the portkey

It was a nice warm spring day. I had been running about 20 minutes, heart rate was definatly elevated and I felt warm and refreshed... Then a smell struck out of the blue..a fragrance from the past..my footsteps slowed down to take in more of it, quite subconsciously. What was it.. I couldnt quite guess instantly. But it took me back many years in an instant to our old family home in Nagpur. To those hot summer days. Those games we played with my grandmother in the dark high roofed room we called 'the middle room'. The windows and doors we all closed to keep the heat out, the other women in the house hold slept quietely on straw mats, tired after a long morning. We played games invented by paty or those that she once played once with her friends and siblings years back. Games with polished, shiny heaps of tamarind seeds, with smooth rounded shells that felt cold to touch. And then I napped.. holding the end of her soft saree close to my face, with those comforting smells of Amrutanjan and what was just paty. The BIG water cooler buzzing and blowing cool air in to the room... air filled with that special fragrance of Khus and tiny tiny drops of water.. that you didnt even notice...

I have never quite slept like that again ...