A waft I identify well.

I am in a subconscious state. My mind is fighting with my body. It is that state when I am aware of the inputs given to my brain by the all the senses, but I am just not awake. Then a very familiar waft hits my nose. In a trance I wake up and go the kitchen, my eyes can now perceive light. I perceive touch when a familiar warmth grips me. I perceive sound when my mother says it is 5:30 brush your teeth your coffee is ready.

Sometime in the mid 90's - An uncomplicated period, everything was routine and beautiful. Coffee would wake me up and I would take bath go to school, come back after school play cricket or football then sit down to studying. Throw in a little bit of extra curricular activities lots of fun with friends and we had a life which was a life which was rocking.

Shopping meant going to a market, bargaining with the shopkeeper, making false promises that we would come back to shop if the goods were sold at a particular price. The flashy stores though few would be avoided since the prices are automatically assumed to be high. Every brand though less in number would be fixed for example toothpaste had to be Colgate and washing powder had to be Nirma or Ariel and things like that.

Television meant waiting with baited breath for the one and only and favorite serial to come on air. Cable television is used only by the rich and snobbish people - They do not have the decency to allow us when there is an India Pakistan match in Sharjah, what good can they do. Doordarshan with its crappy graphics and VIBGYOR screen savers were a treat. Serials were quite mesmerizing and kept the viewer from guessing what would happen next. Traffic at that point would be a little less since the serials were on and by the way which city in India was awake after 7:30 or 8 ?

Prime time television was a mixed bag - a news show hosted and conducted by the best in the business. A comedy serial which should guarantee a few laughs here and there. A serious one to cater to the "family audiences". A count down show were film songs would be shown ( the top three songs would be shown for its entire duration ).

Intelligent discussions would follow as to what might happen next in the serial or what would be the next song in the countdown. People who would be proved right would have a momentary ego high. Predictions were tough but not impossible to make was the message every body got.

Sometime after the mid 2000's

It has just been a decade of the simple life. Checking the left pocket for the mobile phone has become a routine job. A sudden outburst of nervous energy happens when something in our head says "Check if you have the phone or did you leave it at the coffee table ?". We jump up to check if the phone is in our left pocket.


The coffee now forces me to stay awake rather than waking me up from sleep !!