It is time you discovered your wings!

MY WINGS!

It has begun to drizzle. Just when I am about to step out for my daily afternoon walk, the water drops have begun their journey from the sky to the earth below. I am a little annoyed that I cannot keep the promise I made to myself - the promise to go out and feel the pulse of nature. There is a stretch in the jogging track within my premises, anapartment complex bounded by walls that runs parallel to a huge green belt justoutside our boundary wall. It is this spot that fills me with pleasure every time

I pass by it. It is to look at it and feel something waking up in me that I have resolved to go till there and stop for a while before resuming my walk every day. It has almost become a ritual for me. A dilapidated house at its centre, the trees around it cutting off the sunlight that can barely make it to the rooms

inside, it does nothing to enhance the beauty of the place. The beauty lies in the mango tree, its canopy spreading over many smaller plants, the jackfruit tree with its innumerable branches reaching out to the smaller trees growing far away from its root and the coconut trees standing tall which all lend a special

charm to this nondescript piece of land.

The memory of the serenity of the area pulls me, as if with a magnetic force, and I get impatient for the rain to stop. I notice that the drizzle has turned into a steady downpour with the wind getting stronger every minute. Dark clouds gathering up in the sky send down sure signs of the rain continuing

unabated as I give up hope of keeping my appointment with my special place. Vexed, I go back to my reading table. Restlessness prevents me from focusing on my book when I am suddenly reminded of a write-up in a newspaper that spoke about visits to special places and re-visiting them by imagining that oneis really there to re-live those golden moments.

I try the trick and I am soon transported there, gazing at the trees, plants and flowers. A cuckoo greets me cooing when another bird joins it with a sweet warbling call. A squirrel scurries up the thick trunk of the banyan tree. Behind the towering eucalyptus trees, the thick smoky clouds come sailing over the

white ones and slowly cover up a small patch of blue sky The elegant slender deodars lean towards me as I smile back admiringly. My eyes come to rest on a huge thick log lying on the grass. Two pigeons fly down from somewhere and sit on it for a chat. A cat passes by the log. The birds can’t care less. They

have wings - wings that can save them, wings that can take them where they want to be.

I too am where I wanted to be - my special place. I have kept my tryst with the deodars and the sky there, with the help of my love for my favourite haunt and my imagination – my wings.

The untimely rain today helped me discover my wings.

If there is one thing I could leave behind for my children, it would be my wings.