Reflections of a restless eccentric

I was one of those people who would get into cabs and immediately plug in their earphones, shutting out any attempts at conversation on the part of the driver and any other passengers. Till one day, a persistent cabbie ranted out to me over the din of my earphones: "All you IT people are the same. You get in and you plug in your earphones.Why don't you people speak to us drivers? I do this for a living, and I feel less and less like a human being. Most of my passengers pretend I don't exist, and by my tenth ride of the day, I start feeling invisible. It's bad enough that I have to drive in this traffic all day long, and to add to it people have forgotten what it is to have a decent conversation. Please talk to your drivers, Ma'am. I'm not asking you to talk the whole way. Just a few minutes to acknowledge our presence. It will make us feel very happy." This guy made a lasting impression on me, and since that day I have always tried to talk to whoe...

How memories are inevitably linked to physical entities. Weird, isn't it? It's like the butterfly effect manifesting itself in your world. You happen to be doing something, and some minute facet of that brings up something totally unrelated, linked to it by merely a hair of the thinnest logic. And yet, you are transported to that freshly raked up memory ever so effortlessly. Without even being aware of this tiny connecting link. It happened to be a sunny Saturday afternoon, and the fan was on, in full swing to battle the heat. Lunch had bid its goodbye and evening was still a couple of hours away. When this happens on a holiday, people use this golden hour to grab a siesta. My parents were fast asleep, peacefully slumbering away. And then there was me, clutching my kindle at an awkward angle and trying to read. The sun was streaming brightly through the windows, the cool breeze was soothing, and all around was quiet. The only sounds that I could hear were the steady tickin...