I am sure there will be countless people who’ll hurl stones at me for saying this but I am loving the weather! Although it should technically be spring it feels like early summer and the first few days of any new season is exciting. Any change of weather is novel for that matter, the air feels different and even light changes its color. I often notice how sunlight changes from one season to another such that the there is something different in the quality of light. May be the summer heat makes air lighter so that things look different or may be it is all in my head. Anyway, to return to what I was saying the weather has been wonderful, the evenings seem magical this time of the year. So I have been haunting the little grassy patch beside the jhil enjoying the evening breeze till the mosquitoes drove me out. And there have been no other side effects to my guilty pleasure apart from a runny nose and severe lack of concentration in face of the enemy (I’m talking about the consecutive tests).

It was on one such wonderful evening this week that I was walking home exasperated at the idea that the road next to the 8B bus stand had not only been turned into auto/cab/rickshaw stand all at once, but it had also become a place to hold political rallies and pandals and that on that particular day the platform erected to celebrate Shiv Ratri was blocking more than half of the road. Whoever cared for normal working individuals who risk hand and foot everyday while trying to cross the road here? Now, I will accept that I am one of those people who are particularly bad at crossing busy roads but on that day I wasn’t so much as trying. I was simply standing on one side watching all the commotion around me when suddenly out of nowhere this auto dashes past and misses me by the fraction of a second during which I had managed to literally jump back. I knew then that this was not the first and most definitely not the last encounter I was going to have with autos. And I was right. I saw an auto overturn today morning. Among the injured was an elderly woman whose leg had been completely squashed. Needless to say I was horrified and especially because I had an exam to write afterwards. A few months earlier my cousin sister had been injured in a similar accident that grounded her for eight weeks. I seriously hope the woman I saw today recovers fast. At this rate I am amazed that we have all not managed to get ourselves run over by now.