The following notes were written on new delhi bound Trivendrum Rajdhani train on 30/11/05, and when I suddenly realised that the month has passed me much more swiftly than what I had expected. So this is an attempt to capture the month that had been... but unfortunately I was not able to reproduce much except the memoirs of my first nature camp that I attended with the school children..
So the month ends, and believe me its one of the fastest to pass me, just like a thunder. It began at home when I traveled overnight to give a big surprise to my parents on the eve of Diwali and this time again the calendar changed the dates when I was fast asleep on my upper berth of Rajdhani’s conditioned compartment.
The journey is nothing sort of unusual just the continuous forward motion with the limited stops and regular timely serving of tea, breakfast, soup, lunch and dinner with a somewhat unusual hospitality, with that rare to spot smile while serving, adding some extra bit of flavour to the regularized diet.
On the whole, the trip to Kerala had its own moments of joy, tiredness, excitement, exasperation, small little disappointments and annoyance. Few exceptional moments of clam, of deep satiation, of awe, some thoroughly soul inspiring moments to aim big and achieve those seemingly elusive heights.
The trip began with the participation in 2-3 day nature camp, where I got a chance to mingle with the students from 10th standard coming from Calicut district, most of them to have their first introduction with nature, a formal one, I mean.
Those were a bunch of 30 students, boys and girls of all shapes and sizes and with varying individuality but with almost same degree of enthusiasm and excitement. The environment was so full of this energetic air that even the most silent ones would find themselves in conversation; language was not to be a barrier.
As if I got a chance to travel in past, a decade to be precise, when I was in class 10th and I started searching clues how my times resembled theirs or varied from theirs. The hubbly-bubbly characteristic they displayed as a group was nevertheless similar to what we would have displayed a decade ago. This natural characteristic, if I vaguely refers it to the ‘Innocence’ doesn’t seem to have been affected with the so called globalization or the market policies which has made a big transformation in the way a teenager/ adult thinks, perceives or understands.
These kids passed a good deal of time with me and I too enjoyed their company. As I said earlier, language was not much of a barrier.
The journey is nothing sort of unusual just the continuous forward motion with the limited stops and regular timely serving of tea, breakfast, soup, lunch and dinner with a somewhat unusual hospitality, with that rare to spot smile while serving, adding some extra bit of flavour to the regularized diet.
On the whole, the trip to Kerala had its own moments of joy, tiredness, excitement, exasperation, small little disappointments and annoyance. Few exceptional moments of clam, of deep satiation, of awe, some thoroughly soul inspiring moments to aim big and achieve those seemingly elusive heights.
The trip began with the participation in 2-3 day nature camp, where I got a chance to mingle with the students from 10th standard coming from Calicut district, most of them to have their first introduction with nature, a formal one, I mean.
Those were a bunch of 30 students, boys and girls of all shapes and sizes and with varying individuality but with almost same degree of enthusiasm and excitement. The environment was so full of this energetic air that even the most silent ones would find themselves in conversation; language was not to be a barrier.
As if I got a chance to travel in past, a decade to be precise, when I was in class 10th and I started searching clues how my times resembled theirs or varied from theirs. The hubbly-bubbly characteristic they displayed as a group was nevertheless similar to what we would have displayed a decade ago. This natural characteristic, if I vaguely refers it to the ‘Innocence’ doesn’t seem to have been affected with the so called globalization or the market policies which has made a big transformation in the way a teenager/ adult thinks, perceives or understands.
These kids passed a good deal of time with me and I too enjoyed their company. As I said earlier, language was not much of a barrier.
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