I was travelling from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to Lucknow, India via Delhi in mid of October 2019, due to some emergency. The flight in Riyadh got delayed more than 3 hours. I had connecting flight from Delhi to Lucknow with same airline. In the flight from Delhi to Lucknow, the airline upgraded my seat to business class their own, without my request. My dissatisfaction level, due to the delay of flight, surely calmed down by this offer. After settling down in my seat, I caught sight of Kadambini just in front of me. Yes, this was Kadambini. Kadambini met me again, in the clouds, after around twenty years. I stunningly just kept looking at “Kadambini”. Even after twenty plus years Kadambini was looking as beautiful as ever before.
Suddenly the aircraft and my surroundings in the air felt like converting into a Time-machine. It carried me to the past in my childhood, mid 1990s.
When I first met “Kadambini”
It was hot summer afternoon. Season of mangoes was on it’s peak. I was in school those days and had come to my Nana Ji’s village in summer holidays.
(Nana is a relation in India, who is mother’s father, while father’s father is called Dada/Baba. Both are called Grand-pa in English if I am right.)
The village is near Malihabad, Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh, India). Many varieties of mango are grown in this region. Malihabad region is world famous for mangoes; and mangoes from here are exported worldwide.
We the children including all the cousin brothers and sisters used to accommodate at Nana Ji’s place in summer holidays. Our first task was to search for Kadambini and get to know the stories and poems which Kadambini learned during past whole year. Kadambini was based in Delhi and used to travel all the way from Delhi. We all loved Kadambini very much. We used to spend too much of our time with Kadambini, after all it has been one year and will meet again after another one year.
We used to visit mango gardens during the day time everyday. Kadambini always accompanied us. Spending time with Kadambini in a peaceful environment surrounded by mango trees, blowing air and the music of running tubewell nearby at certain beats, just felt incredible, just other world of emotions.
I don’t remember that when exactly Kadambini came in my life and sowed the seeds of Hindi literature somewhere deep inside me. But Kadambini has certainly been an integral part of my life of two months of summer holidays every year. Gradually, the summer holidays converted into semester gaps in my Engineering days.
Increasing gaps
Over a period of time Kadambini also had grown up. Kadambini had evolved with time in this digital world. Days of college life got over, summer holidays and semester gaps flew off. Then we could rarely meet. I had entered into challenges and struggle of new life after college. As there is no certain point of time I can say when Kadambini came into my life, similarly I don’t know the point of time when Kadambini faded and gone away eventually. I just don’t know.
Come with me
I awakened by ding-dong sound of aircraft announcement. Years before is like yesterday’s thing. I had lived those lovely memories once again within that 50 minutes.
I took taxi to my home. Kadambini was with me this time.
The Kadambini
Kadambini belongs to Delhi based Hindustan Times Media (HT Media Group) and was established in 1960. It is a monthly Hindi legendary magazine. Kadambini covers wide range of topics such as literature, science, history, sociology, politics, films and sports.
During summer holidays at Nana ji’s place we used to gather whole year’s editions and distribute one-one book amongst us and exchanged once completed reading the book in our hand.
If we are transitioning from one month to another, there was always competition to grab the current month’s upcoming edition. Sometimes we used to read this edition in groups because most of us couldn’t wait others to complete the reading. We used to read “Kadambini” in sounds of the silence of mango gardens. Childhood was awesome with Kadambini.
You may read the story once again…
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Good suspense on Kadambini for those who doesn’t know like me.
I was wondering who that is which he met after 20 years on air 😄
Nicely written 👏
It’s just wow…
Bahot Sundar!!!!I could relate with each line and took me back to those days for a while.amazing❤️
Dhanyavaad 🙏🏻 (thanks)
उम्दा अद्भुत
Amazing naration sir, not even a single line in above narration will let your mind distracted from from online story.
Thanks Abhishek