small certainties. And what make our life are only the few uncertain events that definitively change the course of our otherwise settled fates.

Who would know I would be sitting in this balcony on a moonlit April night writing things that would hardly make sense? Who would know this – say – a decade ago? But almost every little thing of this was certain, only except this – this particular – balcony. Only for those few – one or two – definitive uncertainties – and even those were not very uncertain – I would still be writing nonsense on some April night, only sitting in some other balcony? And thinking about this alternate life like I am thinking about that alternate life tonight.

And as it is it, nothing really matters as to how things unfold, and what part of them are certain and what are uncertain. We breathe in, we breathe out.

Shalmali is another easy one to recognize if you know one.  One can easily identify it with its uniquely thorny stem and branches.  These are not plenty though.  I see only two or three Shalmali trees on my way.  These days Shalmali is all flowers and no leaves.  You can find a Palash anywhere in this jungle, not Shalmali.  I want to pull over and go watch the tree from close, take photographs, and share with you all.  Morning hours do not permit leisure though.  Each minute is measured to reach the office within time. I do have a few pictures of this beautiful tree though, taken more than a decade ago.

I remember two Shalmali trees in Nagpur, both in Ajni.  One was just south of the Ajni Railway Reservation Centre, beyond a boundary wall of railway quarters.  That was perhaps the first Shalmali tree I ever saw.  The second one is near Ajni Square, on the left side of the road as onegoes towards the FCI godowns.  It is perhaps on Central Jail land.  I wonder if both these trees still exist.

Today is not about Palash or Shalmali though.  It is about these beautiful treeful of pink flowers I see on Ring Road, lined up beside the road on the left side going east past and beyond Pratap Nagar Cafe Coffee Day.  (The much-famed coffee house does not exist anymore at this location and is another story altogether).I never noticed these flowers all these years and now these trees are such full of them that you cannot unsee.  I wanted to stop every time I passed by, but again, I am always in a hurry.  But today as I reached Amravati, surprise, I found the same tree and same flowers just a few minutes before I reached work.  Here I can go and look, take a few pictures, and use google lens to identify the tree.

It’s an avenue tree planted beside the road near Rukhmini Nagar square, on the left side of the road as one goes toward the square from Bus Stand, near the boundary wall of Science Core ground.  It is a medium-sized tree, not as big as the big ones.  Though, unlike Shalmali, it still has leaves on it, its flowers are the first thing one would notice.  One of these days, I will go walk to it, take some photos, and share with you all.

Corrigendum: I checked my notes from another blog I wrote during those days and the second Shalmali tree I wrote about above, the one in Ajni square, is not a Shalmali, but a Gulmohar instead.  So, I remember one Shalmali tree in Nagpur.  I vaguely remember seeing a few others in Government Ayurved College woods in Sakkardara, but I certainly did not see flowers there.  I also remember seeing one tree in Mumbai, in the open ground in the compound of TCS iON Digital Zone in Powai.  This one is numbered as tree number 28, so one can go and check.

This is strange. Years have gone by. I have come up a long way. Foundations of these fears are all long gone. Yet these shadows hover and refuse to go.

I read a book. I finished this one. I don’t remember when it was the last time I finished one. I felt better as I read it. It brought something to look forward. To move through pages, to next chapters. It finished though. I am again left with nothing to do. I do not want to do anything that needs to be done.

I looked for other books, but I could find none that that keep me bound. I read pages here and there. It takes me nowhere. It leaves me more anxious.

I find no way. I pass days. The past week, on the weekend prior to the weekend, I fell and hurt my shoulder. I wore a sling for two weeks. I had to attend work. Wife and son moved with me to help with the hurt shoulder. I don’t have a habit of living with other human beings for longer periods. It feels odd.

I wish I lived alone like I always do. It’s not that I don’t love them and want them away. I do understand it would help my son to spend some time with me. All he has of me is weekends.

I am not complaining. This is one way of living, and I don’t have a habit of it. That is all.

There are things I did not tell her though. I did not tell her that I watched La La Land one of these days and cried past midnight. This person is not a fan of subtitles and do not watch English movies.

I reached back home and took a bath. It is cold out, still not chilly as the mornings. I gelled my hair and sprayed perfume and applied old spice on my stubbles.

I then called the Lady and told her that I love her. No qualms about that. I told her neither that I cried the other day.

On the laptop, I tried this and that. Some of it worked, some didn’t. I spent an evening. No regrets.

I read cheap novels these days.  The page-turners.  The ones that you forget as soon as you put them down.  I read them in whatever little time I get between work and sleep and YouTube and twitter and Facebook.  Sometimes, I watch movies.  Most of them are more than two-hour long and they run past midnight.  There are very few things one can do past midnight.  I do one or the other.  I sleep.

I wake up in the mornings when it is impossible to stay in bed any longer.  I need to get up and brush my teeth and trim my beard and take a bath and iron the clothes and polish the shoes before ten o’clock.  I do some of the tasks; I leave some of them not done.

Some days I feel better.  Other days, and these are many, I feel miserable.  I don’t want to see anyone and let no one see me.  I sit in a glass chamber.  People come and go.  Some watch me through the glass panels.  Sometimes I feel like a person.  Other times I feel like I am an animal kept in a zoo.

Some days, I do good.  Most of the days.  I don’t let them know that I am sick and tired.  The bar is low; I pass.  People applaud.

Evenings are good time.  There are certain tasks one must do.  I make a phone call to home.  Nights are better.  I read cheap novels; the page-turners.  I scroll YouTube and twitter and Facebook.  Sometimes, I watch movies.  The movies run past midnight.  There is very little one can do past midnight.  I do something or other, then I sleep.

I am in love with this person my brain says.  “You are not” says the heart.  I know that it is the heart that is true.  Yet my mind again and again goes back to the dream from which it woke up abruptly.