Spring

It's March.

Shakespeare said, 'Beware the ides of March!' Whatever that meant; was it the idea of March as a month or the ridiculous idea of a march-past in the parching heat of Sparta? (marching, parching...)

Just kidding ... it's the ebullience, rapture and bountiful life of Spring that brings out the joker in me. The chill is gone, as are the sniffles and shivers and dry skin and chapped lips and cheeks of snotty brats. No more wheezy and phlegmatic coughing either.

It's time for nostalgia. I can smell the heady redolence of citrus blossoms blending in with mango blossoms wafting in from the mausami and mango orchard back in Rasmai. (It will always be Rasmai and not the arcane and mundane Nasirpur with its Mughal undertones and Islamic connotations).

The intoxicating aroma is interspersed the mephitic miasma of rotting potato foliage and putrefying 'cut-piece' dumped on the mends and gools of the harvested potato fields.

As we sought shade under the chappar or a neem tree, hunger pangs started and by noon we were ravenous. The most welcome sight of Amma striding along the bamba patri with a servant in tow, lugging a bag full of potential goodies would be awaited.

The potato diggers and sorting girls too would have retired under a tree to partake of their simple meal of roti, raita and, if lucky, some subzi.

Some sort of canine completed the picture - either a patient pie-fellow or Jupiter, Ganymede, Dusky, Sapna, Kishmish (this one attached to Amma) or the fearsome Sangram.

Ah, reminiscences!