Here’s to a waaanderful new year and happy days spent drinking Chai with family and friends.

Much love!

- Photo taken at a Street Cafe in Changla Gali

Back in college, every night was a late night, spent sometimes in an air-conditioned computer lab pretending to study or  sitting under a tree, on a wooden bench, pondering over the philosophy of existence, with a malbaro light hanging onto dear life from the two nimbly forefingers which would otherwise be pointing people out and laughing at their immature, obviously juvenile behavior at such a time of the night… Whether or not they were climbing a tree like a monkey is another story…

…criticism of the other and tolerance for, went queerly hand in hand here…

… also went, overdosing on tea, not drugs, sometimes falling asleep on the said bench, unawares, sometimes falling asleep with head onto a friend’s lap, amidst discussions into the epistemological approach towards modernity and post modernism or the loopholes in Descartes‘ ontological argument on the nature of God…forgetting in the morning who had the better argument but does that matter really?

Actually, back in college, every night was an early morning. We wouldn’t get tired of cup of tea after cup of tea till the head started to hum happily, singing songs of spring, asserting that sleep was something you did when you were done with life. We weren’t. And to proof the tea-effect right, we would roam round and round and round the campus, watching the miracles of nature unfold as we roamed: huddle of girls and boys sitting on the grass by the pavement playing hopscotch, sticks and stones or sometimes simultaneously singing out-of-tune lullabies to each other and giggling mischievously (even the boys!)

… another group sitting in a dark corner, cult-worshiping, head bobbing, lap thumping while one of them (the clear leader) plays the guitar with a passion reminiscent of the Zeppelin days, covering songs the likes of Pink Floyd and Coldplay (but, I never heard anyone play Meatloaf, what a pity!) … yet another corner has a couple, a literal ‘couple’ of angry birds demonstrating their anger at each other- rather civilly- by throwing dirty stares at one another, the female bird is the stare-master, hands down… and ofcourse, in contrast to these birds who are in dire need of anger management are the very familiar, the very beloved, love birds unashamedly, unabashedly canoodling away in broad moon-light….

…not to forget, lying squat in the middle of the road, on a speed breaker, a girl; spreadeagled, enjoying the view of the sky while one or two of her friends sit by her side, waiting for the stunt to be over and her philosophical bubble to burst so they could all go have a cup of tea…yet another one…miracles of nature indeed.

And the night goes past like that, without any care or worry. The research paper that had to be written will be written, the project report that had to be analyzed will be analyzed, between tea cups upon tea cups and an occasional indulgence of an extra puff, all the work will be done because the night, my friends is still young and shall remain so…