Kal, Aaj aur Kal

I was tagged by Silverine a long long time ago. This is one of the good tags going around and I'm glad I finally got down to doing it.

The Tag

Two questions from the past, present and future. Answer them and then tag your friends from the blogosphere. Leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged and you are done.

Yesterday

Your oldest memories...

This is a tough one because of two reasons:

1. Although I have a lot of old memories, I can't place in chronological order my memories before I started school. Once I started school, I always had the girl who I had a crush on as a frame of reference.

2. Many of my early memories have been corrupted by old sepia-tinted photographs in family albums. In many cases, I don't know whether I actually remember those incidents or I just construct those events in my mind from the photos.

Having said that let me write about an incident that must have happened when I was somewhere between 2 and 3 years old which I remember very clearly.

At that time, my family was staying in our tharavad in Ernakulam. As with most Syrian Christian families, church was an integral part of the way of life and the achan in the local idavaka used to drop in fairly regularly. One day, as I woke from my forced afternoon siesta, I happened to notice that appa was in the middle of what looked like an interesting conversation with achan. One look at the two of them standing in the courtyard talking was enough to make me start bawling. To this day I don't know why I did that. I felt something wrong about the whole scene (probably a distrust of religion and men clad in fancy-dress which I felt at that small age?). All I know is that I wanted the conversation to stop immediately. So I kept bawling till appa came and lifted me off the mattress. I could see that appa was pretty irritated, especially because I was exceptionally well-behaved kid normally and never gave any trouble.

What were you doing ten years ago?

Feb 2009, I was in 9th standard. Feb-March was a good time of the year, in spite of the final exams lurking around the corner. School annual day function, lengthening days (which meant more time to play in the evenings), birthday - so many things to look forward to. 9th standard was probably the last year of my life when I didn't have to think about 'future' and 'career'. And Valentine's Day figured nowhere in my calender (some things never change).


Today

Went turtle egg hunting through the night. Almost the whole of Chennai was there when we started. 8 kilometres and 152 eggs later, only the craziest people were left. Slept on Elliot's Beach after the walk. Highly recommended, because it will remove all romantic notions associated with sleeping under the open sky on the beach sands - it was so friggin' cold. The mean land breeze made it impossible to sleep and by 5 O'clock I was shivering. In Chennai. In spite of my windcheater.

If you build a time capsule what would it contain?

My laptop, old photographs and a letter to future generations from The Phlip Side.


Tomorrow

I'm off for some serious trekking (not the picnicy kind). If I make it through, I'll try posting some pics.

What do you see yourself doing 14 years from now?

Lots of meditation, I guess. I'm going to need all the peace and tranquility to survive in an even madder and crazier world.