That insatiable craving

So, here I am, another day without much to work and am done with “The fault in our stars“. I don’t have another book with me right now, so that I can dive headfirst and start turning page after page.
I am not able to pretty much think about doing something else to keep me occupied.  Web is just boring, not in a mood to read editorials on WaPo or NYT today. Neither in a mood to read few articles on The Atlantic or The New Yorker, though am huge fan of these magazines. Actually, all I want right now is to grab that copy of And mountains echoed I have at home. I am feeling prerr stupid about not carrying it with me today, when I knew that I will be done with remaining 100 pages of The fault…. Guess there was a lack of proper thought about tge situation from my side, when I was leaving from home.

I have always loved books, it’s not a new found love which I only find when I have not much to do in the evening or at work. This year is different though, I am reading at a pace I have never read in past. It has to be different,  as I plan to reach that elusive goal I have been setting for myself for last three years now – read 50 books in an year. I know the next 4 books I am going to read after And the mountains echoed. And I have already bought them 🙂

The next 4 are going to be (in no specific order)
The spinning heart
The Luminaries
The spy who came in from the cold
The cuckoo’s calling

See, I have a perfect mix of genres to entertain me and to take me into pretty opposite ends of the spectrum.

What are you reading these days?

The long lost fireflies

Growing up, electricity was always kinda playing hide and seek with us, especially during nights, in my hometown. Power outages were a regular occurrences and part of everyone’s lives. These outages were more frequent during Summer season, cause of increased demand. Though, I am pretty sure that the number of households with air-conditioner, would have had been very few in those days (at least in my hometown), the distribution generally does not depends on the needs of one city. Other than the increasing demand, I am sure the production and output of power would have been less than the normal demand of the days. It has been like that in India, as long as I can see in the past. A gap in the supply and demand!

But, this post is not about the power situation in India. Not about, the production, supply, and demand of electricity. But, this post is about recalling those summer nights, when electricity was out, and we used to sit outside in the lawn, under the moon and stars. As soon as the power went out (it was almost a fixed time, every night), we used to pull folding chairs outside, and then sit and talk. The neighborhood used to come alive during those power cuts. You could listen to conversations going on, across the boundary wall, shrill cries of babies getting irritated due to the heat, sharp noise of children trying to play and have fun in the night, under the light from stars, moon and candles or emergency lanterns peeking from the open windows of the houses.

Those days, fireflies were quite common and present everywhere. At night, as kids, you could enjoy the faint yellow glow and marvel at those flies. It amazed us as kids. I remember, we used to catch few of them between the hollow of our palms, and then peek through a slit between fingers at the yellow glow. At times, I remember, catching a few of them in glass jars and then doing nothing but staring at the yellow tail. As soon as it was time to sleep, even if the power did not came back, most of the times, we used to release the trapped fireflies back to nature, their natural habitat.

It’s been ages, since I saw a firefly. The same way, it’s been ages spotting house sparrow. The fast change to climate, must be causing changes to the ecology on the whole, which has disturbed the eco-system for many birds, insects, animals. I am counting on seeing the fireflies once again, sometime in future!