In late ’93, I was in class 12th at DAV College. It was our first experience at staggered classes, having been in school with a fixed system of classes one after another. In college, we had free periods in between. In the second term, we had our practicals, I forget whether biology or physics, in the afternoon, around 2PM or so. So instead of going back home for lunch even though it was a ten minute bicycle ride away, we preferred to hang around college in a bunch, having lunch in the hostel mess (4.50/-, can you believe it?) and chatting away the idle hours. Maybe a trip to the neighbouring girl’s college. But most of those afternoons have slipped out of memory. I don’t recall what exactly we did all those years ago. One afternoon, however, remains fixed in mind. It was late autumn, and a balmy sun shone down on a few boys, full stomached and lazy enough to want to do nothing but lie in the college lawns and chat. I lay on my back feeling the warming tendrils of the weakening winter sun tickle my skin. The grass was fresh cut and scented. Pillowed on my arms I looked up at the sky, blue and clear. The more I looked, the bluer it seemed. As I lay there gazing, an eagle entered my field of view, wheeling around in the stratosphere, a black speck in the deep blue. I followed it in its course. It glided effortlessly, seldom flapping its wings. From that distance it was a like a beautiful dance unfolding before my eyes. It was truly a beautiful sight, but what I remember most of that moment is that as I lay there watching the eagle, I felt that never again would I have such leisurely carefree pleasure. That as I grew older I would yearn for such moments when I could just put my cares aside and immerse myself in one moment.
Today, over a decade and a half later, as I walked in a dewy garden, my laptop weighing my shoulder down, waiting for my conveyance to take me to work, thinking about the surgeries I had to do today, wondering if yesterday’s case had gone fine, about what I chores I had pending for the evening, I suddenly realized how prescient I had been all that time back.