Whispering Shadow

You are anticipating an important call. You keep checking the phone every 2 minutes to see if it is working. You even check your phone occasionally when you hear some other phone ring. And when it finally does ring, you hear that extremely familiar tone "Hello Sir, I am calling up from Blah Blah bank. Are you interested in a personal loan?" I am sure we have all been in that situation before, where you rarely get what you most expect. It seems to be the law of the universe. I think it is a incomprehensible trick your head plays on you. Why does it always feel you have waited the longest time for your bus? Why do you think that every other bus except the one en route to your destination stops by the bus stop but yours? Eventually when you decide to take a rickshaw, there you see it in appearing in the far end of the road. On a recent trip, we had confirmed reservations in a train and we were hoping that it'll be a fun trip to our destination, the whole groups of friends to...

I haven't visited the Shadows in a while because I was visiting some place else. A tiny sleepy hill station on the outskirts of Mumbai (don't know if 180Km qualifies as outskirts) was our destination for a well deserved post exam holiday. It is called Bhandardara. We went there to have fun and so we did to the fullest - climbing the tallest peak of Maharashtra, trekking among the clouds, catching frogs, going shoe-hunting when it is pitch dark, playing the most hilarious game of Bluff, getting caught in fog so thick that it could hide an elephant, picnicking near waterfalls and much more.Nonetheless, I am not going to make this post a journal. I am going to describe three moments which made me feel at peace with myself like never before. The first one came when we were sitting at a step on our trek up the Kalsubhai summit. We were half way up having crossed rickety ladders and slippery trails. At this point, I decided to take a break. I sat on a rock in admiration of the view. ...

It is quite a spectacular view. At one moment you are watching the high rise towers of Malabar Hills sitting on the comfortable parapet of Marine Drive. At the next, all you see is grey clouds. You can make out it is raining out there, there's lightning, and then there's thunder. It looks quite spectacular because of the wide canvas provided to you, a frame which you usually cannot zoom out on in a concrete jungle that the city is. You are so mesmerized by the beauty of the view that you don't realise when the clouds have caught up with you. For a while, you feel it is just the waves smashing into the breakwater, but as the downpour grows heavier, it finally sinks in that it is raining. But you don't want to get cover. You want to stand up, raise hands and feel the rain. It gives you the impression that you are standing on the edge of the world with no one else around you. The thunder overshadowing all the sounds of a busy city and the lightning giving a cosmic feel to ...