Sepia Tones

Being brought up in a small town, I have seen a slower, simpler life. Now, having moved to a bigger town, I see that most things have still not changed so much there. People seem to appreciate things a little more, are a little less jaded, a little more authentic, with a little more soul. 

To the small towns of India, where everyone knows almost everyone, where there are terraces lit by lamplights, overlooking small houses, where the morning run is around the lake and not twenty floors down a skyscraper by stairs, where no one knows what a Starbucks is, or a Sushi parlour, or happy hours, or multiplexes, where fruits are oranges not avocados, where draping a saree is not a skill learnt on Instagram, where you can only stealthily glance at your crush, where weddings involve gleefully showing the Arundhati in daylight, and not exquisite sunset photographs, and certainly no bridal entry music, where windows have the neighbors happy faces, where aunties share their healthy dose of gossip over the compound wall, while exchanging the special dishes they painstakingly prepare, where almost everybody is middle class and don't know it, where most boys seek government jobs and most girls graduate to get married, some dare to dream big and few make it, but all dream big on life, where someone else's life is not a benchmark for measuring one's success. Life looks like a sepia photograph on a mantelpiece, a bee buzzing on a lazy afternoon.

But, as they say, nostalgia is a beautiful liar, and one can never get over the allure of the big city. I often wonder what people in big cities think of their lives !