Fate, travels and festivities

It is late Thursday night as I write this. That movie I wanted to watch – The Great Gatsby – is playing on TV. I will probably miss a good portion of it while I write this but hey, that’s what re-runs are for. The window of my living room gives me a splendid, 7th floor view of a rain soaked Mangalore city. Through the soft blanket of night’s darkness, I can see the blue and red neon signs of a distant shopping center. A sudden surge of calm spreads through my body.

I close my eyes and my mind’s projector switches on, displaying a mosaic of fast moving visuals. There are clouds, lights, figures, voices and a whole lot of imagery I can’t make sense of. I reflect on my past few days and realize that I’d been away from home for the major portion of that time. Yes, my job is indeed taking me places.

My most recent trip had concluded a few days back; one in which I’d uncovered a little gem of a place called Gadag. This place is 2 hours from Hubli by road, and one I would never have dreamt of going to in my life. Now why fate took me there, I still do not know, but I am just thankful that it did. As they say, the dots may connect some time along the way.

Gadag town looked more like a motion picture set: rows of small houses along the sides of a main road, with each house being distinct and very different from the other in look and make – some pure white built using lime, some using granite, while some others using cement and concrete. The people were warm and friendly, with all the time in the world to stop, chat and help. Apparently the corruption of development hadn’t reached this town yet. The route to Gadag from Hubli was scenic too, with vast expanses of fields – which my local friend said were to grow peanuts and cotton. Below are some snaps I could manage using my Blackberry phone cam:

Then, on Tuesday, there was Eid – a very special day when our Muslim friends ended their month long fast, showing gratitude to God and remembering Him.

I love festive days like these – Christmas/ Eid/ Onam; for, people are happier and more generous during these days. The whole atmosphere around us turns positive – maybe it is the general happiness from each one of us reflecting and combining to form one big happy cloud above us. If only I could distill the spirit from such days into a tiny little jar and open it whenever I felt low. I wanted to capture some snaps of the special day, but alas, I was late – everything I should’ve captured happened early in the morning. I ended up going to the port and taking snaps of docked boats. That is what you see as the title image for this post.

I am looking forward to another happy weekend, and I hope you are going to pamper yourself as well this weekend. Go ahead, you deserve it! Let me know how it went.