Distant horizons

Several eons ago… or what it seemed to be so now,
May be in the 5th grade… or 6th,
memories fade.
The tutor was eloquent when he detailed Wordsworth to the ‘t’.
Looking outside the window of the classroom,
beyond the chapel and the jamun trees
(lunch boxes would be soon stuffed with ripe, purple, fallen jamuns… soon),
the horizon seemed closer.
Skies were about to cry,
not because the class was boringly interesting,
but it was rainy season
and after a short spell of sunshine,
the rain gods began to play truant with the mighty sun.
The days were much before those
when anyone could come home,
login to their PCs and Google for
“d-a-f-f-o-d-d-backspace-i-l-s-enter”
with no double inverted commas, of course.
They do have a choice
to
pull out their S5s or 5Ss
and do the same.
It was all happening in my mind.
How would a daffodil look like?
Many years later,
it was in the cool, green, botanical gardens of Ooty,
that I had seen the first daffodil.
Or was it?
“Narcissus”, the learned gardener stated without taking his eyes off the plant.

Later, a few years,
in a shop, in one of the many floors of a sprawling glitzy mall,
a pot of daffodils was spotted.
Shop assistant said, “that would be 7 dinars” with a daffodil smile.
So be it.

Several years later, on the way to Brighton on a bright sunny day,
as the VW silver Golf Cabriolet cruised down the A23,
these were spotted on the wayside, off the highway.
A cluster of real, real daffodils.
Unwanted,
uncared for,
unappreciated,
for many…
but for one it meant a world.

Interestingly,
at that time,
horizon seemed far away.