FranKophone

I have stayed in government accommodations ( read : government quarters ) for more than half of my life. And there are always Gulmohar trees around them. Come summer, their dazzling colours enamour, enchant and invite you. The other months of the year – they are just there. Deep green. Silent. Overlooking. At times majestic. .As a child I was fascinated by its buds. The sepals – beautiful green on the outside , glimmering magenta inside – very much like a woman. Calm demeanour on the exterior and a seething volcano inside. I used to put those utterly smooth things on my nails – like  claws. At times, I still do that. The bud opens….carrying  a bounty within it Waging battles with its pollen tubes fascinate me. At the peak of summers, these brightran oge flowers fall and the bloom is just everywhere ….. a  feast for the senses. The fruits disappoint me though. Green pods eventually turning dark . But I tend to ignore them. I love to walk on paths where these wonderfu...

              As a 10 year old, I was the “angry young girl”. I could get very angry and the trail of destruction that followed….. my erstwhile classmates loathed me for it. Otherwise I was pretty awesome :grins: A decade later things are not quite the same. Yes, I do get angry at times but the pattern has changed. Very few people can make me angry. I have a set of unwritten rules which when violated drive me crazily angry. ( I can smile genuinely when a stranger or not-so-known person criticizes me for the wrong reasons. Apparently, when I think so). And they always happen to be my closest pals. It takes me a long time to build up anguish. At an optimal point, I burst out at the slightest of provocation from the same person. I might not shout, yet I know silence is the greatest killer. Usually it takes me long to cool down. Sometimes I hold grudges for a long time. I find it tough to let it go. The ones I fall out with r...

December 1991. A small township in India . A new departmental store had just opened. A little girl of about three years. Very mischievious. Pushes the stack of buckets and they tumble. Reason : She needs the biggest toy available in the store. She can’t find one, much to her disappointment. Her mother, naturally embarrassed, puts forth a condition. “You have to write A to Z as well as 1 to 10. Only then you’ll get this gun ”,she said, pointing towards a two-feet long, sturdy, toy-gun. Her eyes gleam,then shimmer and then she rushes home immediately. A quick glance at all the letters of the alphabet and then she sits down with a pencil. It was the first time she wrote all those twenty-six letters together. The girl’s father came home. She proudly displayed “the fruit of her labour”. No mistakes. Smiles followed. The next morning she finds the gun on her bed. Squeals with delight. Bliss. Today that little girl is in search of another gun.