Nostalgia...

It happens when you flip through the old photographs, re-read old mails and letters (remember them?). It happens while listening to a forgotten song. Like the song that was playing in the background when you saw a certain person last or when a certain set of events happened. It happens when you pass through a city that you had lived in and is not more than an airport/railway station/bus-stop for you now. It also happens when you are inside a now dilapidated building that you thought was huge but somehow seems to have shrunk over the years. It happens when you walk across a hedge that was once very familiar now not-so-familiar. It happens when you see the sun setting. It happens when you see the sun rise. It happens when you hear the rain falling. It happens when the loo (the one in Hindi) batters your face. It happens when you are talking to an old friend and realize that things have changed. It happens when you are talking to an old friend and realize that things have not changed. It happens when you watch Dil Chahta Hai. It happens when you hear a laugh, it happens when a tear trickles down slowly. It happens when you see a see a cassette titled “Super hits 1992, 1993.” It happens when you smell a particular perfume. It happens when you look at a scrawl that was your hand-writing once. It happens when you look at a sketch that your mom has preserved over the years. It happens when your Dad shows you that useless souvenir that you had bought for him on some trip long time back. It happens when you look at the year that you had put on the right hand corner of the second page of a book. It happens when you look at the rotting rubber on a cycle’s tires. It happens when you spot the location of some place on Google earth.

It happens. It happens more often these days. I meet friends and we discuss things that happened sometime in the past and things that are happening to people we had known in the past. Suddenly, past seems to be this treasure chest that has been filling over the years. And to quote a line that I heard somewhere, so much has happened that I find it difficult to believe that I was a part of all this. So at times I look back and I wonder. I just wonder!