These are flashes of memory, of events from the past to the present. Pictures of some stay in the mind's eye. It is good to recall them, and smile a while.

Once. Just once. I saw the locusts when I was a lad of ten. Just back from school, I ran to the playground one evening, and wondered why there was nobody around. Then I saw at a distance a dark brown cloud, much below the horizon, closer to earth than the normal clouds. I stared at it, half in wonder-half in fear. It was moving towards me, and moving fast. Before I could gather my wits, it was upon me. Hard, soft, sharp, squelchy somethings were knocking against my face, my arms, my head. The locusts. In no time, they were around me. I was part of the monstrous cloud. I screamed and ran inside the house. I closed the door. All windows were already closed. All windows, in all homes, as I noticed later.

Soon I was twenty. After a tiring day as a  traveling salesman, I flung my bag and briefcase into the train on my way to Kesinga. It was evening, and a rainy day. I did not know when sleep overcame me. I must have dozed off in the seat, for how long I don’t know. The man sitting opposite must have opened the shutter. Drops of water spattered on my face. I opened my eyes in languor. And, in a trice sat erect. Outside the window, I saw a vastness in the dark, sprinkled with stars -a myriad. Stars twinkling at eye level- as far as the eye could see, and as high. The fireflies. In the midst of darkness, semi-silhouetted by the huge trees in the jungle. The train was moving fast. The veritable feast for the eyes must have lasted a full five minutes. I thanked the man sitting across. But for him, lifting the shutter, I would have never seen this marvel. The splendor of the fireflies in the night.

Today, at fifty+, I sometimes wonder why I have never seen the locusts since.

I am grateful to God for that. But even now, once in a way I see the fireflies. In ones and twos, if not in the profusion of that night. In my own house. All the more beautiful, the more precious in a dark room. Thank God for the fireflies.