Shawl-enshrouded men, wearing knitted brown sweaters, squatting on their haunches in huddled groups inhaling beedies with long sucking draws, through cupped hands. The body heat and dung smell of ekka and tonga horses, whinnying and snorting in the cold air. Muffled rickshaw wallahs pedalling, stoic and barefooted through the winding bazaar roads. The morning mists lingering like half forgotten childhood memories across the paddy fields. In February, the afternoon sun gathering strength, and the evening breezes smelling of cowdung and chillies lying out to dry on rooftops.
Paper kites of yellow and green and orange weaving and bobbing in eager contest against the wind.
And me, transplanted immigrant. Like the seasons, my worlds juxtaposed. The old merging into the new. Nostalgia and reality. Copyrights to written material and illustrations are the property of their creators.