I ditched my school farewell to go on a trip to Shimla with my mom and her friends. I don't regret it one bit. I have spoken before about how I'm not particularly attached to my school in The End of School Life . So missing my farewell was not that big of a deal for me. Shimla was spectacular and the trip of a lifetime. Shimla is known for being beautiful. It is straight out of a fairytale. The mountains, the roads, the shops, all are very remarkable and unique. The mountainous streets were very tiring and new to us plain dwelling creatures. There is an absence of autos in the roads of Shimla and instead there are only buses which were no less than a roller coaster for me, with the meandering roads which also decrease and increase in elevation. During the night the mountains, with their lights look like a grand tapestry. I bought a bubbles toy which made huge bubbles- bigger than I had ever seen before. The sellers blowed them on the street which made the already surreal tow
In this post I'm going to recount a few fond memories with my paternal grandfather, Babaji. Most of these are of the time when he used to pick me up from school for a few months in fourth grade. He used to pick me up from the front field of our school and we walked back to the car, often holding hands. I often found a small stone to kick along the way. In the car, there would be always waiting for me a pillow and a bottle of cold water. It felt no less than luxury. He asked me eagerly what I learned in school. I remember one time I told him I had learned a new word- unique. He asked me what it's meaning was and I said different. But that's not an exact synonym, and he explained the nuance in the different meaning of the two words. I remember, earlier he had explained to me the same way how the Hindi words बाल and केश differed from each other. Since he used to pick me up from the field, where a lot of my classmates were waiting to be picked up too, I often asked them how ol