I was on Rajdhani Express, fixated on a book called An Artist of the Floating World, not aware that dinner had already been served, that a co-passenger was trying to attract my attention.

I am a sucker for deliciously scented flowers. If I smell a floral scent drifting in the air, I pause and seek its source. Thus, l came to be acquainted with Mogra (Arabian Jasmine) Honey Suckle (Madhobilata), Tuberose (Nishigandha) and the like. There’s another of its kind I fell in love with during a stay at Aarogya Bhavan in Jasidih, now a part of the state of Jharkhand.
Our journey to Jasidih became uncertain when the morning Toofan Express in which we had reservations was cancelled an hour before its scheduled departure. Our stay for a few days at Aarogya Bhavan was already booked.  So, a few hours later, we boarded another train and arrived at Jasidih quite late in the evening.

Crepuscular rays shimmer around the hummock overlooking the hamlet with its encampment of huts.

Trotting along the winding by-lanes with my friends in Varanasi, I suddenly strayed from the group. Strain of a morning raga drove me to a hole in the wall. My eyes misting up, I met an American flautist there.

Whenever I passed by the advocate’s house in the narrow lane, their husky dog on a leash threatened to attack me. His ferocious barking took the wind out of my sails as I hurried away from the place.

We were sitting under the lyre tree. She and I. There’s still an hour to go before the poetry-reading session.
“Most poets”, I said, “render their poems looking at the page. But you recite your own entirely from memory.”

He’s a queer freelancer. Nobody asks him to meet unsung people who excel in some form of creative arts. He goes on his own. Often cash-strapped, yes.

An evening rover roams hither and thither among the hollyhocks. There’s a grey-green deodar cedar, its base circled by a seat where I sit, listening to bo-ko-ta-ko of an Indian cuckoo hiding in a full-leaved tree.

The train was speeding along at helluva pelt. I was in conversation with a fellow traveller.
What’s your pastime, I asked.
Spotting the planes in the night sky.

After the guided walking tour of both Andarmahal and Bahirmahal at Itachuna Rajbari Resort in Pandua of Hooghly District, we headed towards its garden café built much in the Santiniketan mode, dim-lit and surrounded by trees of rare species. By then the cicada song was in the air along with a strange honking of an unknown bird. As we were about to place an order of jhalmuri, fish fries and masala tea, the deep mellifluous sound of a flute took us by very pleasant surprise.