Night of the fireflies

Rapid urbanisation has spelt doom for these insects that light up the darkness

Afew days ago, I was taking out my scooter to go to the fish market when a boy of 10 or 11 stopped me. He had a halfeaten guava in his hand and groundnuts were stuffed into his shirt pocket.

“Aunty,” he said, “Do you know how I can reach my chotomama’s

house?” Confused, I asked him how I could help him if he did not tell me the locality where his maternal uncle lived. A little embarrassed, he said it was Krishnaganj.

I told him to take the main road and then follow a path on the left where the road bifurcated into two narrow lanes near a small Shiva temple. He should continue going straight until he reached a restaurant named “Silver Spoon”.

No sooner did I mention the restaurant, the boy became amazingly sprightly. He said that he could now clearly remember the way. He informed me with gusto that he had once visited the restaurant with his parents and relished chilli mushroom with tandoori rotis.

He said there was a crossing a little ahead. I nodded and was about to say that there stood a gorgeous jewellery showroom when the little boy, giving me no opportunity to speak, said that just before the crossing there was a sweetmeat shop from where his chotomama used to fetch motichur laddoos and jumbosized langchas,

but that he preferred the hot jilipis.

He added that just in front of his chotomama’s house, there was a chola batura stall.

By now, I had given up the idea of mentioning some other prominent landmarks as I realised that his searching eyes might only spot food hubs. When I asked him why he was going to visit his uncle, he pointed with his eyes to a bag in his bicycle. “I have to fetch some oranges that chotomama has for me,” he said.

Then the boy waved and sped off. He disappeared in no time.

In the busy streets of Trendtown, where hashtags rule and selfies are like gold, something strange was happening. A new religion was emerging, centred around the worship of the almighty influencer.

It all began innocently enough with a viral video of a particularly charismatic influencer making bread from scratch in her pristine pastelcoloured kitchen. Not only did she bake, but she also advised people on how to store their herbs in glass bottles. This was followed by her packing sandwiches in brown paper bags, which she kept

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For the first time in many years, I spotted a solitary firefly glittering in the pitchdark backyard. The sight was an enchanting one, and it took me back to my childhood days.

I thought how beautiful was my village some five decades ago before it metamorphosed into the busy city it is today.

In the eastern corner of my ancestral land, there was a large pond which gradually merged with a canal that meandered along the fringes of our compound. The point where the pond and the canal met was a marshy patch surrounded by tall grass. During hot and humid summer evenings, we were delighted by the marvellous sight of swarms of fireflies imparting an ethereal setting to the night sky.

We, the children, were particularly delighted by the magnificent nightscape as we were fed on innumerable stories about fireflies by our grandma.

Whenever we saw fireflies, all those tales told by grandma came alive in our imagination.

My friend Robert was

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adept at catching those innocent bugs with cupped palms. He would transfer the helpless beings into a small glass bottle, closing it tightly with a rubber lid. Kept in a dark corner of the room, the flies would emit golden light intermittently, much to our joy.

Amma, however, would scold us for our cruel deed. She would shout, “Let them free, otherwise they will die.” Later, we would release them, though reluctantly.

My closest friend Obby