The simple associations we make ......

Nowadays, as I sit in my balcony, I hear the sound of the recently introduced Dubai trams - a kind of "clang clang clang" that is so typical of trams across the world. 

I love it. Just the sound of it brings back so many memories from down the many years I have traversed.

While the trams are a new feather in the cap of my adopted city, I come from a city that had trams since our colonial days. That sound reverberated in many parts of that City of Joy at one time. (Today is another story, I understand)

I remember the trams in front of our school, carrying willing and unwilling young students and mostly hassled parents; those that went up and down Gariahat ( an extremely popular retail locality, for the uninitiated ) transporting excited shoppers; the trams that took us so many times to quintessential College Street when we wanted to buy books or go to the University for some tedious paperwork; I recall walking across the tram depot around the corner as I set up home in Ballygunge after my marriage - dirty, chaotic and filled with tram conductors and drivers in their lackadaisical uniforms and attitudes, armed with black leather pouches; I remember the archaic fans that made the heat less bearable within the trams, the "second class" compartments where we were forbidden to travel mostly - though all that was actually different was possibly the way the seats looked!!! 

And that "clang clang clang" sound was all over the city. 

I even remember introducing my daughter as a kid to this almost "ancient" means of transport and how she used to love the slow rides, that gave her time to take in the sights and the sounds of the city we once called "home".....we had still not got caught up in the crazy rush that now rules our lives, mostly.

(By the way, Kolkata was the first Indian city to get the Metro, way back in 1984 - please don't get me wrong - we were "advanced" back then too, but typical to Bong sentiments, we held on to the old world charm of this means of public transport - thankfully!)

My mind went back to the many cities across the globe that we had traveled that also had a tram service - the floodgates of memories opened and pictures came rushing out, all our happy times together - and yes, all along was that same "clang clang clang" sound.....it was indeed nostalgic!

As I continue to sit outside, the next tram comes along and again I hear what my ears now hark to listen to ......it brings me back to reality, to the Now....



The Dubai tram looks very different from the ones back in Kolkata that I recall - and yet I am amazed at how the mind associates with a typical sound and immediately, links are made, bridges built, dots connected.

I guess that's the beauty of our minds, the way we associate with things, mundane, simple yet long-lasting - how the smell of a particular flower can transport us to lands and memories far, far away - how the sound of an insect or a particular bird can conjure up images from yesteryears and yet, it seems so very clear. 

That is why I love soaking in the simple sights, sounds, smells and feel of every place I have been to; my mind associates immediately and its locked, forever. And when I come across the same, as I travel down the lane of Time, my mind connects the dots.....and I am reminded of the constant flowing of Life and our journey in it .....

Thank God sometimes things change ...... Thank God sometimes they don't.


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